Steve, as a quick update, I went back to Best Buy where I purchased the phone and had the technician look at it (rather, listen to it). According to him, the call quality on Cricket was not good, but he could not quite figure out why. He indicated that in order to install the SIM card, he had to cut down the card using a small machine to make it fit. The technician suggested that I try a different SIM card.
I went to Cricket (company owned store), and they listened to it. She did not like what she heard, so she installed a new "nano" SIM card, cleared the cache partition and did something else. The in-call volume did not perceptively go up, but the sound clarity of the call quality improved dramatically.
At this point, the earpiece on the telephone has become usable in quiet to normal room when the call volume is all the way to the max. She did indicate that the call volume was lower than they would like it. But, she pointed out that "We have standards on what we choose to carry," and that I did not buy the phone from them. She indicated that Motorola/Lenovo has had a good record as a partner for Cricket, and suggested that I contact the manufacturer who may fix it in an update.
If I could not get the call quality to the point I could understand what the person on the other side was saying, it was getting to the point I was ready to give the phone to my son, and I was going to have to buy another phone that I could use to talk on. But, it looks like my son may have to wait before I give up this one...
I really do like this phone, and I am hoping that an update will add the 10-15% earpiece volume and/or equalization that will make it from "very good" to an "excellent" communcations device!
