Posted on October 2nd, 2009 by Tim Danton

Poll result: 61% of people listen to music on their laptop’s speakers

After being abused and mocked by various colleagues in the PC Pro office, and in particular deputy editor David Fearon, I’m delighted to say that the PC Pro poll has backed up my theory – as detailed in my recent blog, Do you listen to music on your laptop’s speakers?. Turns out the majority of laptop users do precisely that.

To be precise, out of the 303 people who took part in the poll, 72 said they frequently listened, while 112 only listened occasionally.

It’s also notable that the Apple MacBook Pro was particularly praised for its speaker quality; for Windows-based PCs, the closest match appears to be Toshiba laptops with harman/kardon speakers.

If anyone’s looking for a laptop with fine speakers right now, you would be astonishingly wise to pick up the current issue of PC Pro which includes reviews of 22 machines – all of which have been rated for speaker quality, naturally.

Ungracious in defeat, David commented. “I’m not wrong. First past the post wins, and first past the post is ‘never’. I still think it’s a ridiculous idea, and I think the question was rigged in favour of a positive outcome.” He then went off in a sulk.

Tags: laptops, speakers, tim being right and david being wrong

Posted in: Hardware

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6 Responses to “ Poll result: 61% of people listen to music on their laptop’s speakers ”

James Adams Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
303 may pass as a sample size for some new Loreal face removal cream advertised on the telly, but is not considered a suitable sampling size for scientific purposes. Also, you don’t specify how many enjoy the experience or if they do so when they have an alternative.

Music could be interpreted as a soundtrack to a YouTube video or anything, so all in all a bit of a non-article really.
Lise Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Yeah, Tim, bet you feel really silly now. Tch.
Daniel Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
@ James:
It’s a blog post, not an article. I also think it’s a couple of leagues above asking women who’ve been given free beauty products if they “feel their hair is shinier.” People either listen to music on their laptops or they don’t.

I do think that there is an argument that because there are more positive options, the question is slightly biased. However, if most peope don’t listen to music, then the majority would have answered “no.”
Paul G Says:
October 5th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
The questions aren’t great. Just because someone listens to their laptop speakers for music occasionally, doesn’t mean they don’t listen on headphones or with speakers the rest of the time, what proportion of those people fall into that category we’ll never know because the question just isn’t structured in an unambiguous way
Dave Says:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I think most of these criticisms miss the mark. The purpose of the questions was to assess the prevalence of people using the built-in speakers for music. Yes, the questions could have been designed better – that will be true of any subjective investigation. But this is not a formal study. As for 303 not being a big enough number, well what would be? It all depends on the power of the test and an unsubtle difference will not need a large sample size for detection.
Tony Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I listen to music on my HP laptop but not using its tinny speakers.
I plug in good quality headphones. Sounds great!