I've had the N900 since April, and recently during phone calls I am experiencing a lot of problems.

When calling people, or when people call me, during every phone call people complain that I am breaking up and that they cannot hear me, despite the fact I have full signal on the device, when this occurs I can still hear the person on the other end absolutely fine.

Initially I thought maybe it was firmware related so I did a clean flash of the rootfs and emmc to the latest revisions available, which of course is PR1.2.

I am on Vodafone UK, as are the rest of my family who have absolutely no troubles with phone calls in this area.

This problem occurs when I am talking to people both on landlines and on mobiles.

Does anyone know if anything can be done to fix this, or what might be the cause of it? If the phone is broken will Vodafone fix it under their warranty or am I on my own? I really don't like the N900 any more, I'm afraid. Now I've started work and I'm having to use this out in the "real world" every day, and make a fair amount of business phone calls on it, this **** is not useful, along with the other millions of niggles I have with it. Although I am stuck with this thing for a few more months at least until I can save up to buy something else, so I'd appreciate any help that anyone can give into this problem.

Thank you in advance for any input anyone has.

Even you don't speak even your microphone is broken! Take your phone to nokia service! That's why the warranty is for!

hehe, I've downloaded a voice recording app, "Recorder" and left that recording for about 15mins while listening to some music through my PC. It has recorded the music absolutely fine, so the microphone is working fine, as far as I can see.

im on voda uk and have the same problem, not using 3g fixes it for me, i put it on 'gsm'
i only use 3g when i need to use internet in emergencies!
the service centre is a total waste of time as it is the phone but cant be fixed, i have a n97 that can use the same sim without the problem

also a different bug:
i still get the problem where people talking to me go very quiet after a few seconds sometimes, i can barely hear them, turning the volume up is pointless cos its already maxxed, i read on this forum its got something to do with the proximity sensor, but that was in january! and nokia still aint released a fix so i guess thats unfixable too

although i love this phone ill probs never buy nokia again, unless they give me a n9 as compensation for selling me £1000's worth of half baked products (n900+n97) both of which are now not worth anywhere near the £500 each i paid for them
theyll go bust in a year or 2 im sure of it
( im just venting a little frustration at nokia, this community made the n900 the best device 'still' currently available! not nokia)

Thank you, leetut, but I forgot to say, where I am in the UK we don't get 3G signal in our village, so my phone is already on GSM, much to the annoyance of my speakers with the constant interference :P

This doesn't happen with my old N95-8GB which I dug out to try this out with, nor does it happen with my mum's basic Nokia, or my best mate's 5800.

And I agree with you with the fact that the community made the n900 good. If it wasn't for this community this phone (yeah I called it a phone. What of it? :P) would be completely dead. It's the community fixes, hacks and applications that have made this phone bearable for me. I want to love this device, I really do, in theory it's great, and I was so excited to get one, but I just got disappointed and longing for something made by HTC with Froyo on it.

I might try and talk to Vodafone about this, but I just don't know if I can be arsed. I might just wait until I get paid at the end of the month, combine that with some birthday money and buy something else sim free, or something. I could also go back to using my N95-8GB with its awesome broken charge socket so I'd be back to charging batteries with a desktop charger, but that was perfectly manageable for the best part of a year haha!

Can we get a recording of you speaking in normal tones?

I hope it's not a false alarm which can be fixed by any of the followings

1. Sit up straight!
2. Open wide and enunciate!
3. Use a good tempo, not too fast!
4. Speak up!
5. Practice

Love,

Mum.

Are you sure you're holding it upside up?

Btw, try switching to speakerphone mode and put your mouth in front of the screen (like about 7-15 centimeters away or somthing, like on a video call) and see if it makes any difference.

I'm afraid not, no. I'm easily heard over the phone, I speak clearly and with enough volume. It's been described as cutting out quickly and for very short periods, a bit like this
What I'm saying:
"Hello my name is John"

What people hear:
"H---o my --me -- ---n" where - is silence as the sound breaks apart.

One of my friends finds it hilarious, and says that whenever I can hear them laughing over the phone is when this problem is occurring. Great friend, huh?

I laughed at the "love, mum" bit, the thought of my mum attempting to use a forum, especially one as technical as this is hilarious, unless there's some secret technical side of her that I don't know about, and this is all some secret government conspiracy.

/puts on tinfoil hat

EDIT:

TiagoTiago, yes I'm holding it the right way up :P I will try it with speakerphone and hold it a bit of a distance away to see whether that makes any difference.

While playing with video calls with skype i noticed the mic seems to be directional, sounds in front of the N900 are louder and sounds behind it are significantly muffled, even sounds from the sides aren't as loud as sounds from the front, i didn't tried turning of speakerphone mode and checkign for directionality and sensitivity yet though

@crugath
im sure voda will get rid of the n900 soon, maybe they would replace it for something else when that happens,
i got my n900 on a 24month contract @£35pm
a week later my mate got one as a replacement for his damaged + out of contract n97
he got it for £30pm on a 12month deal
that was at the beginning of the year