16 GB iPhone: Is the speaker louder?

My my 8gb iphone is 4-5months old, and it is so quiet, I cannot hear the speakerphone at all, nor can I even hear it ringing...the music, keyclicks, voicemail etc..are ONLY okay if I have my headphones plugged in, otherwise forget it. I dont even use the speakerphone, and I miss calls and txts all all the time bc I cant hear my phone ring or the voicemail/txt message alerts

I can tell you guys why the 16GBs are louder. I just took apart a week 38 8GB iPhone, and a week 04 16GB iPhone. The 8GB phone has some sort of plastic film over the speaker hole. I don't know if this was intended as a volume limited, or if the assembler was just lazy and forgot to take it off. Whatever the case, the 16GB does not have the film, leaving sound much freer to travel through.

Someone posted on hackintosh a long time ago about poking a needle through their speaker hole and feeling like they "punctured some sort of membrane," after which the phone got much louder. That would line up well with the plastic film I discovered.

Thayne Miller said...
I had to get my 8gig serviced a few weeks ago and the first thing I noticed was it was MUCH louder!

What service are people getting that has Apple upping the volume? What kind of things would I have to bring my 8G in for to get a louder speaker?

Thx.

yeah... for those who found their phone louder after repairs, I think I know why.

http://www.modmyifone.com/forums/showpost.php?p=154890&postcount=100

nobody picked up on it in the thread though... and everyone still thinks it is because they are going around poking holes!

8Gig iPhone purchase date: 9/12/07
3 days ago I was helping a friend get acquainted with her new iPhone when I noticed her speaker (ringtones) were MUCH louder than mine. After further testing I would say it was easily over 2x as loud maybe even 3x. For 5 months I have just assumed my phone was the standard volume (after seeing many complaints online) and accepted it as one of the few iPhone disappointments.

It took just one short demonstration to convince the genius bar of the volume deficiency and qualify for a replacement. My new phone now rings MUCH louder.

I also notice that the phone just runs better in general. For example backgrounds now apply nearly instantly where they took up to 7 seconds before. Safari also seems to be much more reliable. Is it possible that this new phone has improved hardware? Or maybe my old phone had some residual garbage from previously installing Installer.app? (the speaker issue was noticed on a restored 1.1.3 phone so it shouldn't have been hack related)

I hope it is. My wife had to exchange her 8GB a few months ago and got a brown box refurbished iPhone. The speaker on hers is awesome!!! Almost 2x louder than mine. So it seems to me they have changed something physically to make the speaker louder.

The volume on the 16 GB iPhone goes to 11!

The reason is due to the 1.1.3 upgrade. All new 16Gb iPhones will ship with this already installed. The older 8Gb models will more than likely have the 1.1.2 firmware and hence a lower sound output.

This is purely software rather than hardware. The specs and features are the same in both models

You know, I've wondered if the speaker holes are filling up with pocket lint... they do look pretty dirt, and my speaker is a lot quieter than it used to be.

My wife just got her 8GB iPhone in late January, and it has a much louder speaker than my launch-day 8GB unit. Either mine has been clogged up with something over the past several months, or something's been improved recently ... maybe not just with the 16GBs.