Nokia N95 Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
Nokia likes to think of the N95 as a miniature computer, but at the end of the day, it’s still a phone. So how good do the calls that it makes sound? To find out, we use the same professional testing equipment that the manufacturers themselves use; a HATS (Head and Torso Simulator) that simulates the human head and ear, and a professional sound analysis program called
SoundCheck. This combination allows us to analyze the performance of the phones in depth, analyzing the quality of the sound that the phones send and receive. For more information on how we conduct our tests using this professonal equipment, see
here.
Sound Receive Frequency Response (6.46)
Perhaps due to the very small speaker, the quality of the sound received by the N95 (such as someone talking to you over the phone) was a little disappointing. The frequency response of the phone (shown by the blue line) dipped outside of the limits set in the standard we use (shown by the red lines), and had some significant peaks and troughs. In particular, lower frequencies in the human speech range were somewhat suppressed, compared to the higher frequencies. We expect a phone to have a slightly stronger response for higher frequencies (which is why the limits for those higher frequencies are higher), but the N95 overly exaggerates this, which makes voice sound slightly high pitched. But this exaggeration isn’t huge, and our tests show that the sound that the N95 produces from incoming calls is reasonably good.
Sound Send Frequency Response (6.81)
The frequency response of the sound that the N95 sends (shown by the blue line on the graph) had the opposite problem to the received sound; we like to see a stronger response at high frequencies, but the response of the N95 for the sound it sent (such as you talking into the phone) was pretty flat across the range of human speech. This can make voices sound a little flat; the lack of the slight high frequency boost that we look for may make some voices difficult to understand. But that won’t be a problem for most voices, and the N95 captures the voice pretty accurately.
Handset Side Tone (8.39)
Side tone is how you hear yourself when you make a call; the handset injects some of your own captured voice back into the speaker so you can hear yourself speak. How much it injects back is critical; too much and you talk too quietly. Too little, and you find yourself yelling. The N95 is pretty much in the just about right category; we measured the side tone at -19.61 decibels, just a touch below the -18 decibels that the standard calls for. This means that when you are using the N95, you should be able to speak at a natural level, which should come as a relief to those around you.
