Honor 8 Report 8-25-2016: Listen, can you hear? (AMA)

[lumivalo]

Smartphone speakers are most likely the biggest failure of the smartphone industry. When a smartphone like the HTC One M8 comes out with legitimately high-quality speakers, it quickly gets washed away. And with all the hype on high-bit DACs, it seems like built-in smartphone speakers will never get any love. A "good" smartphone speaker is only mediocre in the grand scheme of things, so keeping that in mind, let's talk about the Honor 8's speaker quality.

It's surprisingly louder than I expected, but sound quality does really start to degrade when you crank it up to the higher levels. A tinny sound starts to emerge around the 75% mark, and 100% is very difficult to cringelessly listen to. However, it is a "good" smartphone speaker, when compared to, for example, the Honor 5X, LG G5 (we shall not mention the modular failure), and the Samsung Galaxy s7, all phones that have good speakers, but could have done it better.

It's 2016, and music is still going strong. OEMs have the capability to make great speakers, so why not include them? Five millimeter thin phones aren't even that comfortable to hold, anyway. Come on, Huawei, Samsung, Apple. We know you can do better than that!

What do you think about the (sad) state of the smartphone speaker? Will it ever get any better, or will it be ignored in the quest for "thin and light"? Voice your opinion in the comments below!

-Lumi Valo

 

[libra89]

I would say that I am disappointed about the sound becoming fuzzy but I'm not an audiophile so I'm indifferent. As long as calls are okay, and playing music from the speakers are okay, I'm fine.
I have come to not expect much from phone speakers. The Nextbit Robin speakers sounded great when I had it, but I just need the basics.

 

[dpham00]

Currently using a Note 7...for $800... The speakers are absolute trash. Luckily, I don't use them for music much, but still it would be nice to have nice front speakers.