Yeah, it has to be on a surface. I used it Friday night and it works really well. I was talking to my wife on it and later I asked her if she could tell that I put her on speakerphone and she said no, so it much have some really good noise cancellation technology.
Yeah I flip it and put it face down on the desk, I flip it 180 degrees, I even rotated the phone in every direction I could think of and it did not want to turn on the speaker.
I finally got it to work off and on. I have about a 2 second delay from the speaker phone kicking on.
I also have to place it on something flat. You can't say, just set it on the passenger seat face down. I tried it on the passenger seat with a coat on it, no go, but it would work if I set it on the center console that was flat and level.
I hope they find a way to make it a bit more responsive.