Just had a quick look at the N900 Nokia Service Manual, and discovered that there is nothing behind the earpiece hole , the actual earpiece is near the left bottom corner. Just out of interest, why is it designed like this? why not to move the earpiece just behind the hole???

anyone?

see this for details:
http://maemocentral.com/2009/11/30/d...-disassembled/

no idea but i do know that the sound is channeled through the hole as i bought a screen protector some time back without the hole cut out. could only just make out phone calls till i pierced a few holes in the screen protector where the ear piece hole is

holow, thanks for your reply. Interesting, the earpiece is not behind the hole, and the sound is channeled through it. How do they manage that?

anyone?

Maybe it is something to do with noise cancellation?

If the mic was directly behind the hole would it pick up your breathing?

we are talking about the earpiece not the mic, right? Umm, maybe to protect it from dust etc.?

it is just interesting to see it designed like that, still wonder how sound is channeled?

Or maybe its channelled in such a way that amplifies the sound?

Although most likely it just makes sense that as the headphones socket is at the other end that must be where the audio outputs are routed. Why add more traces to the circuit board when you could just keep all audio related stuff there and channel the audio up instead. It has the proximity and light sensors plus the camera to deal with up top, they may have decided it was a tight squeeze.

Alex Atkin UK, thanks for your reply. Will have a look at the teardown video, I think you are right, it may just because the space is tight, and they need space to secure the screen.