Comparing Rubbish to Garbage.

After reading through a few scathing reviews of the new HP Touchpad I was surprised at a comment about the "Beats Audio" quality on its teeny built in speaker.  I mean why bother trying to improve internal tablet speakers? On my iPad 1 the internal audio sounds like crap but I don't care. It's good for the occasional bleeps & bloops, notification chimes and the sort. It's even ok as the worlds clunkiest mobile phone handset (using Skype or VoIP). For music it's awful, and that's fine by me. If I listen to music I use headphones.

Voice coil speakers by nature are large beasts.  They require carefully tuned enclosures to get them sounding right. They consist of multiple drivers as each driver will have a resonant frequency or sweet spot.

My iPad one year later

Fujitsu Stylistic 1200, 4lbs of meh

I bought an iPad 1 when it first came to Canada in the Summer of 2010. I instantly recognized its potential as soon as it was announced in the US. I've been working with tablet computers in the hospital field for well over a decade and they were simply put just an awful bag of rubbish. From poor battery life to mediocre displays that required a stylus on an OS that was never meant to be used with a touchscreen.