ValantarHave to love that even this behemoth of a "laptop" has bottom-firing speakers. Could they really not find somewhere to put these where they actually face the user?

ValantarHave to love that even this behemoth of a "laptop" has bottom-firing speakers. Could they really not find somewhere to put these where they actually face the user?

INSTG8RI’m sure audio is pretty low on the intended customers considerations.

ZeDestructorNot really. Anywhere else is more motherboard, or vents for the most part. If you want top mounted speakers, that means adding an extra 1-2 inches to one laptop width or depth.

ValantarSure, but "audio that isn't garbage" is obviously part of the design thinking given that they bothered to give it a """subwoofer""". Not to mention that it might be low on their list of considerations, but that doesn't mean that they dont care, just that they don't think of it until afterwards and then have to buy speakers or headphones. Everyone cares about audio. I'm not talking audiophile-level homeopathic audio quality feels, but having sound that's actually passably full-range and able to reproduce speech or music somewhat faithfully. It really isn't too much to ask, given that Apple manages this in 13" thin-and-light laptops ...

btarunrThese processors are LGA 1151 socket-based, allowing for future upgrades to next-generation processors once they are available.

ValantarSure, but "audio that isn't garbage" is obviously part of the design thinking given that they bothered to give it a """subwoofer""". Not to mention that it might be low on their list of considerations, but that doesn't mean that they dont care, just that they don't think of it until afterwards and then have to buy speakers or headphones. Everyone cares about audio. I'm not talking audiophile-level homeopathic audio quality feels, but having sound that's actually passably full-range and able to reproduce speech or music somewhat faithfully. It really isn't too much to ask, given that Apple manages this in 13" thin-and-light laptops ...

Not true. Where the motherboard is and isn't in the case is a design choice, and there's nothing saying it's somehow better to have it in this exact shape than one where you can place the speakers next to the keyboard. If they placed it next to the caps lock-to-control keys and numpad Enter key, the amount components moved on the motherboard would be tiny. I get that cramming this as tightly as an ultrabook would make it either ridiculously expensive (well, more than it already is) and more likely for something to fail, there's still plenty of free space. Heck, they could just place the drivers wherever is practical and run a resonance chamber to where they want them to output sound. This works perfectly in thin-and-lights, so why not here? This speaks of cheap, poor engineering, and not taking the total product package into consideration when designing the individual components.

INSTG8ROh I absolutely agree, audio is very important to me but in laptop applications it’s always going to be sub par/limited in most cases because of space and size. But this is a workstation with emphasis on productivity rather than entertainment. Audio is not really high in the design choice as we can clearly see by their implementation. I totally agree with you but this isn’t a gaming laptop where you expect audio to be of decent quality. I didn’t notice the Sub. My ancient now dead Turion X2 laptop had a “sub” too. Neat idea but it certainly didn’t actually produce anything considered bass. What it did have though was a headphone/optical combo Jack that made up for it so I would run it to my amp and use it as a DJ station bypassing the passable audio altogether as per your point about seeking out better audio solutions.

ZeDestructorOn the sides, you have the mobo/daughterboard housing the various connectors, half the heatsinks' fin stacks and the vent. Putting speakers there would completely block thing off because of how thick speakers are.

If you want it above the keyboard (like in my M4800), that either cuts into mobo space, or forces you to flip the mobo over so that the main component area is sandwiched between the keyboard and mobo, rather than between the mobo and bottom panel.

Sure, where the motherboard is and how it's shapred are design choices, but there is no option that lets you get everything. There's always a tradeoff, and for this machine, they chose to have bottom-firing speakers in order to have more accessible components and better thermal design (shorter heatpipes and double fan/heatsink exhaust). On my M4800, they put the speakers above the keyboard, but in order to do that, CPU, GPU, mobo and heatsink access are only possible after removing the keyboard and palmrest, a somewhat annoying 15minute endeavour. At least with my M4800 I get a much tougher chassis in exchange...



If you're listening to audio in a laptop, odds are you're indeed listening using headphones, and/or better external speakers. Built-in speakers then become the last resort.

ZeDestructorIf you're listening to audio in a laptop, odds are you're indeed listening using headphones, and/or better external speakers. Built-in speakers then become the last resort.

Xx Tek Tip xXDId intel even confirm 10th gen will be on lga 1151?

Durvelle27Holy hell

This is like the best laptop specs I’ve ever seen

ValantarThis is a classic "chicken or egg"-type issue. People have external audio devices because the built-in stuff is crap, and the built-in stuff stays crap because people have external audio devices. Still, as I said before, Apple has shown plenty of times that you can have good audio in a tiny package if you have engineers worth their snuff and bother to do more than glue a speaker to a convenient part of the chassis. Sure, this would probably add ... $10-20 to the parts cost, for a proper custom resonance chamber? Don't think you'd notice that next to your Xeon and Quadro, though. It's such a small thing, yet it would make for a serious quality-of-life improvement for anyone stuck without better speakers or headphones.

ValantarAlso, audio isn't just for gaming or media consumption. Video editing? Animation and voice dubbing? Other media production involving audio? Of course we won't get studio monitor-quality speakers in there, but having "not-crap" audio is really a minimum requirement for something like this.

ValantarAlso, what you're saying about the layout is not true. I/O can (ought to? makes for better repairability) be moved to daughterboards connected with flex cables. This would likely make the motherboard cheaper to manufacture, and would allow for more freedom in shaping the motherboard and placing components.

ValantarYou're right that the top doesn't make sense for speakers (there's room in the centre, but that kills stereo separation,

Valantarand squeezing it above the heatpipes seems impractical, although it could be done with drivers mounted centrally and resonance chambers leading the sound to the sides), but with a laptop this thick there should be zero problem sandwiching a resonance chamber between the side I/O and the keyboard surround, with the speaker placed slightly off to the side. And a laptop speaker like the two we see here is not thick - a few mm including its casing, unless they're using something extra beefy. And even if they were thick, careful placement and a well-designed resonance chamber leading to outlets next to the keyboard would make this no problem at all. Look at the 15" MBP - the speaker drivers are significantly removed from where the audio exits the resonance chamber. And I'm willing to bet that small thin-and-light 15" sounds far superior to this 17" monstrosity.

ZeDestructorPS: resonance chambers are primarily used to improve sound quality of the speakers (particularly bass response), not to make them fit a chassis. The fact it lets you mount your driver away from the sound outlet is just a side benefit, really.

ZeDestructorBecause ultimately no matter how good your engineers are, physics says no. To get good, high-quality audio over the entirety of the human audible range, you need a driver (and often enclosure too) that's large enough for your intended space and loudness. Low-frequencies in open air in particular demand a large driver unless you get a super-sealed enclosure like headphones of some sort.

ZeDestructorThe cheap, portable way to get compact studio monitor quality audio is to get a decent pair of headphones. Or just plugging in studio monitors when in your usual workspace.

ZeDestructorOverall it costs more: every extra cable, connector and daughter board adds a cost. Not just the cost of the parts, but also the cost of engineering, and the cost of a higher failure rate from having more connectors. If you use daughterboards, it costs more than just a single board. Flex cables? even more!

ZeDestructorDepends on where exactly you put the speaker: most speakers are less than 20mm diameter and round, so they can be centred, or they can be put at the extreme edges.

ZeDestructorBetween the edge of the laptop and the keyboard, there is a finstack and heatpipe array (see picture 3). Putting a speaker or resonance chamber outlet there would easily cut 5mm of finstack height, and that matters when you're trying to cool >300W of heat.

ZeDestructorAs a sidenote, the whole speaker + resonance chamber assembly of my phone is about 4mm thick. The one in my laptop is even thicker. On that note, have you considered that they are using resonance techniques extensively already? Both of those speaker and that "subwoofer" have resonance chambers behind em, and being bottom-mounted, will take advantage of hard surfaces to reflect sounds upwards to the listener.

ValantarWell, this throwaway comment turned into a whole thing. Oh well. Let's see.


I/O daughterboards can be used across models. Smart design saves by making parts interchangeable. The savings from this can by far outstrip the extra cost from the design over time. Flex cables cost a few cents in bulk, as do their connectors. Otherwise, it's the same hardware just on another, small PCB, and the motherboard becomes slightly cheaper and less complex to boot.

The extreme edges are likely taken up by the hinge assembly. Moving parts holding a lot of weight need space. So that likely won't work. Also, the extreme edges would be beihind the LCD :p

There's visibly open space beneath the lower heatpipes on both sides, and plenty of open space between the USB ports and keyboard edges. No need to interfere with or shrink anything, just pack stuff more densely. Or they could integrate the resonance chamber into the structure of the wrist rest. Shouldn't be too hard, and would have the added benefit of some more structural rigidity.

You see resonance chambers, I see the bog-standard "we glued a driver to part of the plastic inner frame" design approach. I might be wrong, but I'm doubtful. I've seen too many utter-crap laptop speaker designs to assume otherwise. As for bouncing sound off surfaces, that's theoretically an okay idea, it's just that the case is still blocking the sound from reaching your ears directly (unless you're seated leaning really far back), dramatically lowering volume and potentially distorting the audio.

Tl;dr: they really could have made more of an effort on this. That's really all I'm saying.