Las Vegas, USA – Nokia phones have been known for great things over the years, and voice quality is definitely one of them. While some smartphone owners may rave about their phone’s ability to land airplanes, they’ll also complain about the device’s voice quality. After all, a phone’s primary feature is, well, a phone! (Unless you’ve played Angry Birds recently). So how can a phone’s voice quality get even better? With a new audio technology called “HD voice”. Read on to hear more…

First tested in 2006, HD voice enables significantly enhanced audio quality on mobile devices calls. It doubles the audio bandwidth available using an industry specified speech codec called Wideband Adaptive Multirate Speech (WB-AMR) which extends audio bandwidth to 50-7000 Hz, compared with today’s narrowband frequency range of 300-3400 Hz. Higher bandwidth means a clear voice experience with increased naturalness, presence and comfort, better differentiation and intelligibility.

You know how the accent of your friend from Manchester is difficult to understand? Well HD voice won’t help with that. That Mancunian accent is impossible to comprehend (It’s almost as bad as my Baltimorian accent). But HD voice will create a feeling of being closer to the caller as the quality competes with Iinternet based HD voice services.

For HD voice to function, the caller and receiver both need HD voice enabled devices on HD voice enabled networks. According to the GSA, as of November 16, 2010th HD voice service is available on 10 networks across 9 countries including the UK and India. That number should be increasing as HD voice is expected to be adopted as a mainstream technology in the mobile industry for future UMTS and LTE devices.

Nokia’s portfolio includes a slew of15 HD voice devices including the Nokia N8, C7, C6-01, X3-02, and C3-01 in 2010, and will be supported by a vast majority of Nokia devices in 2011 including the Nokia E7. Don’t believe it’s worth it? Check out this audio comparison of two Nokia E5’s on Engadget

It’ll make you a believer. Any of you currently using HD voice? Care to share your thoughts?