Help Earpiece crackling fault - hardware ?

[connectandroid]

The defy is on the shortlist of mine vs Samsung Galaxy S vs HTC Desire HD/Z but came across this report of earpiece crackling faults http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1535948&p=9#r172 and wondering if anyone has experienced this or has more info ?

A number of users in the US and Germany seem to be reporting a problem with the speaker in this model. After a few days or weeks the earpiece begins to crackle or go dead silent. The person on the other end can still hear you but you cant hear them. Switching to speakerphone resolves the issue so it's not network related.

They seem to think it might be a bad solder/connection near the earpiece. Using the handsfree/headphones may cause the issue to appear sooner as the plug for handsfree is located right neat the earpiece.

Squeezing on the case in a certain area can make the speaker work breifly.

https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/41152?start=0&tstart=0

It's interesting because phonearena's review of the model mentioned a similar sounding problem but it wasn't present in other reviews.

No one is having issues in Australia so far?

 

[NiteWalker]

I haven't, if I did it would be very annoying, but I'm sure motorola would take care of it. So I'm not faulting the phone for it just yet; it might be limited to a certain number of handsets.

 

[8Ball]

Haven't noticed that either.

 

[colnago]

The only "issue" I've noticed is that on a call, when I moved the phone from being physically on my ear, to maybe a half an inch "off", the volume would drop significantly when pressed back on my ear. It would resume at previous volume levels shortly after, or if I moved it away and back again. Its been a random occurrence, and I have not been able to replicate it at will.

I also have noticed crackling on speaker when at max volume. This from a phone where I was testing Skype, which defaults to speaker on my other phone, and listening at surprisingly good volume level at half volume, when I realized that the sound was coming from the earpiece. When I switched to the speaker I was even more impressed. This coming from a VoIP engineer...FWIW. "Quality" of the sound is not the "best", but better than most. More importantly, its loud enough to hear when in a noisy environment...as always, YMMV.

 

[MIKEEEEE]

crackling speakers is called 'clipping', when too much volume is applied to the speaker magnet.

because i'm vehicle centric with my DEFY, i'm always using a bluetooth headset or speakerphone.

no audio problems at all for me.

 

[connectandroid]

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences and info. Still conflicted if i should get this phone so close to Xmas IF there is such a fault. But now the defy can be rooted it's moved up a notch on my shortlist.

Next criteria is battery life - i think the Samsung Galaxy S is the standard to measure against for battery life ?

 

[BobbyPhoenix]

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences and info. Still conflicted if i should get this phone so close to Xmas IF there is such a fault. But now the defy can be rooted it's moved up a notch on my shortlist.

Next criteria is battery life - i think the Samsung Galaxy S is the standard to measure against for battery life ?

I have no issues either. Actually the call quality is better on my Defy than my Desire HD. I have my Defy since the day before Thanksgiving, and I was mainly using my DHD, and after a full charge on the Defy, I didn't touch it for three days, and it was still at 100%! Three days! I know Moto phones only go by 10% increments, but that still means it didn't even drop 10% in three days. My DHD drops 10% in three hours!

 

[connectandroid]

thanks bobby for the battery info

 

[JuanPiggly]

YES!!! i'm currently having this problem! i can't hear anything through the ear piece! its dead silent. the only way i hear anything is through speaker or headset. but im gonna have it replaced soon!