Bad news on i920: No stereo mic

[Guest dwallersv]

As most people know, the O2 i920 has true stereo speakers built in, which is of some novelty value as well as making things louder, and IMO truly does deliver a better sound experience.

When I first got my 920, I noticed there were two apparent mic holes in the device, one on the bottom, one on the top. Would make sense to include stereo input too.

Unfortunately, after some testing with sound recorder and the camera video recorder, it's clear the sound being recorded is mono, from the bottom mic.

Yesterday, I decided to take my 920 apart out of curiosity, and to resolve the stereo mic question. It would be a real pisser if those two mics were actually there, and Samsung chose not to implement recording in their software.

Well, bad news: No top mic. While all the physical design is there for it, including a little rubber enclosure just like the bottom mic, there is no microphone hardware installed in the top spot. However, it's clearly designed to support the configuration -- there's even the SMT solder points on the board for the mic hardware if Samsung wants to include it.

I'm disappointed. No big deal, really, in terms of my happiness with the O2... it would have been cool, though, to have been able to record stereo. And that would have been quite useful, unlike the stereo speakers.

[Guest ipaq3870]

I am not too sure if the top mic is used for "stereo" recording even if the hardware is in place. AFAIK, that mic is for background noise reduction - that helps the party at the other end hears you clearly.