Did you also find the piece of plastic over the IR port?

 

Good catch! Never knew about that one!

If this is on here, then there must have been a steel plate over the Galaxy Nexus speaker!

 

Cheers JohnJSal!

I have had this phone for 2 months and hadn't spotted the speaker plastic. Duh!

Have removed it now and the sound is a lot clearer. I can now hear every syllable of...

Crazy Frog - Crazy Sounds (Acapella) - YouTube

... unfortunately!

 

Mine was cut around the speaker (not covering the slots).

Thanks!

 

Just checked, and mine was too. I feel a bit cheated

 

I can imagine that having the plastic cut-out around the speaker grill (as on mine and others) could offer benefits - damping the metal grill, stopping it vibrate against the back cover...

...why did I go and remove it? Doh!

 

Could be there so speaker doesn't get ruined when you work in a metal shop where fine metal dust can collect on the speaker rendering it pretty much useless (happened to me several times!)!!

 

What do you think about how big the speaker is without the back cover and how small the hole is in the cover to let the sound out?

 

You would think that this would result in a diminished or muffled sound but I have found the speaker to be much tbe best of any smartphone I have owned. It's mono and hardly hifi but it works well for what it is.

 

That's possible. My bro works in a metal shop and had tons of probs with his Evo. He's got the S4 now and I don't think he's had probs thus far (not sure if he had this plastic or not. He also said others he worked with had the S2 and S3 and they didn't have problems, which was his main reason for getting the S4 over the HTC One.

 

Its there because the supplier who makes the speaker puts it there. During assembly at Samsung it would have to be removed by a person which adds a couple cents to the manufacturing costs. Since it shouldn't really effect any thing, it is left there.

 

Took that off when I first got the phone, its wasn't hidden at all.

 

Yeah, me too.

I just removed what I believe to be the last bits of plastic on my phone; the green plastic on the sim and microsd card slot covers.

 

Never noticed it until now, lol. Not removing it, lol, I hardly ever take my S4's back cover off.

 

I noticed this around my speaker, but it was only around the border, and not covering the speaker grille itself. Same goes for the camera lens-it was only covered around its border, and not over the circular lens itself.

I have noticed more plastic protector coverings over the brushed chrome side-edges all around the phone. I was tempted to leave these on, but sooner or later they will get grubby along the outside edges so I peeled them all off.

 

I wonder if those various pieces of plastic might have anything to do with protecting components from things such as moisture or dust.