Call quality

[XDA_RealLifeReview]

When you call granny, does she keep saying "Huh?! Wut?!" or does the conversation flow pretty well? Rate this thread to express how you feel about the Google Pixel 3's call quality. A higher rating indicates that calls are clear and crisp, and that regardless of background noise, you can hear the other party clearly (and with ample volume) and they can hear you.

Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

 

[Fduch1984]

Well, it is a nightmare for me.
I have sudden disconnections all the time. People often do not hear me, etc. I have two Pixel 3s — my wife's and mine. Same problem.
I guess it could be connected with memory management issues. Maybe process responsible for radiomodule is being killed.

 

[acruxksa]

I'm kind of in the opposite situation. However, for me, I believe wi-fi calling is why I'm experiencing better than usual call quality. Prior to the Pixel 3s (myself and my wife) we never had wifi calling and our house is on the edge of cell coverage in our area. This resulted in poor quality calls. Now with wi-fi calling, our calls are crystal clear with no drops. In general while not using wi-fi calling around town I don't notice any issues.

 

[eivissa]

I have the Pixel 3 and I can confirm that people frequently cant hear me when I call them from home (never had any issues here) and calls disconnect out of nowhere several times in a row. The situation is the worst when calling people with the charger connected. I love this phone for everything but the appalling phone call situation!

 

[squall40]

Hello Guys,

I have the pixel 3 and i have no issues at all. I have really good phone call quality- even better than my old Samsung Galaxy S7- can't complane about it.

 

[nickporwal]

For me the call quality on network has been great. No disconnections. Crystal clear earpiece sound. Much better than pixel 2. I have not tried calls in weak cellular areas.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[Powergreb]

I average less than 5 phone calls a month. I own the Pixel 3 for 3 weeks. I already have 2 phone calls made within my house that I intermittently cannot hear the other side. I owned from Nexus 4, 5 6P, Pixel, Pixel 2. Never had this problem from the same house once. You can tell I'm a big fan but might be forced to switch. This phone does almost everything better than the Pixel 2 except for slow charging speed and dropped calls, very basic requirements. Disappointed. Yes, my house has weak cell signal.

UPDATED: PROBLEM SOLVED. Worked with Google tech. Eventually by clearing cache of Google app fixed it. Thanks.

UPDATED AGAIN: Problem came back after half a day. Rebooted OK for now. RMA.

UPDATED: Replacement seems OK, so far.

 

[Note10.1Dude]

It isn't call quality, it is quality of the call. I LOVE the call screening feature. I used to send all unknown calls to voicemail. That would be a dozen a day. I would then have to listen to them and delete 11 of the 12 and return the 12th. So far, no spambot has left me a message on the screener. Nice process improvement.

 

[eddiecasillas]

I have the Pixel 3 and I can confirm that people frequently cant hear me when I call them from home (never had any issues here) and calls disconnect out of nowhere several times in a row. The situation is the worst when calling people with the charger connected. I love this phone for everything but the appalling phone call situation!

Both my Pixel 3 and my girlfriends is having the same issue - very annoying.

---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 PM ----------

Well, it is a nightmare for me.
I have sudden disconnections all the time. People often do not hear me, etc. I have two Pixel 3s — my wife's and mine. Same problem.
I guess it could be connected with memory management issues. Maybe process responsible for radiomodule is being killed.

Have you found any fix for this? My girlfriend and I are in the same boat... horrible reception with plenty of disconnects.

Do you have Wifi Calling enabled? Did that help?


Eddie

 

[Pakabidu]

I have no issues with the call quality, but do have issues with Google putting a beeping tone every 15 seconds when I record calls, hope someone finds a solution quickly.

 

[stl-fan]

I turned off VoLTE. I HAVE AT&T, wife has Verizon. All sorts of issues, seem to have gone away disabling the HD Calling, kind of a bummer, but I'd rather the calls actually work.

 

[kklown]

Call quality on this phone is the worst! It's constantly going dead, other person can't hear me, weird static type noises or dropped calls.

I never had this kind of issue with my S8.

Is there anything I can do? My provider doesn't have wifi calling yet. I don't think it's a hardware problem because 2 of my friends have the same issues and when I'm out in the open it seems to work fine.

Can the radio's be changed on the phone? I know on some phones you could.

Thanks

 

[misternation]

Call Quality constantly dropping

I have the same issues as people are describing. It is absolutely impossible to use the phone as a phone in any professional manner. Even my family and friends get annoyed, so imagine having to deal with business partners or customers. Sigh. Its been a nightmare for my self so far, and the support for this issue isn't very good either.

Call Quality, not a dot over a 1 star worth.

In every other manner though, the unit is the very top dog in class! #1. But it is suppose to be a phone primarily. Reminds me more of the iPod Touch than a phone the way it works now.

 

[pacificwing]

Ordered a Pixel 3 and a Pixel 3XL for black Friday sale (One for me and one for my wife). Both of them had issues with the other person not able to hear us. At first we thought it might be bad microphones, but it worked find on Skype and VOIP.

The P3 had it worse, so I RMAed it. The replacement had the same problem. I'm now in the process of RMAing both (the P3 for a second time, the P3XL for the first time). Google support has been a nightmare to deal with. Lots of broken promises and outright lies. One rep will say the exact opposite of what the other rep promises. It's an absolute gong show. I've spent the accumulative total of 17 hours on the phone with them. Constantly on hold and getting transferred. It usually ends the same way: I get promised a callback "within the hour" that never comes.

What is most troublesome, is that this issue has persisted for so many months, and Google has yet to respond officially. Some media outlets have started to report on it. There are multiple threads on the official support forums, with large numbers of people all complaining about the same issue: They can hear the other person just fine, but the other person can't hear them. Sometimes the other people will say they can hear us, but we sound like robots or like we are under water. Is it noise cancelling? Bad radio? Bad chipset? Software? Hardware? Bad QA?

Who the hell knows? Google apparently doesn't. If they do, they aren't commenting on it.

Both phones are sitting on a shelf right now. They are unusable as phones. Since Google is refusing refunds, refuses to comment or even acknowledge the issue, and RMA's are producing the same results, it looks like I'll be out of pocket to purchase phones that actually work.

---------- Post added at 09:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 PM ----------

Zero stars not possible? This phone is unusable. RMA replacements produce the same issue. We can hear the person we are talking to, but they cannot hear us.

 

[stl-fan]

Are you using HD calling/Wifi Calling and also are you using Speaker? I had an issue on Wifi calling so I disabled, first problem resolved. 2nd, I then had an issue when i called someone using speak phone, same problem, however if i turned off speaker, than put it back it worked.

Fast forward, unlocked bootloader, installed custom kernel, with a fresh phone, enabled wifi calling -- works fine. Installed January update -- speaker seems to be working without problem as well.

The Jan update appears to fixed video recording quality, I wonder if they added back some frequencies into the mic's.

Still running tests. Will keep updated.

What kernel are you running? I've just been spamming their customer service for a refund. They keep wanting to give me an RMA, but from what I can see, it's not a device specific issue. I just want my money back so I can be done with this Google experience. I thought about just disputing the charge on my credit card, but they probably wouldn't help me either. Google just needs to offer refunds to whomever wants them at this point.

 

[guardian604]

I've been wrestling with call quality issues for the past while too. Like others have described, I would often experience the following problems:

1. Person on the other end says they hear a lot of static or does not hear me at all while I can clearly hear them.
2. Constantly getting my calls dropped for no reason

Both Google and Carrier have not provided any meaningful help. Often pointing fingers at each other, Google blaming carrier, Carrier blaming device.

Neither have expressed any genuine interest in troubleshooting the issue when I have been trying to provide very methodical test results for them.

For the time being, I am remedying the issue by keeping the Pixel 3 in 3G mode where all the problems no longer occur.

What I currently understanding is:

1. When I have a weak LTE signal on the Pixel 3. The call quality begins to suffer as described. (e.g. When I am at home in my highrise concrete apartment.)
2. When I switch the Pixel 3 to 3G mode. Network signal becomes good and I no longer have call quality issues.
3. The Pixel 3 is the only phone I own where the call quality behaves like this.
4. My Nexus 5X and Moto G3 both do not exhibit this problem in the SAME weak LTE signal environment.

 

[tranquill1800]

Pathetic call quality is what I have experienced!
Using the same network, the guy sitting next to me gets a far better reception on his 10k MI compared to my Pixel 3... Far too gaucherie

 

[tbird462002]

Please post here and make sure you star it at the top so we can get the priority raised for this issue.

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/124412355

 

[SGH-i200]

Here is another report of the calling issue:

Hey everyone, I love my Pixel 3 except when it comes to the main thing a phone does, make calls!

The call quality is terrible. I know it's an issue many of us face from day 1, I need to constantly hangup and call people back. Now that I work from home and have call meetings non-stop, it is very apparent how bad the calls are. It is not a carrier issue, I have 4 other people on my plan and they are fine (no PIXEL users). This also happens when I'm using VOIP programs like Slack, Jabber, etc.

 

[xmaciek82x]

Here is another report of the calling issue:


---------- Post added at 10:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

Here is another report of the calling issue:

Since those were both my posts from months ago, I should follow up on them. I purchased a Pixel 4 and had the same issue!!! I ended up switching phone providers from Cricket to Verizon and the issue went away.