HTC, in an effort to prove to the mobile world that it was far from being forgotten, released the HTC One earlier this year. The release of this device received a widely popular reaction, mostly due to its unique design for an Android device. The material used to design the device, aluminum, is what many considered a welcome change in a world full of Androids that primarily uses polycarbonate as housing. But aside from the change in material used to house the device, the HTC One brought another interesting change when it comes to smartphone design: front-facing speakers. Two of them.

Sound has often been an issue in small devices. Even with larger smartphones, which are still considerably small compared to larger tech like flat screen televisions and computers, it's hard to really fit in a big speaker that gives off decent sound without taking up space for something else that could be seen as being more important: battery life, better camera and a bigger screen; all of these things are features that would seem like they would take precedence over something as minor as sound quality.

But as it turns out, sound quality actually does play a very important role in the features that people want to see in a smartphone. Audio company Dolby and Parks Associates conducted a study that questioned whether consumers used sound quality as a factor in determining what device to purchase. Although the numbers were already high of people who agreed that sound was important, the study took it a step further by asking the question to participants twice: once before they heard sound improvements in smartphones and tablets, and once after they heard improvements in smartphones and tablets. The study claims that consumers expected smartphones to have bad sound quality in their smartphones and tablets, but after hearing the improvements that the company could make to mobile audio quality the number of people who found sound quality to be important suddenly went up.

From the article, "Front-facing speakers should be the norm" by Anna Scantlin.

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