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You kids under 50 need to experience the quality of sound reproduction from an actual Western Electric telephone, compared to cell phones. It'll astonish you.
I'm well over 50 and I just don't care about high end sound quality in a phone receiver. I'm not calling a number to listen to a Beethoven symphony. I've found that my ability to understand what the other party is saying has a lot more to do with their speech characteristics than the sound clarity.
Not to even mention the speakers on newer high end phones are pretty damn good. I don't use speakerphone, but I should, because the quality of speakers on my new Pixel 6 Pro are pretty damn amazing.
I'm always using the speaker when I'm at home/meeting room.
Outside in public - I'm rarely on a call. if I am, it's never on speaker. And I rarely take a call near other people. If I'm at a friends house, I'd walk to another room or onto the deck. But I also know there are other's that don't have a choice (sales people, realtors, etc.).
At the end of the day - it's not as much as speaker or not, but if the person is talking loudly next to me - it matter little if they are on the phone or talking to the person sitting next to them. Both can be equally annoying.
I am more interested why is "everyone" puts "everything" in quotations marks or *asterisks*.
There could be many "reasons" for it. Some use it for emphasis. Some use it to denote the term is a substitute for a term that would be more accurate yet inappropriate. Some use it to denote a term that they do not endorse but is often used.
At the end of the day - it's not as much as speaker or not, but if the person is talking loudly next to me - it matter little if they are on the phone or talking to the person sitting next to them. Both can be equally annoying.
Quoted for truth.
Better question "Why do some people just not give a crap if others hear them talking on the phone?"
I will, on occasion, use the speakerphone actually built into the phone at home. More often than not, I pair my phone to a Poly conference speaker. Much better quality and better pickup - also at home. If I'm in the car, it's plugged in so I can use carplay with the speakers/mic built into the car. Better quality than my phone.
If I'm in public and actually have to take a call, I'll put in earbuds. Quite often I'll go for a walk if I'm WFH and have to get on a call for work. I can get an hour in on the average call, sometimes more.
I've held the phone to my ear often enough - people can hear me just fine, I just don't like holding it. But under no circumstances would I ever be on a call, in public, using speakerphone. Rude and annoying for everyone around you.
Now, what I don't understand, is why I see people driving down the road in cars I know for a FACT have either bluetooth or carplay (or both), and they're holding their phone up to the front of their face like a slice of pizza with speakerphone on. I mean good lord, you paid a kings ransom for a car that has the ability to use your phone over the audio system, why would you spit and snot all over it in front of your face? Not to mention if you hit something, the airbag is gonna put that phone right through you. Although to me that just seems like Darwinism catching up, but I digress.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I don't know if you are old enough to remember the old landline phones, but their handset was made to fit your mouth and ear comfortably, and even allow you to hold it there with your shoulder, for handsfree talking. These current smartphones are just a flat rectangle, and have to be held to the ear with one hand, or use a headset. Additionally, people like to look at their screen while talking, because they will still see various notifications while they talk. I spoke to several relatives for 1/2 hour or more this weekend, and always had it on speaker, usually set down while I talked. I would never talk on the phone while in public, I would just text or email. If someone calls me while at a store I'll just ignore it.
For that matter, look at what's present in the traditional Western Electric handset - you've got a carbon element microphone about 1" in diameter and a speaker of about the same size. The circuitry allows both speaker and listener to both speak and hear at the same time, as the speaker and microphone are far enough away and isolated by the user's head, to prevent feedback. The handset speaker is aimed right at your ear and the microphone is aimed right at your mouth. The handset by itself weighs quite a bit more than any current smartphone.
Now consider the ordinary smartphone, like the one I'm looking at right now. The speaker for your ear (in other words, non-speaker-phone mode) is vented through a little array of a couple dozen tiny holes along the top of the screen. The microphone port is a little 2 mm hole on the bottom of the phone, that doesn't even point at your mouth. I've not taken one of these apart but if either the speaker or microphone element is bigger than 5 mm I'd frankly be astonished. To top it off, for feedback and ambient noise reduction, the circuitry cuts the feed of output when it senses you're talking and vice versa, which is why so much of every cell phone call is spent talking over each other.
So, the sound reproduction quality of the cell phone is just naturally going to suck compared to a proper handset. Those are the compromises you have to make if you want to carry around not only a phone but also a small powerful computer, a radio transciever, touchscreen interface, battery, and charging management circuitry. And this, boys and girls, is why so many people are using the speaker mode to make calls: because it's easier to hear what the heck's going on.
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