Earlier work has shown that the user’s hands have a significant effect on the frequency responses and polar patterns of portable devices such as smartphones and tablets, relevant for both sound playback and sound capture. Measurements using actual users, which led to these results, are valuable for basic research, but practical device design requires both a measurement device that resembles acoustically the user’s hand and a simulation model that can be used for numerical design. This paper discusses the development of a prototype measurement system and related simulation models for design and device testing. Also the effects of user’s hand on conventional telephony usage, especially the effect on handset uplink response, are discussed.
