The lack of call quality focus on smartphone reviews and tests is a very disturbing issue.
I have had every iPhone, most Blackberry's and a number of Android devices and in my opinion call quality on iPhones is in the "super mega simply sucks class". An iPhone raw and on its own without a case is not great with call quality, but reasonable, put any case on it and it becomes less than useless. Run an iPhone without a case and soon you are a sad soul with a cracked screen. Quite the dilemma.
I am not waiting for the new iPhone 6, the 5 was enough of a slap me in the face experience from a call quality point of view and after a lengthy 3 month review of Lumina, HTC and Samsung I decided the HTC One:M8 cannot be beat for the call and sound experience, though I must confess the call quality on the Lumina was better. That HTC sound system for when you are at home on speakerphone though is pretty amazing so overall the HTC got the pragmatists nod.
I use my smartphone as a business tool and as I am a serious road warrior, call quality is the most important facet I require. The camera is useless from a business point of view and just a nice to have so the fact the camera in the HTC one M8: is not the best one available (Lumina wins that evaluation point hands down) was not high on my PERSONAL evaluation criteria, call quality and a nice screen for WAZE operations was. (I spend my time surfing car pool lanes and avoiding CHP officers which requires a nice big screen and sharp sound capability).
If the Lumina did not have that silly Windows 8 Tile GUI I would have bought it, Windows 8 tiles fill me with the urge to defecate, not good when u are stuck on the 880 in rush hour traffic.......Yuck!
The HTC's only fault is the camera but its still better than the iPhone 5 camera. The 5S is a better device than the 5 but the screen size and call quality are still sub standard IMHO.
It would be nice to see some Smartphone reviews from a road warrior pragmatist point of view where operating phones in cars, trucks, planes and on windy golf courses as well as noisy airports is taken into account. Too many reviews are focused on apps and games and are not real world business focused, rather, focusing on the spoiled toy syndrome aspects of a smartphone.
This is not useful to us road warrior types who care figs for angry birds type gaming opinions on the various smartphone products. It would also be nice to see some more Huawei smartphone reviews as well, I was shocked to discover how reasonable these devices are when traveling in South East Asia recently.
I also note that many people believe that the call quality is totally dependent on the carrier, Hah!! That is simple fallacy!! Noise cancelling placement, component quality and design are a huge factor in call quality on a mobile phone. I think a lot of education needs to take place re call quality on the various devices out there, with some of them it sounds like you are conducting your call from an underground tunnel on the moon.
I recently bought over $2500 worth of bluetooth devices to overcome the effect that various phone cases killing the noise cancelling capabilities of various smartphones have and was shocked to find that the only phone devices that worked great with sound quality from an add on bluetooth device perspective were good old ancient Blackberry devices!! How can this be? Scant reviews I have read even make trivial mention of this irksome but must know about reality??
I get the idea most smartphone reviewers are caught up in the features and uses of applications and have somehow forgotten the bloody things are primarily Telephones!! Maybe someone should employ me to do these reviews right from a road warrior perspective....
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