Help Questions regarding Speaker and Display

[jay7872]

So i got my Evo 3D today and decided NOT to trade in my Evo 4g..As i brought my 3D home and compared it to the Evo 4g, i was really disappointing in the sound quality from the speaker as well as the display brightness level and color.

Display wise, the colors on the E4G seem to be richer no matter what setting it is at compared to the E3d. i even toggled auto on both and even manually set them both to max and in both cases the E4G display is richer in color and brighter... i know the E3D has a super LCD display so is it just my unit that is having some dim screen issues?

Speaker quality on the E3D is far from great, In my own experience while having a conversation using the speaker phone, the voices crack while at the loudest setting, and are not nearly as loud as they were on the E4g. Same goes for music and videos, sound is far superior on the E4G than on the E3D. Even with the SRS enabled, sound still isnt as loud as E4g, although it helps makes the quality richer than with the SRS off..

Has anyone else noticed the same things as mentioned above? could it just be my unit that is malfunctioning?

 

[DonB]

Yes the one gripe I have is the loudness of the speakers, not sufficient IMO, maybe there is an app that can fix that, lol they makes apps for everything now a days

So i got my Evo 3D today and decided NOT to trade in my Evo 4g..As i brought my 3D home and compared it to the Evo 4g, i was really disappointing in the sound quality from the speaker as well as the display brightness level and color.

Display wise, the colors on the E4G seem to be richer no matter what setting it is at compared to the E3d. i even toggled auto on both and even manually set them both to max and in both cases the E4G display is richer in color and brighter... i know the E3D has a super LCD display so is it just my unit that is having some dim screen issues?

Speaker quality on the E3D is far from great, In my own experience while having a conversation using the speaker phone, the voices crack while at the loudest setting, and are not nearly as loud as they were on the E4g. Same goes for music and videos, sound is far superior on the E4G than on the E3D. Even with the SRS enabled, sound still isnt as loud as E4g, although it helps makes the quality richer than with the SRS off..

Has anyone else noticed the same things as mentioned above? could it just be my unit that is malfunctioning?

 

[novox77]

So i got my Evo 3D today and decided NOT to trade in my Evo 4g..As i brought my 3D home and compared it to the Evo 4g, i was really disappointing in the sound quality from the speaker as well as the display brightness level and color.

Display wise, the colors on the E4G seem to be richer no matter what setting it is at compared to the E3d. i even toggled auto on both and even manually set them both to max and in both cases the E4G display is richer in color and brighter... i know the E3D has a super LCD display so is it just my unit that is having some dim screen issues?

Speaker quality on the E3D is far from great, In my own experience while having a conversation using the speaker phone, the voices crack while at the loudest setting, and are not nearly as loud as they were on the E4g. Same goes for music and videos, sound is far superior on the E4G than on the E3D. Even with the SRS enabled, sound still isnt as loud as E4g, although it helps makes the quality richer than with the SRS off..

Has anyone else noticed the same things as mentioned above? could it just be my unit that is malfunctioning?

I think your assessment of the speaker is dead on. Evo 4G has been the loudest phone I've ever heard, and I've read tests that concluded the same. I also noticed clipping when the speakerphone was on max, but the same clipping happened on my 4G as well; it was just overall louder.

My screen doesn't seem to suffer like yours though. brightness is on par; color reproduction is spot on (compared it with my calibrated desktop monitor), whereas my Evo's screen is WAY off. Could be that I had an older Evo with a crappier screen. Colors are very vibrant on the Evo 3D for me. And when I say vibrant, I'm talking about saturation.

 

[themuffinman75]

I think your assessment of the speaker is dead on. Evo 4G has been the loudest phone I've ever heard, and I've read tests that concluded the same. I also noticed clipping when the speakerphone was on max, but the same clipping happened on my 4G as well; it was just overall louder.

My screen doesn't seem to suffer like yours though. brightness is on par; color reproduction is spot on (compared it with my calibrated desktop monitor), whereas my Evo's screen is WAY off. Could be that I had an older Evo with a crappier screen. Colors are very vibrant on the Evo 3D for me. And when I say vibrant, I'm talking about saturation.

Same here, screen is absolutely beautiful but the speaker isn't as good as the OG evo but still though the best speaker on a phone from htc in my opinion was on the touch pro 2.

 

[lowside]

I thought it was just me but the display on the Evo3d is very dim and I find myself adjusting the brightness because it is not nearly as bright as the Evo 4g . Next, for me its hard to tell the difference between the Evo3d and Evo4g as far the screen resolution is concerned, I mean nothing jumps out at me and big difference is display size the Evo3d has a smaller screen maybe this is what the increase in resolution Evo3d is based on. Watching movies is not nearly as fun as before, probably why they left off the kick stand. The speaker was a real shocker, and at first I thought the store had placed it on the lowest setting to limit distractions, boy was I wrong it's just the opposite it was highest setting so I could hear it in the store. After comparing the resolution to the smaller Google nexus s HTC seems to have cut corners in-order to bring this phone to market.

 

[jay7872]

I thought it was just me but the display on the Evo3d is very dim and I find myself adjusting the brightness because it is not nearly as bright as the Evo 4g . Next, for me its hard to tell the difference between the Evo3d and Evo4g as far the screen resolution is concerned, I mean nothing jumps out at me and big difference is display size the Evo3d has a smaller screen maybe this is what the increase in resolution Evo3d is based on. Watching movies is not nearly as fun as before, probably why they left off the kick stand. The speaker was a real shocker, and at first I thought the store had placed it on the lowest setting to limit distractions, boy was I wrong it's just the opposite it was highest setting so I could hear it in the store. After comparing the resolution to the smaller Google nexus s HTC seems to have cut corners in-order to bring this phone to market.

couldnt agree with you any more.. The screen brightness issue as well as the speaker is what really knocks me about this phone..i know its a SUPER LCD display but compared to my Evo 4g it looks nothing like it. i have to currently set the brightness at about 70% to make it look decent enough for me not to mind. As for the speaker well thats something i cant do anything about. Simply put, lower speaker means lower notifications and ringers which means ill be less likely to hear my phone now than i was before. I use to even use my Evo 4g to play music via the speaker as well as have conversations with it. now i cant because the speaker is so soft i cant hear much from the music playing and voice calls crack at the loudest setting..

Besides these two grips, the phone is Awsome...Overall i am pleased with it, although a louder speaker and brighter display would have been the icing on the cake. i am especially satisfied with the battery life, as i can now keep 3G on for the entire day with emails pushing and not have my battery die on me within 5 hours

 

[jconnon]

I am comparing mine to my hero so the screen looks good to me. That being said I am not happy with the speaker at all.

 

[DonB]

I must say the one and only thing that is driving me nuts it the speaker volume on the phone, they must of had to replace a lot of speakers on the first series of EVO's because this is not acceptable, lets build this thread up if you are having the same issue, and once it gets large enough I will forward it to HTC, I am sure they did something to protect there speakers.

 

[heavychevy]

Yes, significantly lower volume than the OG.

 

[K927A]

Has anyone seen the setting under settings>call called hearing aids? There's a warning that enabling it will amplify the call volume. I haven't really gotten to try it out thoroughly but i tried calling a line with a recording and it does seem to bump up the volume a bit though not by much.
It seemed to me like the speakers could get much louder with ease, and that it's probably a software issue which means it should be fixable with a volume boosting app.

 

[DonB]

I agree, but we need to keep this thread going, unless if not enough of us complain they will not that this serious, my goal is to get this thread big enough to show them this is an issue, I have missed many calls because the phone has been in my office and I was in the kitchen and you cannot here it ring, barely at best. I will try the option you mentioned, but I also believe it can be rectified by a software upgrade or tweak

Has anyone seen the setting under settings>call called hearing aids? There's a warning that enabling it will amplify the call volume. I haven't really gotten to try it out thoroughly but i tried calling a line with a recording and it does seem to bump up the volume a bit though not by much.
It seemed to me like the speakers could get much louder with ease, and that it's probably a software issue which means it should be fixable with a volume boosting app.

 

[DonB]

Guys and Gals, please post your volume issues, click HERE

 

[novox77]

Have any of you tried comparing volume between E4G and E3D with both back covers off? Cause it's pretty clear that the E4G speaker grille on its back cover has much larger holes than the speaker grille on the E3D. Could it be that the E3D's cover is dampening the volume too much?

 

[novox77]

There's another thread dedicated to discussing screen brightness here:

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/361702-screen-brightness-low-3d.html

Let's keep this thread focused on the volume issue, please.

 

[DonB]

I believe there have been a few that said there was a large difference between the 2, if it is as simply as changing the cover that would be great, but what will happen once we add a case to the phone ? If it bothers most as they say it does then they will post in the HTC thread I created on there forums

I tried the equalizer fix someone posted over at XDA and I did not notice much difference

Originally Posted by joelcont View Post

Download this app called equalizer it made y speakers loader

market.android.com/details?id=com.smartandroidapps.equalizer

Have any of you tried comparing volume between E4G and E3D with both back covers off? Cause it's pretty clear that the E4G speaker grille on its back cover has much larger holes than the speaker grille on the E3D. Could it be that the E3D's cover is dampening the volume too much?

 

[novox77]

If the equalizer comes with a pre-amp slider, that should increase the master volume, but since the speaker is already clipping at the phone's max volume, I don't recommend pre-amping the speaker. You could blow it out.

Most cases I've seen have a complete cut-out around the speaker grille, so I don't think a case would hurt. Right now I'm just lazy to take both my phones out of their otterbox cases to test the back cover theory, but I suspect it's at least part of the problem. For someone with naked phones, this is an easy test to perform.

But even so, I wouldn't have the heart to try to perform surgery on my case to make bigger holes... Maybe hope for a replacement or third party cover.

 

[DonB]

I agree, since you have both phone, do you notice a difference in the speakers??

But even so, I wouldn't have the heart to try to perform surgery on my case to make bigger holes... Maybe hope for a replacement or third party cover.

 

[novox77]

ok, you made me do my proposed test

With covers off, E4G is still louder. Looks to be purely a speaker size issue. And if you ask me, there's not much HTC can do to fix this. They made an engineering decision to go with a smaller speaker so that it would fit in that red rim on the cover. Could have been an overall space constraint, and speaker size took a sacrifice, just like the kickstand did.

Funny thing is, my wife was nearby, and without looking at what I was doing, or asking me anything, she said, "The second one sounds much better." The second one happened to be the Evo 3D speaker. I was playing 'Garbage - Special.mp3" on both phones.

So in a blind test, wife prefers the audio quality of Evo 3D Maybe because the softer speaker on the E3D doesn't clip/distort as much at high volume like the E4G did.

 

[DonB]

Funny also, I just took the cover off to see if the volume would be louder, but it did not make a difference, here is one you need to test, I believe the bigger issue is those using the phone when they are on a call and using the speaker phone, you have to turn the phone with the camera lens facing you to hear the person properly, try that and you will see what I mean, I mainly use a BT so I am not really concerned, but I have missed a few calls when I did not have my BT on.

ok, you made me do my proposed test

With covers off, E4G is still louder. Looks to be purely a speaker size issue. And if you ask me, there's not much HTC can do to fix this. They made an engineering decision to go with a smaller speaker so that it would fit in that red rim on the cover. Could have been an overall space constraint, and speaker size took a sacrifice, just like the kickstand did.

Funny thing is, my wife was nearby, and without looking at what I was doing, or asking me anything, she said, "The second one sounds much better." The second one happened to be the Evo 3D speaker. I was playing 'Garbage - Special.mp3" on both phones.

So in a blind test, wife prefers the audio quality of Evo 3D Maybe because the softer speaker on the E3D doesn't clip/distort as much at high volume like the E4G did.

 

[nykbob]

Has anyone seen the setting under settings>call called hearing aids? There's a warning that enabling it will amplify the call volume. I haven't really gotten to try it out thoroughly but i tried calling a line with a recording and it does seem to bump up the volume a bit though not by much.
It seemed to me like the speakers could get much louder with ease, and that it's probably a software issue which means it should be fixable with a volume boosting app.

I remember seeing it initially, but passed it up. Now when I go back I cannot find it. Is there a way to boost overall volume using this?

 

[IoriYagami]

About display i have 3 dead pixels in my 3vo at the top left 2 and at the top right 1, close to the htc and sprint logo at the top.. i only see them when i have the camera mode
I dont know if i have to take it for a new one or anyone have dead pixels?
Keeping it or exchange for new one? i might not exchange it because i did all the set ups i want and it took me like 1 and a half days lol..

 

[houndstooth]

Has anyone tested stereo bluetooth volume?

 

[K927A]

I remember seeing it initially, but passed it up. Now when I go back I cannot find it. Is there a way to boost overall volume using this?

It seems to boost volume during a call on both earpiece and speaker phone though not by much.

I've noticed some ringtones are a bit louder than others. I find the overall volume on the phone to be too low, that goes for ringtones calls speakerphone etc. but I still think it's software fixable and that the speakers on the phone can handle the extra volume. I haven't experienced any clipping

 

[P_Dub]

The hearing aid setting only amplifies in-call volume, according to it's description on the E4G. It should be the same for the E3D.

I'm pretty sure this is all down to the speaker. If they were going to use a small speaker like that, they should have atleast went with two and put on on either side of the phone. What is the point of SRS surround with a mono speaker?

 

[novox77]

Didn't test a BT call, but I did use BT A2DP to play music to my car. That sounded perfect. Will try to do some call tests a bit later.