HTC Surround Review: A Pocket Boombox

So what about the speaker but in the context of actually placing calls? Strangely, the loudness story is completely opposite when you're making a call and want speakerphone. The first time I placed a call and turned speakerphone on, I was confused. Audio was muffled and muted, and given the grating on the back, I expected audio be coming out of the back of the device. Then it occurred to me - the speakerphone for calls is the slide out speaker itself. 

The problem with this is that every time you want the speakerphone to actually be loud enough to hear, you need to slide it out. Alright, not that big of a deal if it's loud, right?

The problem? It isn’t that loud. In fact, it’s among the quietest I've laid hands on. 

I’m at a loss for why the HTC Surround is so quiet in actual calls, considering how loud it is at music and video playback, especially given the fact that we’re using the same speakers. Volume was at maximum, the slider was open, and we were on 3G UMTS for the call like always. The device is just that quiet. Interestingly, none of the audio enhancements do anything when you’re using the speaker in speakerphone mode. Pressing the button results in the same vibration feedback that it always does, but the event does nothing to change the sound output.

Clearly, HTC or WP7 isn’t setting the gain correctly, and the result is the Surround is simply too quiet to be acceptable for speakerphone calls. It's a bitter irony that the smartphone which packs a gigantic speaker that tops our charts for music loudness is so clearly deficient when it comes to actually making speakerphone calls.

Using the handset normally, I found the volume to be just about typical in terms of dynamic range. Call audio quality is subjectively where I’m used to it being - UMTS 3G voice calls honestly sound very good to me, and the Surround didn’t disappoint. I placed some calls on GSM in EDGE territory on AT&T (which is unsurprisingly easy to find, I drove on the I-8 to San Diego and spent the whole time on EDGE) and they sounded good as well. I experienced the same kind of volume level disparity between GSM (2G) and UMTS (3G) calls that I mentioned iOS still has - more dynamic range at work. Again, I’m still working on devising a subjective call quality test - for now all I can say is that calls to all the usual subjects sounded lik they do on numerous other devices I've popped a SIM in.