So I had 4 smartphones, all loan units, with me at the same time. And I told myself, how about comparing the camera quality? So I did, bringing 4 phones everywhere I go, taking 4 photos of the same scene. Friends and families saw me doing this “stunt”, and I told them, “Yes, it’s not easy being a product reviewer.”
While that article is working in progress, I thought, how about comparing something else that interests audio lovers? So in this article, I shall compare the built-in loudspeakers.
I won’t sugar coat my thoughts with lengthy English sentences. People love watching video reviews than reading blogs, have short attention span (I think by this paragraph, half of you would have left the webpage). I don’t like to create videos (my daughter does, for personal entertainment), so here’s a summary of each smartphone’s impression:
Huawei P10 Plus
– Delivers clearest treble
– Overall audio sounds less compressed
– Offers best musical quality thanks to the utilisation of the bottom speaker for the mids and the top ear speaker for the highs in portrait mode.
– Under landscape mode, speakers deliver separate channels, but due to different speaker properties, one of the speakers could only deliver highs while the other delivers mids.
HTC U11
– Sufficient highs without too brittle, good midrange for fullness
– Best balance between musicality and loudness
– Least compressed
HTC U11 full review (coming soon)
OnePlus 5
– Delivers the loudest but harshest audio delivered by mono speaker
– Sounds the most compressed
Samsung Galaxy S8
– Delivers the best midrange audio via it’s single speaker
– The high frequencies are sibilant and can sound annoying at loud volumes
In short, the OnePlus 5 is very aggressive in delivering volume, but least refined. Samsung Galaxy S8 sounds warmer, fuller, but when the volume cranks up, loses the cool. HTC U11 maintains its quality with well-tuned audio balance. Huawei P10 Plus is equally impressive with crispier highs. In landscape mode, the 2 speakers play in different channels.
Among the smartphones reviews, I would give credit to Huawei P10 Plus for its better delivery of the high frequency and ability to switch from mono to stereo channels to achieve unique audio experience for both portrait and landscape use.