I own a Blackstone and a Kaiser and I think that could be interesting to give the first impression that I have of the phone compared with Blackstone. I compare with a Blackstone in his maximum speed with original rom and after using several custom roms (dutty etc)
Warning: this is simply a quick test of features as I have the phone a few hours. I could be wrong in some of the opinions.
Speaker: very disappointing. We were told that Rhodium has two speakers and it is very loud for free hands calls. The reality is that the speaker has the same volume than the Blackstone. Kaise, Blackstone and rhodium have good quality in the speakers, better than average. It is odd that it is the same quality and there is no evolution.
Responsiveness: I feel it more responsive than Blackstone
Video player: faster, less jerky playing videos
Camera: it is 3 megapixels instead 5. But in low light conditions it is a very good camera phone when Blackstone is rubbish (slow and blurry). In general super responsive. I’m surprised.
Photo navigation: feels faster navigating the pics and more responsive
GSM reception: similar reception than Blackstone, that it is not great really.
Zoom bar: ok feature, nothing great but the fact that doing zooms in Blackstone is a lot of time unresponsive this is a cool difference
Keyboard: the best ever. Simply great and a lot faster than on screen keyboards. The only point is if you really need a keyboard. For small amount of text the on screen keyboard of Blackstone is enough.
Weight: you feel the phone. Blackstone is so thin that you don’t feel it. Not big problem but something to have in mind.
Sunlight: visible under sunlight. Blackstone is not visble under sunlight. Really nice.
Software: because the last custom roms of Blackstone have copied a lot of the features of rhodium there is not a lot new there but I have spotted a brand new Bluetooth manager (very cool) and perhaps there are more stuff there.
Style: better looking than blackstone because looks and feel more like a luxury object. You need to use to understand what I mean. The quality of how the phone is done and feels is stunning.
Battery: longuer battery life than blackstone, around 25%. It feels than never goes down.
In general Rhodium feels like a evolution rather than a revolution from Blackstone: A better phone but you should no change to it except if you need the keyboard. I would have been happier if the speaker was what was supposed to be.
For anybody that has not a Blackstone this phone is simply great. Nearer to the responsiveness of a iphone (not quite it yet) and with some features that iphone hasn’t (stereo Bluetooth, keyboard, more resolution etc)
It sounds like it really is a good phone then, but I think the point of having 2 speakers was for better sound quality not louder, but then again im not sure, but on a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers music sounds a lot better than on a kaiser, and better than on some laptops, and it has 2 speakers so im hoping the touch pro 2 will be even better than the pearl's sound is.
without any doubt it has no more quality and it is no louder. Initially I was confusing and thinking that I was mssing something, for example an option that I need to activate or whatever. But there is nothing more than the blackstone speaker quality. The only different thing is that it has a button to deactivate the mic in the back.
Has the Blackstone have stereo speakers then? cause if not, there has to be a quality diffrence when playing stereo music (set sound options to stereo in coreplayer)
Also, the blackstone is a multi media phone and I suspect it has a pretty good speaker.
The speakers for the TP2 are probably optimized for speech and not for music. At least you would think, it being a bussiness phone
karlpj said:
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Radio: similar reception than Blackstone, that it is not great really.
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You told about GSM radio layer or FM radio???
ed_bracam said:
You told about GSM radio layer or FM radio???
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GSM, there is no music radio.
also I have added this point to the list;
Sunlight: visible under sunlight. Blackstone is not visible under sunlight. Really nice.
quarintus said:
Has the Blackstone have stereo speakers then? cause if not, there has to be a quality diffrence when playing stereo music (set sound options to stereo in coreplayer)
Also, the blackstone is a multi media phone and I suspect it has a pretty good speaker.
The speakers for the TP2 are probably optimized for speech and not for music. At least you would think, it being a bussiness phone
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It has two speakers but as I said there is no difence of quality with Blackstone. If they are stereo or not is not relevant as the quality is not that great and they are too near to notice the stereo. This doesn't mean that the speaker is bad compared to other phones. It simply means that it is not better than blackstone and this product was suppose to have the dual speakers as a diferenciated selling point.
karlpj said:
It has two speakers but as I said there is no difence of quality with Blackstone. If they are stereo or not is not relevant as the quality is not that great and they are too near to notice the stereo. This doesn't mean that the speaker is bad compared to other phones. It simply means that it is not better than blackstone and this product was suppose to have the dual speakers as a diferenciated selling point.
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thats disappointing because a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers plays music VERY good and the bass is so good on the pearl it is almost shocking, I thought that HTC would top that cause they make better quality phones
Link278 said:
It sounds like it really is a good phone then, but I think the point of having 2 speakers was for better sound quality not louder, but then again im not sure, but on a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers music sounds a lot better than on a kaiser, and better than on some laptops, and it has 2 speakers so im hoping the touch pro 2 will be even better than the pearl's sound is.
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yes it is for sounds quality and as a blackstone owner I think the quality is far better than the blackstone.
When you said that the video playback is not jerky.
1. What codec movie are you playing?
2. What resolution size?
3. Which player did you use?
4. Did you need to re-encode your movies to play on the Rhodium?
5. Are the pictures in sync with with the sound?
I play a lot of videos on my HD and I would like to know if I can play videos without encoding all my movies.
When you place the phone down with the screen tilted, the speakers are on the bottom, right? How does affect the sound coming out of the speakers? Does it get blurred?
What is the speed of files transfers from your PC to the Rhodium? Is it faster than the HD?
Has they fixed the thread SMS? On the HD, when you use thread messaging, the on screen keyboard hides the entry box. You had to hide the keyboard and then show it again to show the entry box so you know what you are typing. I know the Rhodium has a keyboard, but what if you use the on screen keyboard to send SMS.
Thanks in advance for your answers, I am still waiting for the Rhodium to come out here. Can't wait to found out. Cheers!
Maybe I am missing something but I have a Tilt / Kaiser and a relative just got the Fuze / TP1. I only messed around with the Fuze for a few hours but I found the Tilt to have a higher quality, and louder, speaker. For those w/ a TP2, how does the speaker compare to those (I've never used a Blackstone)?
About the video player questions:
I was using core player. Perhaps I have been unlucky but I have been unable to get blackstone playing smoothly movies. I was trying mainly podcast from itunes that didn't have really too much resolution. But even them were jerky.
This phone doesn't have the same problem but I have not tried higher resolutions. I'm nearly sure that will fail in high res as the phone is not that different.
I didn't encode again. The sound was on sync. To be honest Blackstone plays videos worse than kaiser, except if you encode them again.
It is a lot more confortable to see videos in a table with rhodium compared with blackstone because the tilt screen. With blackstone I was forced to hold it with my hand or to fight with the phone trying to place it tilted with some object as support.The speaker is in the botton and the sound it is ok. Obviously would be better in the front.
adawg120 said:
Maybe I am missing something but I have a Tilt / Kaiser and a relative just got the Fuze / TP1. I only messed around with the Fuze for a few hours but I found the Tilt to have a higher quality, and louder, speaker. For those w/ a TP2, how does the speaker compare to those (I've never used a Blackstone)?
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I had the kaiser also. The speaker of the kaiser is similar to blackstone and rhodium. It is disapointing how little has evolved this part of the phone. kaiser had a loud speaker but I was specting something better now.
Is there anyone that knows how to make the rear speaker LOUDER! on the Sprint HTC Arrive? When you turn the volume up, it's still not loud enough. I use SlingPlayer with it and have trouble hearing it on this phone. I did not have any problem hearing the SlingPlayer on my Sprint HTC Touch Pro2 at all. The volume goes up to 30. What is 30? Why not 100? Can you guy's PLEASE HELP with this issue.
While I don't have an answer to your question (my Arrive is just as loud as my TP2), the number 30 is just a number. All it means is that the full spectrum of the volume is divided into thirty increments. It doesn't mean that the phone is less loud. Putting 100 and having an increment at every one would take a long time to turn the volume all the way up or all the way down. I wouldn't let the 30 bother you.
Perhaps the way you're holding it or placing it is blocking the speaker? The three green spots on the back are where the speaker is, and covering it can actually significantly reduce the volume. Likewise, if you're setting it down, the surface makes a difference. Putting it on the couch muffles it, while putting it on a table actually helps.
Hope this helps.
@hopmedic: None of that matters. Not saying it's not true (most of it is), but the problem is the phone, not the way he's holding it or where he's putting it.
If you want a good speaker on your phone, don't buy an HTC phone. Buy a Samsung. All of HTC's phones have ****ty speakers. The HD7's speakers are crap too, as was the HD2's speakers (though marginally better since both are on the front of the phone).
There's really no reason to get an HTC WP7 device, TBQH. HTC is known for having good software/skinning, but you cannot do that on WP7. The only thing I'd say is worth it is for their YouTube App, but it's not worth getting their crappy hardware for. For a WP7 device, go with a Manufacturer who puts out decent hardware, and avoid HTC, IMO. HTC makes their money by churning out as many cheaply made phones as they can and putting them everywhere. Volume usurps quality for them (though they're always talking about how they want to make the highest quality phones, yet they still keep giving us phones with speakers that are useless for multi-media and speakerphone purposes, AFAIK).
Of course, for some of us there isn't much choice. It's HTC or go home for WP7. I wasn't about to order from Dell cause I like being able to go in the store when I have issues, so the HD7 was the only real choice for me.
HTC is great for Android due to HTC Sense being so superior to TouchWiz and Blue. For WP7, Samsung is the best choice. They have the best hardware with the best screens, cell radios/reception, and the best speaker/sound output (though they seem to try hard to miff up whatever they can when software is involved, even WP7). Samsung could have better cameras, but the lack of a Flash on so many of their phones just makes them useless to me for that purpose. I'm so often indoors and in inoptimally lighted areas (rinks, etc.) that having no flash is a becoming a dealbreaker on a smartphone these days.
N8ter said:
@hopmedic: None of that matters. Not saying it's not true (most of it is), but the problem is the phone, not the way he's holding it or where he's putting it.
If you want a good speaker on your phone, don't buy an HTC phone. Buy a Samsung. All of HTC's phones have ****ty speakers. The HD7's speakers are crap too, as was the HD2's speakers (though marginally better since both are on the front of the phone).
There's really no reason to get an HTC WP7 device, TBQH. HTC is known for having good software/skinning, but you cannot do that on WP7. The only thing I'd say is worth it is for their YouTube App, but it's not worth getting their crappy hardware for. For a WP7 device, go with a Manufacturer who puts out decent hardware, and avoid HTC, IMO. HTC makes their money by churning out as many cheaply made phones as they can and putting them everywhere. Volume usurps quality for them (though they're always talking about how they want to make the highest quality phones, yet they still keep giving us phones with speakers that are useless for multi-media and speakerphone purposes, AFAIK).
Of course, for some of us there isn't much choice. It's HTC or go home for WP7. I wasn't about to order from Dell cause I like being able to go in the store when I have issues, so the HD7 was the only real choice for me.
HTC is great for Android due to HTC Sense being so superior to TouchWiz and Blue. For WP7, Samsung is the best choice. They have the best hardware with the best screens, cell radios/reception, and the best speaker/sound output (though they seem to try hard to miff up whatever they can when software is involved, even WP7). Samsung could have better cameras, but the lack of a Flash on so many of their phones just makes them useless to me for that purpose. I'm so often indoors and in inoptimally lighted areas (rinks, etc.) that having no flash is a becoming a dealbreaker on a smartphone these days.
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This is simply false information. While I admit that HTC has been lazy with many of their Android phones, and perhaps even some of their Windows Phones, it simply isn't the case with the Arrive. As I will show in my side by side comparison later today is that the speaker is just as loud, and perhaps better than on my Samsung Focus device.
I watch SlingPlayer all the time. When I watched it on my Sprint HTC Touch Pro2, I had the phone propped up with the speaker at a 45% angle away from me. It is MUCH LOUDER on the HTC Touch Pro2 than on the HTC Arrive, with the phone in the exact same position. I did not have any tweak's installed at all to make the speaker any louder at all. I just wish that someone would come out with a tweak for making the rear speaker WAY LOUDER!
tiny17 said:
This is simply false information. While I admit that HTC has been lazy with many of their Android phones, and perhaps even some of their Windows Phones, it simply isn't the case with the Arrive. As I will show in my side by side comparison later today is that the speaker is just as loud, and perhaps better than on my Samsung Focus device.
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That probably has something to do with the fact that the WP7 phones use largely the same hardware with the same drivers.
My vibrant blows any WP7 device out of this world when it comes to sound volume, clarity, and quality.
HTC phones are **** for sound.
Sorry, that's just the way it is, and that's just the way it's always been.
It's not false. I have two of the here and I've played with the Arrive in the Sprint store.
The sound quality is ****.
And that's embarassing seeing as how "Every WP7 device is a ZuneHD" (as per Ballmer).
Give me a Zune App for my Vibrant and I'll never look back.
N8ter said:
Sorry, that's just the way it is, and that's just the way it's always been.
It's not false. I have two of the here and I've played with the Arrive in the Sprint store.
The sound quality is ****.
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OK, well I just did some side by side comparison between the HTC Arrive and Samsung Focus. Up to this point, I had not done this thorough of a side by side. Both me and a friend tested this. He honestly has no bias, as he is not into the whole smartphone thing. I have already admitted elsewhere that I would buy the Samsung over the HTC because I like the Samsung formfactor more, but clearly I have had time to form bias.
Either way, in an exact side by side (disabled sound enhancers on the HTC - which can make the volume quieter) and played some songs.
Results: The Focus is ever so slightly louder, but also sounds more stressed (worse quality as my friend described it). My friend quickly decided he liked the sound of the HTC better as it was clearer. My personal opinion is that yes the Focus did sound a little more stressed, and I think this is due to it being slightly more full on the lower sounds, where as the HTC lends its self more to the mids and highs. When I turn on SRS on the HTC, it fills out those lows better (even more than on the Focus), but is actually too much for the external speaker to handle at full volume, and resultantly becomes worse than the Focus.
My conclusion on this is that they must have a fairly similar speaker, and one is just handling sound slightly different than the other. You can max out the HTC speaker without getting stressed sound, where as it seems like the Samsung speaker is being pushed more, which then at full volume is simply too much for the speaker. The Samsung is louder, but the difference is negligible, as I honestly couldn't hear a difference, and when both devices are synced to play the same song (both turned to 25), I can't distinguish between he two devices. It is just one sound.
In the write up I plan as early today, I will go into the sound enhancer at greater depth.
But my point in this quick write up is that if the Samsung is the standard (which you used) then the HTC meets the standard with flying colors.
As a side note: The placement of the HTC speaker is somewhat problematic with how I hold the phone for gaming - in how I balance the handset in my hand. I find myself covering the speaker a little more often than I do on the Samsung. Both have poor placement for that. This is only specific to the some games I play, due to their onscreen buttons. On the HTC I am able to slide the keyboard out to solve the problem, and on the Samsung, there is usually enough play in the grippable area of the device that I can just move my hand into a different position.
To the OP: Check the sound enhancer and make sure those are all disabled.They are excellent for headphones, not so much for the speaker.
While I do agree to a limited extent about the quality of the sound from the Arrive or Touch Pro 2, my Arrive has a ridiculously loud speaker for what it is. I actually wish I could make it quieter than it is at its volume setting of 1.
The speaker is easy to block depending on how you hold it or how it is set on a certain surface, but for the most part it still is loud enough for most environments.
The one thing I really do not like is the lack of the 2nd mic like the TP2 had for Noise Cancellation. Without that 2nd mic people can't seam to hear me for crap compared to the old TP2 Speakerphone. Oh well, at least we got a flash again. lol
Great device otherwise.
IM0001 said:
I actually wish I could make it quieter than it is at its volume setting of 1.
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haha, I'm glad someone else noticed that! I'm in a public setting and so I just want enough sound to know what is going on in my game, and I still feel volume 1 is a little loud.
IM0001 said:
While I do agree to a limited extent about the quality of the sound from the Arrive or Touch Pro 2, my Arrive has a ridiculously loud speaker for what it is. I actually wish I could make it quieter than it is at its volume setting of 1.
The speaker is easy to block depending on how you hold it or how it is set on a certain surface, but for the most part it still is loud enough for most environments.
The one thing I really do not like is the lack of the 2nd mic like the TP2 had for Noise Cancellation. Without that 2nd mic people can't seam to hear me for crap compared to the old TP2 Speakerphone. Oh well, at least we got a flash again. lol
Great device otherwise.
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I haven't used the speakerphone yet, so didn't realize the issue on the second mic. Agreed on the speaker being quite loud enough - hold it to your cheek and you can feel the air moving. And yes, I would like to have a volume lower than 1.
tiny17 said:
To the OP: Check the sound enhancer and make sure those are all disabled.[/B]They are excellent for headphones, not so much for the speaker.
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Sound enhancer does not work without speakers. The only thing that does work is switching it to SRS and Dolby Surround (or nothing), and that has no impact on volume from what I've seen/heard. The EQ/etc. requires headsets, or the options are greyed out.
N8ter said:
Sound enhancer does not work without speakers. The only thing that does work is switching it to SRS and Dolby Surround (or nothing), and that has no impact on volume from what I've seen/heard. The EQ/etc. requires headsets, or the options are greyed out.
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IMO the SRS on the handset speaker makes the frequencies too low and makes the speaker crackle when the volume is maxxed out.
I don't use SRS, and that wasn't my point. My point was that except for changing to Dolby or SRS there isn't anything you can do in Sound Enhancer without a headset, and the Headset-in settings do not apply to the external speakers.
The Sound Enhancer is not the root of the issue. And his phone is not broken.
This has nothing to do with the sound enhancer at all. There have been many complaints about the LOW sound on the Sprint HTC Arrive. If ANYONE can come up with a HACK, PATCH, or PROGRAM for the Sprint HTC Arrive to increase the Volume, PLEASE LET EVERYONE HERE KNOW ABOUT IT.
I know that there are a LOT of BRILLIANT DEVELOPERS here that can come up with something to help us all with this problem.
N8ter said:
That probably has something to do with the fact that the WP7 phones use largely the same hardware with the same drivers.
My vibrant blows any WP7 device out of this world when it comes to sound volume, clarity, and quality.
HTC phones are **** for sound.
Sorry, that's just the way it is, and that's just the way it's always been.
It's not false. I have two of the here and I've played with the Arrive in the Sprint store.
The sound quality is ****.
And that's embarassing seeing as how "Every WP7 device is a ZuneHD" (as per Ballmer).
Give me a Zune App for my Vibrant and I'll never look back.
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lol ahh still passing off your bs opinions off as facts huh? To an untrained eye your fallacies and evidence laden (;-)) bs might actually seem true. Too bad I've compared my HD7 to a Vibrant side by side and found that the Vibrant has a deeper sound, but not more clarity (at reasonable volume). It doesn't sound much louder and still gets tinny and/or distorted at high volumes. You fail again kid. No smartphone I've ever seen has a much better sound system then the HD7. Some are noticeably better, but none blow it away as you said. You want awesome sound on a smartphone? My Blackberry kills any Android phone =)
My problem is not so much with the speaker but the headphone volume. I have some ripped TV shows that I watch on my phone but I can barely hear the dialogue in the show because the volume maxes out.
Is there any way to increase the volume on the file during Zune transfer or use another program to recode the file with a louder volume? I used to use smartmovie to convert my shows to a compressed .avi and was able to boost the volume by 150% but can't find that option in Zune.
I have downloaded World MP3and had used that to listen to music. With that program, the Rear Speaker works just fine. There is no problem with hearing anything when I use World MP3 to listen to songs. When I use HTC YouTube, or any Variant of YouTube, the same as everything else, Very Low Rear Speaker. As I had said before, I think that it is either Microsoft with the New OS, HTC with their software, or both. I hope that someone can figure this out and HELP! We want and expect that when we get a Good High End Phone, that there will not be any issues with it that could and would be a Deal Breaker. As per the VERY VERY POOR REAR SPEAKER. Actually, from what I9 had observed myself, it doesn't seem as if it's the Rear Speaker. The HTC hardware seems very solid, but the performance of it when used with Windows Phone 7, SUCKS ROYALLY !!!! The layout took a little to get used to. It's different than Windows Mobile 6.5, which is close to using a PC. I really hope that Microsoft and HTC get together with this issue. If it's this bad on this Reputable Manufactured Phone by HTC, what about the other Windows Phone 7 Phones by any and all other Manufacturers. I just hope that this is a small isolated issue, but I'm beginning to feel that it's a much bigger issue that not too many people are complaining about.
Microsoft and ALL of the Manufacturers of Windows Phone 7 phones should take a much better and closer look into this issue. Microsoft, you are spending Billions into Windows Phone 7 between R&D, Advertising, Distribution, & Support. You don't want an issue like this to make you loose ANY MARKET SHARE AT ALL! You need this to be a HUGE HIT. This could throw a wrench into your plans and cost you dearly. Get this issue fixed.
Fix this issue with the MANGO UPDATE. That gives you enough time to get it fixed.
gd761 said:
I watch SlingPlayer all the time. When I watched it on my Sprint HTC Touch Pro2, I had the phone propped up with the speaker at a 45% angle away from me. It is MUCH LOUDER on the HTC Touch Pro2 than on the HTC Arrive, with the phone in the exact same position. I did not have any tweak's installed at all to make the speaker any louder at all. I just wish that someone would come out with a tweak for making the rear speaker WAY LOUDER!
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I really think it has to do with coding. You can watch previews on flickr, fandango, and through imdb, and flickr and fandango are almost silent at max volume, but imdb (probably pulling previews from the same source) is much louder.
I have found using youtube, that I have to set the volume at 10-15, but with slingplayer, I use it at max volume and it is tolerable, but not as loud as it should be. You might just want to use some headphones.
Games are seriously loud and if they can play the videos that loud, then the other videos should be able to as well.
N8ter said:
That probably has something to do with the fact that the WP7 phones use largely the same hardware with the same drivers.
My vibrant blows any WP7 device out of this world when it comes to sound volume, clarity, and quality.
HTC phones are **** for sound.
Sorry, that's just the way it is, and that's just the way it's always been.
It's not false. I have two of the here and I've played with the Arrive in the Sprint store.
The sound quality is ****.
And that's embarassing seeing as how "Every WP7 device is a ZuneHD" (as per Ballmer).
Give me a Zune App for my Vibrant and I'll never look back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really??? The tp2 had the best speakers of any smartphone I have used for loudness and clarity. I can see the OP being disappointed coming from that phone to the arrive. I had the same adjustment when going from the tp2 to the hd2.
For someone who claimed to be the resident xda vibrant hater, you sure do love that device.
I'm beginning to think that you hate any device you currently use.
I can not wear any headphones while I'm working. I can keep the phone on my desk & watch my SlingBox, but under no circumstances can I use headphones. That would attract too much attention.
tiny17 said:
haha, I'm glad someone else noticed that! I'm in a public setting and so I just want enough sound to know what is going on in my game, and I still feel volume 1 is a little loud.
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I have a slightly different issue with my Arrive. The volume is too low only a certain times. When using earphones while watching video from netflix or any other application, when using the speaker phone.
when playing games the speaker is loud, almost too loud. the speaker phone and ringer are way too low. The alarm is too low.
All of these were very loud on my tp2.
Anyone have an answer for this?