A major smartphone launch is hardly complete until we start getting reports of some odd hardware problems. The Nexus 4 has been no stranger to bugs so far, with issues like the missing month of December and some power management troubles. The latest problem to cross our path might be a little more difficult to solve, with word that the Nexus 4′s earpiece may have some shielding problems.
New Nexus 4 owners have been reporting hearing some low-level output from the phone’s earpiece, whether it’s in use or not. Some users describe it as a gentle hiss, while others notice crackling or buzzing sounds, worrying them that the earpiece is picking up spurious RF interference from the phone’s other components. If that’s indeed the case here, it sounds like a software patch may not be able to adequately remedy things on its own.
While a large number of Nexus 4 owners have been reporting the problem, it may be limited to particular production runs; at least one user who was well aware of the issue occurring on his own phone investigated a friend’s Nexus 4, and couldn’t find anything wrong with that unit.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see if Google has anything to say about the problem.
