T-Mobile G1 Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality

The G1 performs sends and receives sound pretty well, though it doesn't do so well in terms of sidetone. Side tone is the amount of your own voice piped back to you to help you determine how loudly you're speaking, and the G1 pipes back too much of your voice that may cause you to adjust and speak more quietly than you need to.

General Audio
Smartphones have become so powerful that they do much more for us now than just handling phone calls, but how well they work to make and receive calls is still important, in which audio quality is a critical component. We test 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 sidetone, which is how you gauge how loudly you're speaking. We test and evaluate audio quality 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 (8.98)
This test focuses on the quality of the sound received by the phone, and our testing equipment and software examines how well the phone transmits the voice of the person with whom you're speaking. The software does this by transmitting a set batch of known sounds through the testing equipment 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 G1's Sound Receive Frequency response chart

As you can see from the G1's results chart, it stays within the defined limits throughout the frequency range, showing that audio sent by the phone will be transmitted fairly well. Had the limits been exceeded or met at any point, sounds at those frequencies would have been cut off, resulting in choppy sound heard on a call. The only oddity is the spike seen at the low end of the frequency range, but this is outside the frequency range of normal conversation well before the limits even begin to apply, so this isn't concerning. Looking at our comparison phones, the G1 performs slightly better than the iPhone 3G and HTC Touch Diamond.

Cell Phone	T-Mobile G1	Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T)	HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint)
Score	8.98	8.13	8.24
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph

Cell Phone	LG Dare (on Verizon)	Nokia E71 (Unlocked)	Sidekick LX (on T-Mobile)
Score	7.73	7.55	6.74
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph

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 evaluating how the sounds are actually transmitted by the phone. 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 cover through the middle of these limits.

The G1's Sound Send Frequency response chart

Here, the G1 stays mostly within the defined limits, though it starts out quite close to the lower limit at the lower frequencies. In this frequency range, the sounds transmitted by the phone will be sent at a lower volume than they should be, which may result in choppy sound to the person on the other end of the call. The G1's curve comes close to the upper limit in the middle frequencies as well, which means that sounds transmitted at these frequencies will be sent at a higher volume than they should be. All in all, these aren't terrible issues and the G1 earns a respectable score here that's better than all of our comparison phones.

Cell Phone	T-Mobile G1	Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T)	HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint)
Score	8.42	8.34	7.01
Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph

Cell Phone	LG Dare (on Verizon)	Nokia E71 (Unlocked)	Sidekick LX (on T-Mobile)
Score	6.74	8.26	5.35
Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph

Handset Side Tone (5.53)
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 try to adjust. 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.

The G1 has the highest side tone level among all of our comparison phones. At this level, you'll hear more of your own voice piped back to you than you should ideally, and may compensate by speaking too softly. This isn't a horrible issue if you're aware of it and adjust accordingly in advance, but it does earn the G1 the lowest score among our comparison phones in this area.

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