I have been using Motorola RAZR MAXX HD and suffered by its bad sound quality on the call. This is a great phone because it lasts more than a day thanks to huge battery capacity, but sadly that's only the good part of this phone.
It is a Verizon phone. So I expected very good call sound quality. But what I experienced was miserably bad sound so that I couldn't frequently hear what the caller talked . I never experienced such bad sound quality on the call with any Verizon phones. Nor on AT&T iPhone5 which I have been using as my second phone.
Today, I visited Verizon Store and tried some of their featured phones. Let me share my personal opinion and quick test result.
Procedure: In that store, call to my AT&T iPhone5 and speak for 30 seconds. Both ends speak and hear, and record the result.
Ranking:
#1. iPhone 5 - Definitely the best sound quality. No other phones reached to this level.
#2. Samsung Galaxy S4 - Not same level as iPhone5, but best in Android smartphones. I feel it's usable.
#3. Lucid by LG – The level I COULD use if needed, but not much preferable
#4. Droid DNA by HTC – I heard very distorted sound, but my counter person heard clear voice.
#5. Samsung Brightside (with sliding keyboard) - I heard sound relatively clear, but my counter person heard distorted voice sound.
Note: I didn't try Windows phones because I need to use Japanese text input for email and Windows Phone 8 doesn't support it. Also I didn't tried Motorola phones....as explained.
This is just my quick personal experiment so you might get different result at different situation. Please use this information as one of example.
But I learned it is very important to try the call BEFORE buying the phone. Or you'll get very disappointed for 2 years!
