Super-loud $150 boombox phone gives my $1,500 Galaxy S24 Ultra a valuable (music) lesson

The Nubia Music comes with two important features, which might be the only two reasons why it exists: the first is actually not one but two headphone jacks for listening to music through wired headphones and sharing your experience with a friend.

Despite the lack of “Pro“, “Max” or “Ultra” in the name, Nubia Music's second notable feature is a real “party trick” that I wish my Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 8 Pro and iPhone had 15 Pro Max know. how to achieve – a “speaker 6 times louder (compared to your average smartphone)”.

In case you're wondering, those who have had the chance to hear the speaker sound in a noisy environment (at MWC) claim that it does indeed sound much louder than a set of speakers from conventional smartphone.

Now, let's be honest… Nubia Music will most likely be forgotten shortly after you finish reading this article, but it's a great conversation starter for a story I've been meaning to write for a while now – one about the mediocrity of smartphones . the speakers are…

When they don't need to be!

Listening to music on my Galaxy S24 Ultra, my iPhone 15 Pro Max and my Pixel 8 Pro: Apple wins but progress in smartphone sound quality should be much greater

I've generally been “satisfied but unimpressed” with the sound of my flagship phones for a while now, but for the purposes of this story I had to put my impressions to the test.

And after listening to a lot of music on my Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 8 Pro And iPhone 15 Pro Max back to back (you can do this by changing the output device in your Spotify player), including some original tracks I produced, my first impressions were as follows:

• New Galaxy S24 Ultra is loud (which is great) and sounds good for a phone, but it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to soundstage, bass, overall “richness” and instrument separation.

• Surprisingly, the Pixel 8 Pro this seems worse than I remember from a few months ago, and my device suffered no physical damage; Google's flagship is quieter, more muscular, and overall the least impressive “speaker phone” of the three.

• On the other hand, it's the Phone 15 Pro Max that sounds the best to my ear, which isn't really surprising given that its predecessors were already ahead in terms of sound quality; the 15 Pro Max sounds fuller, richer, warmer, and easily puts out the most bass out of the three, which is actually impressive (for a mainstream flagship phone)

$1,000 flagship phones don't need to have mediocre speakers, but phone makers continue to ignore sound

Ultimately, while the essential elements and aspects of the smartphone have seen incremental and indisputable advancements over time (design, display, camera, processing power, endurance), most phone makers seem to ignore the efforts deployed to make their phones sound good. And that doesn't suit me.

As someone who likes to listen to music directly from my phone (I don't own an external Bluetooth speaker, unless you count my Google Nest Mini), I can't help but find this a bit insulting – especially when that too applies to the multiple $1,000+ flagship phones sitting on my desk.

When listening to music today, people consume tons of content on their phones, which could just as much benefit from a great set of speakers: you have YouTube videos, movies, podcasts and more. sure… Even TikTok.

What would it take for Apple, Samsung and Google to give us flagship phones with great sounding speakers? I think I have the ideal solution!

So… What would it take for consumer phone speakers to (finally) go to the next level, and is that a realistic upgrade to expect?

For starters, yes, good speakers on expensive phones are 100% a realistic expectation! That being said, there are obvious limits to how “amazing” phone speakers can sound with the current design and technology the phones work with.

Still, I can think of a few practical ideas that don't require your iPhone or Android to turn into a tablet to sound better:

• Mainstream phone makers should take a cue from gaming phones like the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, which features a spectacular-sounding dual-speaker array with big drivers and full bass thanks to large bass chambers.

• Four speakers instead of two? The two additional speakers can be located on the top and bottom, or even on the sides of the phone for a spatial and surround sound effect.

• Make more foldable phones, which have more room to work and create fuller sound; improve current foldable phone speakers?

• Last but not least, let's not forget Nubia Music (which is the inspiration for this article); Of course, having a single rear speaker wouldn't be a perfect solution, but what if we had a large rear speaker in addition to two “regular” stereo speakers? This way, you can use them all depending on the type of media you consume and whether your phone is lying flat on the table or not!

Either way… I have a feeling that Apple will continue to be the “leader” in making the most consistent advancements in speaker sound on non-gaming flagship phones. And it's not just because the iPhone has historically had relatively better speakers than Android flagships.

Apple has another unique incentive to improve the multimedia experience on the iPhone, namely the Vision Pro headset, which (just like the iPhone) is capable of capturing spatial video. Of course, part of every stellar video is (or at least should be) stellar audio, and that could motivate Apple to further improve the speakers in the iPhone 16 series (and beyond).

Getting very close to the exit of the VisionPro headphones, we've heard rumors of new, significantly improved microphones coming. iPhone16 Pro, which is another aspect of the audio and media experience that Apple and Android shouldn't ignore.

Anyway, if phone makers can find the space to fit 3-5 cameras on the back of a phone, with huge camera bumps, I'm sure they can create room for much better speakers!