Samsung Memoir Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
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Marianne Schultz Published on April 10, 2009 Comment on this |
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| The sound received by the Memoir leaves much to be desired, presenting issues across much of the frequency range. The sound sent is much better in comparison. Side tone, the amount of your own voice piped back to you so you can gauge how loudly you're speaking, is a bit too low, prompting you to speak more loudly than you should to compensate for what you're hearing. |
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General Audio
Much like the Motorola ZINE, the Memoir wants you to throw away your digital camera in its favor with its 8.0-megapixel camera. However, how it performs as a phone is still an important factor. We test a phone's audio performance in three areas - the audio you hear while on a call, the audio sent from the phone, and how much of your own voice is piped back to you, called side tone, which helps you gauge how loudly you're speaking. We do all of this using guidelines defined by international audio experts and testing equipment and software that cell phone manufacturers use themselves - we use a head and torso simulator (HATS) made by Bruel & Kjaer and the SoundCheck software by Listen, Inc. For more information on how we do our audio testing see this article.
Sound Receive Frequency Response (6.73)
This test focuses on the quality of the sound received by the phone, and our testing equipment examines how well the phone transmits the voice of the person with whom you're speaking by transmitting a batch of known sounds at specific frequencies in a test call and analyzing what is heard through the phone's speaker. On the chart, the outside limits that a phone should not surpass are prescribed by the red lines, and ideal performance would manifest as a smooth curve through the middle of the area defined by the outside limits.
The Memoir's sound receive frequency response chart
As you can see in the Memoir's performance results chart, the limits are exceeded in multiple places. Where the upper limit is exceeded, sounds at these frequencies will sound much louder than they should. Where the lower limit is exceeded at around 5,000 Hz, sounds will not be received at all, resulting in a conversation that sounds choppy. The Memoir has the worst performance in this area relative to all of our comparison phones.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Memoir | Nokia N96 (Unlocked) | LG Dare (on Verizon) |
| Score | 6.73 | 7.26 | 7.73 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | Motorola ZINE (on T-Mobile) | HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint) | Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.33 | 8.24 | 8.13 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Sound Send Frequency Response (8.42)
This test focuses on how well your voice is sent by the phone through its microphone. Our testing equipment and software evaluates this by transmitting a known range of sounds through the phone's microphone on a test call, and then analyzing how the sounds are actually transmitted by the phone through its earpiece. As with the sound receive frequency response test, the red lines show the outer limits which should not be surpassed, and ideal performance would be a smooth curve through the middle of these limits.
The Memoir's sound send frequency response chart
As you can see in the Memoir's performance chart, it stays within the limits throughout the frequency range. Overall, there shouldn't be any major issues at all in the sound sent by the Memoir and the person on the other end of the line shouldn't have any complaints about how you sound to them.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Memoir | Nokia N96 (Unlocked) | LG Dare (on Verizon) |
| Score | 8.42 | 8.73 | 6.74 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | Motorola ZINE (on T-Mobile) | HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint) | Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.62 | 7.01 | 8.34 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Handset Side Tone (7.65)
Side tone is the amount of your own voice piped back to you through the phone's speaker that helps you judge how loudly you're speaking. If a phone's side tone is too high, you may think you're talking too loudly and the person you're speaking with may have a hard time hearing you when you adjust by speaking more quietly. If a phone's side tone is too low, meaning less of your voice is piped back to you than the ideal level, you'll think you're talking too quietly and may end up speaking louder than you need to as a result. The ideal side tone level, as defined by audio experts, is -18dB, and it's expressed as a negative number since it's specifically relative to the volume of your own voice through the phone's microphone. The Memoir's side tone is -20.35dB, which means it pipes back less of your own voice to than the ideal and you may compensate subconsciously by speaking more loudly than you needed, though if you keep this in mind and don't follow this audio clue so much, it may not be a problem for you.
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