Nokia Lumia 710 - Call and Sound Quality Review

The Lumia 710 unfortunately falls short of the HTC Radar in both call quality and sound quality.

Call Quality

On my Nokia Lumia 710 from T-Mobile, recipients of my phone calls complained about the quality of the sound. To them, I sounded muffled, distorted, quiet, and simply not as good as what they consider normal. I typically use my HTC Radar, and my parents could instantly notice the significant drop in quality when I called them from the Lumia 710.

When I had my parents use the Lumia so that I could experience the call quality myself, I too noticed that everything simply sounded worse than the HTC Radar. The Lumia 710 sounded like a bad cell phone, while the HTC Radar was quite clear and close to landline quality.

Using the Lumia 710 on speakerphone also received complaints, since the sound quality was once again worse. The HTC Radar’s speakerphone faired much better. However, everything sounds fine for the person who is using the Lumia… the speakerphone is loud, the earpiece is loud, and the quality sounds good from there.

So far I haven’t seen any other users experiencing the call quality issue, but I doubt many people will recognize the poor call quality since it actually requires the person on the other end of the phone to say something… Everything sounds perfect from the point of view of the Lumia owner.

Overall, the HTC Radar easily wins in call quality.

Sound Quality

The speakers on the Lumia 710 play music at a very similar volume to the HTC Radar… they’re decently loud, but could be a little louder if anything. The Lumia and Radar’s speakers also sound pretty equal in terms of sound quality. If anything, the Radar sounds slightly better and less distorted at higher volumes.

Through a pair of headphones, the Radar was able to play music significantly louder (23/30 volume on the Radar was about the same as Max volume on the Lumia). The Radar also sounded crisper and less distorted. Plus, with the HTC Radar, you can use HTC’s Sound Enhancer app to tweak your sound, which once again gives HTC an extra boost to victory. For my review purposes, I left the Sound Enhancer disabled, and the Radar was still slightly better.

Overall, the Lumia 710 lacks some extra volume through the headphones, but otherwise sounds good. Dedicated MP3 players will still sound better, but for a phone the Lumia sounds good.