[Lenovo Phab 2 Questions & Answers] dskippy:
Check, Check, 1, 2, 1,2 - Mic issue - Otherwise pretty good phone

I have mine since 12/6 (just under a week).

Likes: Big Screen. Quality screen. I'm coming from a 1080P display and it's a 720P, but I have to say, it's bright, colors are good. Very clear. Good for consuming media and as a remote terminal (for Citrix/RDS). 32 GB of internal storage. Reasonably responsive. Not much of a gamer.

Dis-Likes: Microphone disconnecting. Camera. Teflon-like slickness of case. MicroSD Card caddy - cannot read my card.

OK, after long, obsessive deliberation on my next new phone, I ended up with this phone. It was a long and winding road to end up a place I didn't expect to be. I was originally intent on purchasing the Zenfone 3 Ultra. But since the fine folks at Asus, didn't want to a put a radio on this model that would get 4G/LTE speeds (in the U.S.) AND being that I use my phone for hotspot and pay for the data bandwidth, I wanted the ability to realize that bandwidth when hotspotted in on a notebook. So, I decide on the Phab2 Pro, but purchasing through the portal seemed like "unavailable", "ships in 5 weeks", "ships in 3 weeks" etc......So, around Thanksgiving, as I'm checking in on the Pro, I see that the Phab 2 is available for $30 bucks off the pretty low $200. I think to myself "What if I'm only in love w/ the idea of a big phone and not the reality of a big phone?". My phone prior was the Moto X Pure (great value, love the phone) 5.7" display. Pretty big, but not this big. So, I figure, a buck 70? why not? If I don't like it, it can be a tablet/lifeboat for the next keg-tub diving non-waterproof phone incident where I need an emergency phone. Again, it can be a tablet on my sofa console.

So, I purchase it. It comes. The first thing I noticed was the slipperiness of the phone. It's a big phone, that I thought I'd be able to single hand (I'm 6'3" w/ ham hands, not-petite). I cannot. At the fear of breaking a new (though reasonably priced) toy, I heir on the side of cautious and I operate w/ both. So, I figure, I'll just "OK Google" dial and use earpods. I quickly find out (believe) that "OK Google" exacerbates a microphone issue. Not sure if the process being spawned has enough rights, holds on to the application, causes a memory leak, or what. But if you "OK Google" dial, it will (*may*) lead to the mic becoming unresponsive and playing the "I can't hear you game". I will be the first to admit that phones are phones anymore. They are computers that you can also make and receive phone calls from *BUT* the phone functionality is still a pretty necessary element of these handheld computers. So, hopefully Lenovo will get this sorted out in Nougat, or maybe they paid short shrift to bug squashing on Marshmallow knowing they were quickly going to Nougat. But the mic issue definitely not great.

I did some testing and found that I could reliabley place calls 10 times in a row (mic connected) manually, then 10 w/ google while it was unlocked, then 9 out of 10 w/ google dialing while phone was locked.

I followed this up w/ 40 manual dials where the mic was always connected. I was pretty sure the mic issue was related to OK Google (voice command), but then I let it sit overnight (last night), and found that w/o any OK Google, the mic disconnected on the phone. (That's why I'm thinking maybe memory leak, as OK Google might exacerbate the problem, not cause it). Reboot fixes this; but they need to get this squared away or it could create some negative buzz around an otherwise pretty nice little (ok, big) value phone.