N900 Videos

Micky at nokiausers.net reviewed the volume and quality of the sound from the N900’s stereo speakers, and compared it to four other Nokia phones: the N97, 5800 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic and N95-1.

Each device is demonstrated in turn, put in the same place, and the same song is played: “Jump” by Van Halen.

The N95-1 goes first. It’s reasonably loud but sounds a bit distorted to me. The N97 is a bit louder, but sounds perhaps fuzzier. The 5530 sounded cleaner to me, although there’s not much in it. Micky reckons the 5800 is the loudest of the devices, and I think it’s probably the cleanest sounding too.

The N900 is almost as loud, and perhaps just slightly more distorted.

Of course when we listen to this video, we are not hearing just the sound of these phones. The sound quality is further degraded by the microphone on the video camera, and by lossy video encoding, and then again by the speakers on which we’re listening.

Despite that, these phones are all way above average for a mobile device with tiny speakers. And of course you can get much better sound quality with a pair of good headphones, or by using the inbuilt FM transmitter (where available).

Micky likes the 5800, but finds the N97 tinny by comparison. He likes the sound of the N95’s speakers, although he feels the output is lower, and the 5530 is bottom of the bunch in his opinion.

As for the N900, he feels that the sound quality is as good as the 5800 although it’s not quite so loud.

So there you have it, Micky and I perceive some of the results differently, but of course he was listening to them live so I’m happy to take his word for it. Either way, the N900’s stereo speakers are sounding pretty good.