6910p asymmetrical speakers?

One major complaint I had with an HP nc6400 I once used was that HP for some unfathomable reason put both speakers on the right side of the notebook. The sound could only be described as asymmetrical. Does the newer 6910p suffer from this same horrible design choice?

The current Quickspecs show the speakers as both being on the right, but the older version shows them on both sides. Which is it?

 

I believe the 6910 comes with mono speakers.

 

it looks like the 6910p has normal speakers...cnet had no cons for the speakers..

edit - yea mono, but they are normally placed. mono is average for a thin/light notebook.

 

HP lists the speakers as being stereo, but it's not clear whether they're placed together or not. I'd be really suprised if they were actually mono...I have the 6910p's predecessor (Evo N620c) which has two great stereo speakers so I really don't want to downgrade much if at all.

This view of the 6910p shows what looks like speakers on both sides, but I'm still confused.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=140343

 

Thanks for the link. Seems HP has continued to make the same design mistakes. That's odd that there are speaker grills on both sides.

 

It's not a design mistake, but just poor layout. They are stereo speakers, but they can't be placed close to the hard disk (which is on the other side) apparently to prevent damage or interference.

 

True but there are other notebooks with a similar hard drive placement that have speakers on both sides of the machine. I've got a Dell Latitude C640 sitting on my desk that has a speaker right next to the hard drive.

 

To be honest guys its a business laptop that just needs to put out the odd sound for powerpoint or general warning sounds. The placement of the speakers may be odd but they are fairly decent for the configuration and loud.

 

It's a poor design. End of story.

Basically, that's something that I hated about the previous nc6400... And if HP has some kind of retarded explanation as to way both speakers (they are stereo, btw) are on the right side, I don't want to hear it in the same why I didn't want to hear Lenovo's crap about the off-centered screens. Apparently, there are idiots in every company... nothing to do about it.

Also, I don't agree with stereotypes that business notebooks should have poor speakers, that's the same to say that consumer notebooks should be made of cheap plastic and have flexing keyboards... Obviously, people who buy business notebooks have the same ears as those who buy consumer ones, at least from my experience with people in general...lol

Of course, my business-class notebook doesn't have poor but actually almost excellent speakers for a notebooks, but that's a different story...

 

Does it affect the sound though? That's my only concern. I couldn't care less where the speakers are placed as long as they produce balanced sound (ie it doesn't sound like everything is coming from the right side).

This is how to design a notebook with proper speakers:



As you can see, this machine has the speakers above the keyboard where they will not be affected by what surface the notebook is on or muffled by your hands when typing. And it's an HP/Compaq design. Not sure why they decided to move the speakers to a worse location on newer models.

 

No problems with the speakrs on my 6910p. In fact they are good enough when watching DVDs and loud enough for my liking. What i care about is underneath and the build QC, not the speakers.

 

But is the sound noticably off center?

 

Not from normal usage distance. Yes if you place your ears close to the position of the speakers.

 

That shouldn't be much of a problem then...I can't think of any reason why I'd put my ears that close to the speakers while using the machine.

 

I checked this on a friend's 6910p. The speakers are stereo and the sound is clearly asymmetrical, and I find this quite annoying!

I am currently trying to find out whether the 8510p has the same issue, since its hard disk is also located in a corner at the front of the laptop. If anyone knows, please post!

 

I checked my 8510p, see my reply in the thread in question!

 

Thank you Ackeron!

For everyone else who is interested: Ackeron's reply is here.

 

I was also wondering why the sounds seems like to be coming out of only the right side of my 8510p.

 

The whole thing about the HDD location makes no sense to me. I've got a Dell Latitude C640 sitting next to me and its speakers are right next to the hard drive and I've never had any issues. Hopefully HP corrects this problem on the next generation of their business notebooks.

 

You can hope, but it's really a non-issue as far as business notebooks are concerned. The vast majority of customers have not reported any issues with this design, but then again, almost no one uses the built-in speakers in typical business usage. It's really not noticeable unless you're close to the speakers, but why would you do that?

If I'm not mistaken, the newly-released dv3000 also has speakers placed in this configuration.

 

I wonder why it suddenly became an issue to have properly spaced speakers next to the hard drive. Many machines in the past had two speakers on the front spaced out properly or had the speakers above or to the sides of the keyboard. The Dell Latitude E6400 looks like it has one speaker on each side of the keyboard which is the ideal layout for a widescreen notebook.