iPhone 5 bad call voice quality

Somewhat similar experience with my i5 on AT&T. By now I've had a chance to test in multiple settings.

Previously I couldn't use a headset on my corporate VOIP conference calls (GlobalCrossing?) due to the audio clipping (seemed more compression related than noise cancellation). I had to enable the 'hearing aid' feature and use speaker phone. Quality was significantly worse at my home than other settings -- traveling in the car it wasn't bad.

Post 6.1 it's better. Not great, but I have done some conference calls at home with the headset. Previously that was impossible. The home tower is still worse than any other. Some voices are very soft, but the clipping is better.

I think Apple has made progress, but real progress may require either tower upgrades or new hardware or both.

I can live with the way it is.

I just bought one yesterday. Wish I had tried the phone in the store pre-purchase. It never occurred to me that the phone would be unusable as a phone. Sound quality is amazingly bad. I can't recall ever having a phone of any type -- wired, cordless, cellular -- having such poor sound during phone calls.

The upgrade to 6.1 did nothing to improve the sound; it is still poor.

JonathanGennick,

Not sure if you are aware but, most cell companies do offer a 14 day period to take back a recently purchased phone for refund or exchange. Best bet is to get a refund first and then select another phone and re-purchase it. Reason for this is because, AT&T offers a 14 day refund/exchange but once you "exchange", your stuck with whatever you get. But if you get a refund, the cycle starts all over. One last thing, the number you chose, will also be terminated along with the return so keep that in mind.

I'm on the Deutsche Telekom network in Germany.

While I'm on 3G / LTE, no problems. But if I'm on EDGE, even full EDGE, it is impossible to make phone calls because of extremely poor call quality. There's "roboting" all the time as shown in this YouTube-Video:

http://youtu.be/gUaJQumjwW0

When is Apple, combined with Deutsche Telekom, going to fix this!? The iPhone 5 got released Sep 2012!

IMHO, unless there is option in iOS to disable HD voice we will never know, if it is poor encoding/HW issue or combination HD voice negotiation together with poor network coveradge - speed.

It would be nice to have some description how HD voice is supose to work from Apple...

Okay.. HD Voice being the reason seems possible. But the problem also occurs when I call friends who have an iPhone 4S - these are phones which do not support HD Voice. Only if I call land lines, quality is as it is supposed to be.

Gabex247, thanks. Verizon's return terms are the same as AT&T's. I've been having better luck today. I'm willing to accept that weather may have been a factor yesterday. On two calls today the audio was poor. On the rest, it was good. I'm planning for now to hold onto the phone. I'll be using it a lot this week. I should have a better feel for things by Friday.

I'm on Telekom Germany as well and I have the roboter voice problem at my homeofice. There is EDGE only.

I was offered a refund on the device at the apple store, I just had to bring the box etc. in the meantime iOS 6.1 was released so I arranged to stall the refund should the update make a difference. It hasn't. Question is - what phone should I get? I'm reluctant to give up iOS, and although I could pick up a 4S at a good price, I'm considering a Sony Xperia Z - anyone else have a recommendation?

Another (functional) phone? ... yes.

There are some really good reviews on Motorola's (Goggle's now ) Droid Razr Maxx HD.

I think there are two models, I have held one... beautiful, The HD is just getting a bit to big for me.

My beautiful iPhone5 is mostlly working, most of the time now for voice calls. Still peeves me mightily.

Anyway, if I get really annoyed with the **** thing I will probably get one of the two Razr Maxx models.

I hear Apple would love to get their hands on the Razr's battery technology.

I live in sweden and use Telia phone company, and ive been having the exact same problems as the guy in this video earlier posted http://youtu.be/gUaJQumjwW0 with robotic voices. Im now on my 4th exchange iPhone 5 and all have had the same problem. A co worker of mine have the exact same problem. We have been experimenting with the settings of the phone and we found that when we didnt connect to the office wifi robotic voices never accoured. Can anyone else confirm this?

The robotic voices only accours when the phone hasent been used for a while and its mostly only the first call that gets robotic and for about 10-20sec then the call quality is fine.

I would suggest to anyone who is trying to investigate issue to and check and note following:

1) does your provider supports HD voice ?

2) when problems occurs are you on 3G or EDGE ?

3) when problems occurs WIFI is ON ?

4) does switching off 3G helps ?

unless there is more details it is difficult to trace possible combination...

Personally I suspect HD voice + poor network performance + some switching mechanism when call is intiated on phone provider network...

I have been having this issue with my iPhone 5! I'm usually on 3G. It occurs sometime not always, I'm not able to hear the other person! I live in Honduras, but bought my iPhone on Apple Retail Store in USA. What should I do?

Just following up. After comparing with my son's new iPhone, it became obvious that the earpiece on my own iPhone 5 was defective. Low-pitch sounds were mostly ok, but anything mid- to high-pitched was distorted. A back-to-back comparison made the problem glaringly obvious, and it took only one listen for the Verizon rep to concur. He swapped the defective phone for a good one straight away. I was pleased at how well that went.

I switched from Blackberry Curve to the Iphone 5 last weekend.

With the blackberry I had no problems calling from my office or in the field.

Now that I switched to Iphone 5 I have problems with approximately 1 in 3 phone calls I do in my office or in the field. I use exactly the same SIM card (chipped now of course), same provider, same subscription.

So I'm sure it's not poor quality of provider networks or bad reception.

The problems I have is that the person on the other side starts to sound 'robotic' and after some times he completely fades away.

Quite some times the connections just fails and I have to call again.

This is really something you don't expect from a device that costs so much.

I sincerely hope this critical bug gets fixed soon.