Nokia N78 Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality

The Nokia N78's audio performance was unimpressive. The audio received by the phone was amongst the worse we've ever seen. Audio sent by the phone was about average, but side tone was too low. The N78's audio received performance was so poor we worried that we had a bad handset, but tests on another handset confirmed the original poor results.

General Audio
The quality of audio for your calls is the key feature for any phone, that is why we use professional equipment and software to test it. To simulate the human head and ear we use a HATS (Head and Torso Simulator). To analyze the audio we use Listen Inc's SoundCheck software. This is the same combination of hardware and software used by many manufacturers and carriers. For more information on how we do our audio testing see this article

Sound Receive Frequency Response (4.81)
The Nokia N78's performance in this test was amongst the worse we've ever seen. It was so bad, in fact, that we suspected we might have a defective device and asked Nokia to send us another N78 so we could check. Thanks to Nokia for being willing to do so, but unfortunately for the N78 the second device performed just as poorly as our first. Below you see the N78's performance, the blue line indicates the N78's results and the red lines are the limits against which we test.

You can see that the N78 is all over the place. It falls below our limits at lower frequencies and then jumps way above our limits at the upper frequencies. The result for users is that voices will alternately jump between too low and too loud. You can see from the chart below that the N78's performance in this test is terrible compared to other phones. We even tested the N78 on both AT&T and T-Mobile's networks, and received the same terrible result. We believe the problem is probably with the N78's speaker, but can't be sure. Whatever it is you can expect the quality of audio you hear on the phone to be poor.

Cell Phone	Nokia N78	Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T)	Nokia N82 (on AT&T)
Score	4.81	8.13	7.60
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph

Cell Phone	LG Dare (on Verizon)	LG enV2 (on Verizon)	Samsung Blackjack II (on AT&T)
Score	7.73	7.63	8.42
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph

Sound Send Frequency Response (7.22)
In this test we look at the quality of audio sent by the Nokia N78. The chart below shows the N78's performance in blue with our limits in red. You can see that the N78's performance in this test is not great, but not nearly as bad as the audio received by the phone.

The N78 was a bit above our limits in the mid frequencies and then drops off too quickly at the higher frequencies. This can lead your voice to be slightly exaggerated at times and clipped at other times. These issues are not too bad, however, you can see below that several of our comparison phones performed worse than the N78.

Cell Phone	Nokia N78	Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T)	Nokia N82 (on AT&T)
Score	7.22	8.34	6.50
Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph

Cell Phone	LG Dare (on Verizon)	LG enV2 (on Verizon)	Samsung Blackjack II (on AT&T)
Score	6.74	7.47	7.02
Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph

Handset Side Tone (6.66)
Side tone is the small amount of your own voice that is piped back into your ear so you can judge how loudly you are speaking. Our ideal for this test is -18 decibels. The N78's performance was -21.34 decibels. This means you may judge your voice to be too low, causing you to speak louder than you want. You can see below that only the LG enV2 performed worse on this test than the N78, another unimpressive audio result for this phone.

Side Tone