Help Call quality very sub-par (not signal strength)

[colnago]

Steel is real especially Italian steel. I have an Indy Fab Crown Jewel but always wanted a Colnago. I am not a fan of carbon bikes.


I did call customer support earlier today and they just wanted to swap the phone and get me on my way which is why I went to the Verizon store to see if it would make really make a difference. I might try calling back tomorrow and see if I can push the issue to get to the Tier 3 guys

Yeah, but when the frame alone costs over $2,500, more than my Master-Light w/Campy Chourus, it's a lil "too real" for me. Bilenky bikes (Philly) saved my a55 last summer after bending my rear droput...but I digress.



I came across this "not too technical" article, can't vouch for accuracy but good read nonetheless, which may explain why some people are having "clear calls" @ -100dBM and others may not (tower pollution section...basically a "busy tower", et al):

CDMA vs TDMA

...also probably why I drop calls in the same spot on I-95 w/AT&T..."hard hand-off, not a dead zone"?

 

[dc006]

Well, this morning I got a txt from my friend that works at the local VZW store letting me know my new Incredible came in. (She ordered a new one from a different VZW store since they had sold out here in town)

This is my third Incredible. This time I made sure to charge it all the way before activating it and got a third chance to put on a screen protector. I have that about down now.

Anyways, I made a call with it after all of this and I was genuinely impressed for the first time. The call quality was much better than my previous two phones. I did not hear the feedback, garbled ringing, or bad static that I had on my previous two phones. I made a few more calls and everything still sounds good. I hope it stays that way.

I have been pretty picky about this whole thing and this is the first time I have had an Incredible that I am happy with. I will be keeping this one (which is nice because I can finally customize everything I have been wanting to).

With that being said, I can still hear a faint static/buzzing and sometimes ringing is still very slightly "garbled" but overall it is much better than my previous two phones.

I think that every Incredible has this issue. I firmly believe it is a hardware defect and that some are just a lot better than others. This would explain why so many people have been happy while others are annoyed by it.

I have four friends that have Incredibles bought from the same exact store around the same time I exchanged for my second one which still had issues. I called on theirs and I did not notice the issue, but I could sure notice it on mine. They, however, couldn't notice it on mine and gave me trouble for being too anal about things.

So, I also believe that it has to do with each person's personal take on it as well. What sounds bad for me might sound terrific to someone else and vice versa.

It is still not as perfectly clear as my four year old RAZR2, but it is finally at a level that I am able to be content with it.

My suggestion to everyone else is that you should keep exchanging until you find one that sounds the best. I don't think you will ever find one that is "perfect" but I think you will eventually find one that gets the job done.

Cheers!

 

[kwilsonw]

Followup to my previous post. I'm on my second incredible with the same issues on both ends of all calls. Tower changes by local Tech didn't help. Notified Verizon Tech Service, work ticket placed, but no one called me. After 3 days, I called back and was told that they would not contact me but would go out to the towers in my area to make repairs if needed. I had to ask repeatedly what she was saying. She claimed I was clear on her end and of course no other complaints about sound. She quickly wanted to brow-beat me for still being on my Alltel plan saying that was the problem. "Not suppose to sell smart phones to people on the old alltel plans". I told her if they couldn't correct the sound issues with this phone, then there was nothing else to motivate me to stay with Verizon. I will switch to another carrier and just buy there latest smart phone because I'm tired of waiting for a great smart phone. (This phone Is Great except I can't talk on it) Within 3 hours I was on my way to swap it for a 3rd phone (from a new shipment) when I received a call. Guess what - The person on the other end who couldn't understand me before said I was clear as a bell. In addition my end was about 60% improved. So instead of swapping for the 3rd phone, I decided to call Tech support again and let them know that my end is still fuzzy, clipped words, with tunnel sound.

Is there anyone on the old Alltel plan who's Not having poor sound quality?? I want to be able to dismiss it if they get on that soapbox again. Thanks!

I've used over half of my monthly (1000) minutes within a week testing sound. Hope I don't run out before the 20th.

 

[bsdbytes]

That's very frustrating. I switched from T-Mobile because of VZW's reputation with their network. My wife and I both have Incredibles and my son has a Samsung. I know their network is great because my son's phone works very well. When I have to place a call, I'll usually grab his if I see it lying around the house because I know I'll be able to hear the other party and it won't drop. I've called VZW 3 times about this and our first replacements are on the way. BTW, my wife's phone is exhibiting the same problems of distorted sound, dropped calls, and errors sending text messages. We live in the Cincinnati metro area with 3 towers near our house.

 

[curtisdr]

I'd like to keep the phone, but I don't have the energy to do "Incredible Roulette" to find a phone that might be slightly better in call quality. I'm skeptical that will help anyway. Maybe if they do a hardware revision a few months down the road. At times, the quality is pretty good, but most of the time, it's bad. Just this morning I was talking with my sister and I couldn't hear/understand half of what she was saying. Again, when I switched to speakerphone, it seemed better. Is it due to the way I hold it against my head or that I'm blocking the antenna? Who knows? I need my Incredible to be a phone first, and then do all that other cool stuff second.

 

[Teris]

I'd like to keep the phone, but I don't have the energy to do "Incredible Roulette" to find a phone that might be slightly better in call quality. I'm skeptical that will help anyway. Maybe if they do a hardware revision a few months down the road. At times, the quality is pretty good, but most of the time, it's bad. Just this morning I was talking with my sister and I couldn't hear/understand half of what she was saying. Again, when I switched to speakerphone, it seemed better. Is it due to the way I hold it against my head or that I'm blocking the antenna? Who knows? I need my Incredible to be a phone first, and then do all that other cool stuff second.

I agree with this. I'm in Los Angeles and my Inc is going back if VZW doesn't take steps to fix it during my call with them today. My BB Storm was WAY better with phone calls. While this phone has some great features, it's just not ready for primetime AS A PHONE.

 

[frog8]

So I have been having the same problems with phone. Called Verizon, of course they knew nothing about it. They told me if I exchanged the phone I would not get a brand new one. They said it would be a refurbished model. Has anyone who has exchanged their phone gotten a new one or a refurbished one? Also, the customer service rep I talked to said it sounded like a hardware problem that would probably get fixed thru updates,not sure how i feel about that. Anyway, I just wanted your thought.

 

[kwilsonw]

So I have been having the same problems with phone. Called Verizon, of course they knew nothing about it. They told me if I exchanged the phone. I would not get a brand new one. They said it would be a refurbished model. Has anyone who has exchanged their phone gotten a new one or a refurbished one? Also, the customer service rep I talked to said it sounded like a hardware problem that would probably get fixed thru updates,not sure how i feel about that. Anyway, I just wanted your thought.

My second phone was new but I think that was because it was too soon for reburbished phones. I was on the phone with Tech Support 4 hours yesterday - 3 different times. One guy changed the programming which left me unable to place calls, another was useless & uninterested, and the 3rd was kind enough to take the time to help me. Long story short, we had to reset the phone to factory defaults to get it to function again. Beware if Tech support wants to walk you through making programming changes on your phone!

Listen up! One of these guys actually admitted that there has been a speaker issue. (His girlfriends back speaker on her DI was blown.)

Has anyone tried toubleshooting by comparing the sound through a bluetooth headset? According to tech support if the sound is better through bluetooth, then the phone's speaker is definitely bad. Guess I'll have to buy a bluetooth to figure it out for them!

 

[SGRacer]

Weird.... this is the clearest reception on any phone I have ever had.... I must be lucky this time.

 

[tranceFusion]

I would THINK that in the first 30 days of ownership, that they would give you a new phone. Otherwise, you could just return it and re-buy it... no?

 

[sean76]

The phone Deffinity has some serious issues...I am on my 3rd one and while its a tiny bit better then the previous 2, its still nowhere near as good as any of my previous Verizon phones when were talking about call quality. I'm seriously on the fence about just returning it, and waiting for the next big thing, which would be the EVO, or the next iphone. Now if the EVO has any of these problems, then HTC is nothing is more then smoking mirrors, because after tons of 3G issues with my Nexus one, and now these BS Issues with the incredible, I'm seriously doubting them as a company that's putting out quality devices...not cool in my book!

 

[Deleted User]

I'm the original poster for this thread and had call quality issues immediately with my Incredible since the 29th when I got it. Today I received my replacement Incredible and have made 3 test calls to people - they all sounded good. It was only 3 calls from the same story in my house but regardless, my original Incredible sounded bad on 9.8/10 calls.

I'll continue to make many more calls over the next few days and post an update on how it's going. I still don't feel out of the woods just yet but it's encouraging to at least have 3 calls sound good.

One thing I can rule out is that the call quality was bad because of the reception in the area. Besides the fact that I had the same bad quality all over the Rochester, NY area, this weekend I was in Boston (at some Yankees Red Sox games) and there were areas with bad coverage and amazing coverage, and the calls sounded just as consistently bad as Rochester.

For those interested, my original Incredible was from my local Verizon store. The replacement was shipped from a warehouse, that according to FedEx is in West Chester, PA. The serial #'s on both phones are different early on which indicates to me they are from an entirely different run, but I really don't know.

One thing that's related and unrelated is that the colors of the screens on the 2 phones are different. As I saw someone else point out on here somewhere, my original (bad) phone's screen has a pinkish hue while the new one has more true colors. I've attached a picture trying to show this but it doesn't show it as much as in person. The bad phone is on the left and while it doesn't seem too pink in the picture, you can tell there is a color different in the bottom gray "Phone" panel. Just interesting to find this.

How has everyone else made out on their replacements? I see some are on their 2nd and 3rd phones without improvement.

 

[tranceFusion]

While the first few days, my phone sounded like complete garbage, the majority of my calls in the last few days have been fine. No, they haven't been tremendous.. but definitely usable - not having to ask the person on the other end to repeat every sentence. I am scared to return the phone and get one that is worse.. I am also scared that I will continue to use the phone and have it crap out again.. I can't really seem to determine the variable that changed that made the calls suddenly sound better.

 

[talk]

My problem is simple: you can hardly hear the person you're talking with.
On the good side, I'm not experiencing any call quality problems (such as static and beeps described in this thread,) but maybe that's because I can hardly hear the caller. My volume just sucks...it is SO low, even with every sound level at its highest.
Yes, I've done a hard reset...twice.
I've been to two stores. The one I bought it from said I was nuts; they all sound like that . The other instantly said the low volume was horrendous and they'll do an exchange. But reading all this makes me wonder if it just won't be the same...and refurbished to boot.
Everything else is great, but this makes me not want to carry it. And I very badly do want to. But its first duty is as a phone. I was so happy to switch from AT&T to Verizon; now I don't know what to think.

 

[jamor]

No point in complaining. Verizon is clearly the best Network and switching to anyone would be not something I would teach a young padawan.

 

[gag10]

I'm also suffering from poor incoming voice quality; I've been trying to come up with a description because it is subtle. When the other party speaks, there is a fine vibration, which is not too annoying initially, but over time becomes almost unbearable. It's like poor quality audio speakers that buzz with too much base. And I also have cut-out, when both parties try to speak simultaneously. I love everything else about this phone, but will probably return it. I can't decide if I should try a different new one; I spent hours customizing this one and don't know if I want to do it all again, if the replacement phone is the same, which seems likely based on other entries. It takes a while to notice the disturbing qualities of the incoming sound.

 

[sean76]

Ones shipped from the warehouse are deff a little different, my original had a bright red screen over the ear piece, the one from the warehouse had a screen that looked like a much duller shade of Red,,,,hmm...

 

[Nsane1]

I'm lucky to say my call quality has been absolutely amazing. Best phone I've owned so far when it comes to call quality. And I had figured on sacrificing it by making the jump to a smartphone. Been very impressed. I live in the mid west.

 

[alewifebp]

My call quality has improved after the PRL update, but that might just be coincidental, since it was fine on Bluetooth in my car. I also visited the store and the tech made some test calls and all were fine. The worst was the muffling right after I got it, but now it the biggest problem is the "clipping" effect. In addition, almost like it is a simplex connection, when the other person stops talking for a bit, I hear no background noise on their end, and it can seem like the call has dropped, when it has not.

 

[beach]

I am having a similar issue as lancefusion but backwards, all my mobile to mobile calls are absolutely crystal clear, and then when someone tries to call me on a land line it is really garbled and cuts out but they can hear me perfectly. It just seems to be really intermittent but no one I have talked to mobile to mobile has had bad quality.

Glad to hear this ! Means i'm not crazy , When ever i call my home or a friend at home sounded very garbled always asking them to say that again,, but when i call a cell its very clear, I took it back to bestbuy and got another phone same problem
I called tech support, they ran all the test still same issue .. i hate to give this phone up, i really love this phone, but i may have no choice,

 

[quest4JC]

I'm also suffering from poor incoming voice quality; I've been trying to come up with a description because it is subtle. When the other party speaks, there is a fine vibration, which is not too annoying initially, but over time becomes almost unbearable. It's like poor quality audio speakers that buzz with too much base. And I also have cut-out, when both parties try to speak simultaneously. I love everything else about this phone, but will probably return it. I can't decide if I should try a different new one; I spent hours customizing this one and don't know if I want to do it all again, if the replacement phone is the same, which seems likely based on other entries. It takes a while to notice the disturbing qualities of the incoming sound.

yup, thats exactly it. Like a small buzzing or vibration like if theres something loose on the speaker. Almost like when you blow out a car speaker and it vibrates after. Will the phone get recalled if theres enough complaints. Would we complain to the fcc for a recall? I think we all deserve a good sounding phone. I already called vzw and they said they would send me another one but what good is that if it seems like 95% of people on here have the same issue.

 

[jessica19087]

I'm the original poster for this thread and had call quality issues immediately with my Incredible since the 29th when I got it. Today I received my replacement Incredible and have made 3 test calls to people - they all sounded good. It was only 3 calls from the same story in my house but regardless, my original Incredible sounded bad on 9.8/10 calls.

I'll continue to make many more calls over the next few days and post an update on how it's going. I still don't feel out of the woods just yet but it's encouraging to at least have 3 calls sound good.

One thing I can rule out is that the call quality was bad because of the reception in the area. Besides the fact that I had the same bad quality all over the Rochester, NY area, this weekend I was in Boston (at some Yankees Red Sox games) and there were areas with bad coverage and amazing coverage, and the calls sounded just as consistently bad as Rochester.

For those interested, my original Incredible was from my local Verizon store. The replacement was shipped from a warehouse, that according to FedEx is in West Chester, PA. The serial #'s on both phones are different early on which indicates to me they are from an entirely different run, but I really don't know.

One thing that's related and unrelated is that the colors of the screens on the 2 phones are different. As I saw someone else point out on here somewhere, my original (bad) phone's screen has a pinkish hue while the new one has more true colors. I've attached a picture trying to show this but it doesn't show it as much as in person. The bad phone is on the left and while it doesn't seem too pink in the picture, you can tell there is a color different in the bottom gray "Phone" panel. Just interesting to find this.

How has everyone else made out on their replacements? I see some are on their 2nd and 3rd phones without improvement.

Mine was shipped on the 27th, received the 28th, from West Chester, PA. I'm hoping to exchange it soon and will let you know. I'm terribly disappointed, but I did worry about this since I tested an Eris and thought the audio quality was sucky on that too. Moto Droid was always awesome - almost too loud and clear!

 

[Impex]

My problem is simple: you can hardly hear the person you're talking with.
On the good side, I'm not experiencing any call quality problems (such as static and beeps described in this thread,) but maybe that's because I can hardly hear the caller. My volume just sucks...it is SO low, even with every sound level at its highest.

i have the same exact issue, i find my self when in my car having to turn the a/c to the lowest speed setting and the radio off and i still can barely hear the other person. now the past couple days for a few calls it will be great and i thought to my self maybe it fixed its self...haha but then it went back to old ways, so im wondering if it does have to do with signal strength

 

[mas90guru]

As someone who went through 5 Droid's with Verizon I have a few observations:

a. Mine never really had the audio improved significantly - though many others claimed theirs was crystal clear.

b. Verizon continued to replace the Droid with refurbs (they all looked new to me) after my 30 day trial.

c. The process of interaction with Verizon by phone was relatively pleasant. I found going into the stores a complete waste of time (lengthy waits only to be told the call quality was in my mind).

d. None of the promised Droid software updates did anything for call quality


Morale of the story - if you can't live with it and a replacement or two doesn't fix it - -ditch it if you're approaching your 30 day return window.


I'd rate the Droid Incredible as better than my Droid for audio and only good to good+ when rated against other phones such as the Nexus One or BlackBerry 9700 - both of which I own and use. I wouldn't rate the DI as excellent or among the best.

 

[tranceFusion]

I'd rate the Droid Incredible as better than my Droid for audio and only good to good+ when rated against other phones such as the Nexus One or BlackBerry 9700 - both of which I own and use. I wouldn't rate the DI as excellent or among the best.

ugh.. I have been weighing going to a Moto Droid.. the call quality is WORSE? At least the battery must be better?

What network do you run your Nexus one on?

Also thinking of waiting for an Evo, but being another HTC phone, it seems silly to expect anything better..