Hasta La Gadget!

Nov 16

Droid Users Ask: Can You Hear Me Now?

Posted in: droid, motorola, Phones, Today's Chili, verizon

Verizon Wireless’ vaunted network may not be paying off for some users of the Droid, who are complaining about problems with call quality on their smartphones.

“There’s a problem with echo on the phone, so when someone calls you, to them it sounds like they are having a conversation with themselves,” says Heath Brashier, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, software developer who bought his Droid, which is manufactured by Motorola, just about a week ago. “It’s happened to me twice so far.”

Similar complaints have been posted on Motorola’s support forum, where people have posted dozens of comments saying that their voice sounds ‘tinny’ and ‘clipped.’ Some subscribers have found a quick DIY fix to the problem: Quickly turning the speaker phone on the device on and off makes the echo go away, they say. Others suggest rebooting the phone.

The problem is not widespread enough for Verizon to have launched an investigation yet, says a Verizon spokesperson. “We stand behind our products,” says the spokesperson. “Customers have a 30-day return-and-exchange policy if they are not happy with their phone.”

Motorola and Verizon launched the $200 Droid (with a two-year contract) Nov. 6 to excellent reviews. Droid has a crisp screen, zippy Android 2.0 operating system, 5-megapixel camera and maps with free turn-by-turn navigation.

The phone has proved a good seller for Verizon, so far. Flurry, a mobile-analytics company, estimates Verizon sold 250,000 Droid phones in the first week since the product’s launch. That compares to about 60,000 T-Mobile HTC MyTouch phones sold during that device’s first week, but falls far short of the estimated 1.6 million Apple 3G S iPhones that customers bought during a similar period.

The gripes about Droid’s call quality, however, have dampened the enthusiasm of some users. “It is irritating,” says Brashier.

Verizon may not be ready to officially acknowledge the problem, but it is likely aware of it. A leaked technical bulletin from the company suggests it is planning an over-the-air software update Dec. 11 to fix it. It will also include a patch for problems such as lack of availability of 3-way calling in some areas and inability of some users to transfer contacts by Bluetooth.

Seperately, a Wired.com reader said in an e-mail note that Droid’s Wi-Fi connectivity can be unreliable. While the phone connects to a Wi-Fi network, it doesn’t always connect to the internet from there. It’s not clear if that’s a problem with just a few phones or a more widespread issue among Droid devices.

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