Samsung Beat for T-Mobile Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
As both a music device and a phone, audio quality is a very important aspect of the Beat. With poor audio quality, the Beat is simply an unwieldy clothespin. To determine whether or not the Beat is worth your $50, we run it through our usual audio quality tests. Our scientific testing methods use hardware and software often used by manufacturers during their own testing. The hardware is a Head and Torso Simulator (HATS), which simulates the human ear and mouth. The software we use is
SoundCheck, which analyzes what happens to sound waves once they're filtered through a phone. If you want more information on our tests, read
this article.
Sound Receive Frequency Response (8.12)
In these graphs, the blue line is how much emphasis the Beat puts on different frequencies in the spectrum of the human voice. The red are the limits it should fall between. As you can see, the Beat does stay within the limits, but fluctuates quite a bit within them. Typically phones will emphasize higher and lower sounds, simply because they're harder to hear, but the Beat does this to an extreme. This means sibilance or bass will be louder than normal, while normal talking will sound slightly quieter.
| Cell Phone |
Samsung Beat |
Razr2 V8 (on T-Mobile) |
Samsung Blast (on T-Mobile) |
| Score |
8.12 |
9.16 |
8.85 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view) |
 |
 |
 |
Sound Send Frequency Response (7.38)
Again, the blue represents how the Beat emphasizes different frequencies, and the red lines are what it needs to stay between. This time, however, the graph depicts how the Beat handles your own voice, giving a little insight on how you sound to a caller. For most of the graph your voice will be on a fairly even keel, but towards the end it juts out beyond the limits before plummeting back down through them prematurely. This means that higher-frequency sounds, such as sibilance, that fall within this magic range will sound louder than normal.
| Cell Phone |
Samsung Beat |
Razr2 V8 (on T-Mobile) |
Samsung Blast (on T-Mobile) |
| Score |
7.38 |
7.46 |
5.56 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view) |
 |
 |
 |
Handset Side Tone (7.47)
Side tone refers to how loudly your voice is played back to you through the phone's speaker. Phones do this because, when people can't hear themselves speak, they tend to speak louder. The ideal side tone will aid in subliminal volume control. For our test, the ideal side tone measurement for the sound produced should be -18 decibels. The Beat's side tone was a bit softer, at -20.53 decibels. This means you'll feel the need to speak slightly louder than you normally would.
