Help Color depth and call quality issues?

[nightmicu]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a new HTC Thunderbolt and I am obsessing about two things - color depth and call quality. I would appreciate feedback from owners of this phone "in the know" rather than getting the general "just send it back," because I'd rather not end up with a refurb if these gripes are invalid based on this phone's design. Okay, the gripes:

1) Color depth - I could swear that yesterday the color rendition on the phone was better. Today I am noticing horizontal bands in color (dithering), as you would see with a low color depth (16 bit) screen. I did some research and from what I can tell, this phone is capable of displaying 16m colors - or 24 bit color. The bands are most noticeable in gradients. Does anyone else see this on their phone? Is it considered normal for this model?

2) Call quality - The earpiece of this phone sounds pretty low quality, female voices or people speaking loudly give it a tin can sound - more noticeable at any volume level over the lowest setting. Anyone else experience this?

Thanks!

 

[tbzj7]

Glad you're not like many people and just say send it back...
1) I don't think I've had that happen on mine, seems to be pretty clear, without the bands you're talking about, I play movies on mine all the time and don't have that problem. When are you noticing the bands?
2) The quality for me seems to be pretty good whatever the level is, like the person is right there, the volume level itself however is a little low. I have heard of a few devices that came with a defective ear piece, not saying that yours is but if its bad enough it could be a possibility.

 

[nightmicu]

Glad you're not like many people and just say send it back...
1) I don't think I've had that happen on mine, seems to be pretty clear, without the bands you're talking about, I play movies on mine all the time and don't have that problem. When are you noticing the bands?
2) The quality for me seems to be pretty good whatever the level is, like the person is right there, the volume level itself however is a little low. I have heard of a few devices that came with a defective ear piece, not saying that yours is but if its bad enough it could be a possibility.

I think that the color issues I was noticing might just be par for the course when it comes to these older models. But it is most noticeable in gradients - darker to lighter shift. However, the app that made me notice it the most, SiriusXM, also looked like junk on my iPod Touch - so I think in that case it was the image itself.

Earpiece auto has been mediocre, I can hear people fairly well but there is a hiss and their high range is distorted. I have a great Bluetooth headset so that solves this issue most of the time.

Something I noticed after posting this last night was that there is now a faint "click" sound before a sound is played, such as adjusting the ringer volume, if a sound has not been played within the past several seconds. Also, if the device hasn't played a sound within a few seconds, the first sound it plays is very soft compared to subsequent sounds.

For example, if you just pick up the phone after it has just been sitting unused, screen unlock sound is very soft. But if you had been listening to music and just locked the screen, the screen lock sound is very loud. Or, if you have "Click on selection" enabled, the first click is soft while subsequent clicks are loud. It's almost as though it has to "warm up" to play full volume. My laptop also does this occasionally and I suspect it is a software issue. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[tbzj7]

Soft volume sound at first when it hasn't been used is something I noticed esp after this latest update. The clicking I haven't had and I agree the screen isn't the greatest but if the quality of the image trying to be displayed isn't that sharp or grainy then the bolt surely won't make it better.

 

[nightmicu]

Soft volume sound at first when it hasn't been used is something I noticed esp after this latest update. The clicking I haven't had and I agree the screen isn't the greatest but if the quality of the image trying to be displayed isn't that sharp or grainy then the bolt surely won't make it better.

Okay, just trying to make sure these issues aren't exclusive to my phone. I tend to be VERY OCD when I first get a new gadget but I start feeling better when I find consistency from one device to the next.

Thanks