I think a weak speaker is a weak speaker - not a software issue (could be I guess but....)
I cant' get to checkout a GNex until tomorrow (hopefully) but from all of the complaints on the volume it doesn't look good. As I use my phone alot to listen to podcasts, volume / speaker quality is important (also if the speaker is fine for hearing a podcast while carrying around the phone - ringer / notifications end up at decent volumes).
I have a habit of checking out the volume of diff phones - always playing the same podcast (downloading an MP3 copy of a known podcast on a demo phone) plus playing an Alice in Chains video on YouTube (easy to find on any phone).
Phones to me with really low volumes - that wouldn't cut it for me:
- Incredible, Charge, TBolt, and worst of all the Nexus S (they always have one at Best Buy in the front that we end up checking out over the past few months and always amazed at how weak the speaker is which is why i was so surprised between the Charge and Nexus S that the Epic Touch has a decent speaker).
Decent Volume phones (again just from my testing of the same podcast and video for some time):
Epic Touch , Bionic, RAZR, Rezound (these I could live with while not as loud as the original Droid).
If the GNex has a speaker with the volume level of the Galaxy S or somehow even lower , then I'm really screwed (as Verizon doesn't have a GS2 which I'd prefer over the GNex but as I'm stuck with Verizon <sprint is super slow here> , I'll be stuck with my Droid rather than going for a GNex that I won't be able to use to listen to podcasts easily - then the whole camera deal on the GNex (haven't tried it yet but samples I've seen in reviews are really bad) - that will be a deal breaker too....
Maybe if we didn't own Epic Touches (leftover from a Sprint trial) and weren't used to the decent speaker and great camera , I wouldn't care but no way could I go to a phone with a camera that is the quality of my Droid and speaker like the Galaxy S.
Tempted to activate the Epic Touches that we have and live with the slow Sprint speeds as we love the phones (use them WiFI only around the house).
What's up with a super weak speaker and camera in the GNex?
I'm hoping it's all not as bad as it sounds (no pun intended) once I get to try a GNex but with so many people pointing out the same deficiencies on launch day....