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Comment by foofoo55 | Hacker News Reader

A typical short phone call has a few items of back & forth equal to a good number of texts. So for text to surpass phone calls, I think the ratio needs to be much higher than 1:1, maybe something like 8:1. So the "death" date gets pushed further out, but it's still there somewhere.

I agree that mobile voice quality is terrible on most phones, especially when people choose to make their calls on speakerphone for some reason. At work we have landlines and actual desk phones with hard-wired headsets because the call quality is amazing compared to mobile. It lets you have a fully nuanced, tonal, relaxed conversation with everything but the facial expressions and hand gestures.

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> especially when people choose to make their calls on speakerphone for some reason

You make it sound so mysterious. Speaking for myself, I do it for long conversations because it's actually painful to keep the phone held to my ear for that long.

Phones used to be shaped so it was comfortable to do so. It was quite a useful feature.

Maybe someone will come out with an ergonomic cellphone and do some mad Columbussing in that area. "You pockets aren't flat, your face isn't flat; stop using a flat slab as a phone!" The marketing writes itself.

Actually, that was almost exactly the marketing slogan for Nokia 8110, the "banana", released in 1996.

Even at the time of Ericsson Dialog (standard issue phone around here from 1960's to 1980's) it was not comfortable to hold the phone for a long time.

First of all, just to keep your hand raised up for an extended period of time is tiring. Even without any weight. (Modern phones are actually lighter than the Dialog handle was. )

Secondly, for many people, it is not convenient to touch the ear for a long time with any object.

Yeah, I can't abide using an actual handset for more than the shortest calls, a headset is so much better - for a landline, or even a mobile.

That works for many people, but I couldn't wear a headset all day, either. Somehow burns my ears after a while. A speakerphone is my choice. Of course, at works that requires I have my own office room, not open office...

Yes! I have many times complained about what happened to phone ergonomics. It started with cordless phones. The old corded handsets had a nice design with a deep cup for your ear, and they were pleasant to talk on. The cordless phones were bricks, and as often as not the earpiece actually stuck out a bit. Very uncomfortable, and of course with the size requirements of cell phones it's gotten even worse.

On the contrary, it's now cheap and simple to use a mic on a pair of headphones and be completely free of any burden.

You can get an old-style handset for your cellphone for $4, though. No point in complaining.

I find the same, but cheap Bluetooth headsets have got really good, which is another way to fix this.

An advantage of text is that you can broadcast not to multiple people. My friends have a Whatsapp group where we coordinate or ask general questions.

Also you can send audio recordings in a text message. I think I once read on hn that in some crazy asian country that is the main method of communication: they don't text, they don't call, they send each other voice mails.

As far as phone quality goes,

    cell < landline < skype

For me, having a conversation on a cell takes some effort, and it's tiring. A conversation via landline is much more comfortable, and skype is best. This is all due to the voice quality.

Lots of cell carriers are starting to do HD voice with VoLTE. It's definitely helped a bit, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of crosscarrier compatibility.

I like Skype or Hangouts. I think the latency is a lot lower. When I'm on the cell, I feel like I'm always talking over people.

Cell phone quality hasn't improved since my first cell phone in the early 90's. Everything else is far better but that.

Also, voice transmission only happens when the phone detects a voice, and this has the effect of clipping off the very first part of your sentence. I'd find this highly irritating, but I've noticed it a lot less in the last few years. Perhaps that has been fixed.

The killer feature of non-telephone voice services like Skype/GotoMeeting/etc is that it shows you who is speaking. It's a small thing, but it makes a huge difference.

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