Audio

Just moved from a Dell XPS 1640 to a 2011 MacBook Pro, must say I am very underwhelmed with the audio performance compared to the Dell.

 

Audio performance in which way? The on-board speakers, the digital audio output capabilities, the analog audio output capabilities, or nothing gives you that warm fuzzy feeling like a record player with analog parts does? If you're going to be "underwhelmed" by something, the least you can do is be specific.

 

On board speakers

 

Really? FFS, they're on-board speakers. Every single laptop I have ever used or owned over the last 12 years has had terrible on-board speakers. Even my Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2, which had a built-in subwoofer, was pretty bad. My friend's current Dell XPS also has a built-in "subwoofer" and the whole setup is about on par with my 2012 15" MBP. Just to clarify: when I say on par, I mean both sound pretty bad. On-board speakers for notebooks have always been made to just get the job done. Want something more serious? Buy a $10 pair of headphones and plug them in.

 

Just because they're inboard doesn't mean they should be bad.
As I said, the ones on my XPS were pretty good, just surprised at the inferior quality of the apple ones.

 

MacBooks currently have the best soundcards in laptops. You should make use of that by using headphones or external speakers. I can understand why you are disappointed, I rely heavily on the built-in speakers as well, but that is also why I check this sort of thing before buying a notebook. That said, my ThinkPad X301 doesn't come short of decent speakers.

Bigger laptops usually have better speakers. I'm guessing you have the 13 inch model?

 

But it also doesn't mean you should expect the same performance as a 2.1 dedicated system. I highly doubt the ones in your XPS were actually better than the speakers in your 15" MBP. They may have been positioned or tuned differently (or have a louder setup) but both systems have very, very similar setups (two bigger speakers, a bigger "subwoofer"). Even then, on-board speakers should not decide be a deciding factor or even deter someone from buying a notebook. It's OK not kind of brush them off but I really don't see a point in making a whole post just when you're comparing one "crap" setup to another (in terms of on-board speakers).

 

The Dell XPS series (at least the XPS L5 series, in my experience) has exceptionally good speakers, complete with subwoofer. Most laptops don't have this. The Mac speakers are good for laptop speakers. They get loud enough and the sound is directed enough at the user. Could they be better? Sure, but it would also probably mean the laptop wouldn't be as thin. I rarely use on-board speakers except to show my friends YouTube videos, so I can sacrifice a little speaker quality (which is really no worse than most other laptops' speaker quality) for thinness.

 

"Subwoofer" It's nothing more than bigger speaker, it isn't actually a dedicated subwoofer. The standard 15" MacBook Pro, which is what the OP has, features a "subwoofer" too. Even then, saying that a notebook has a good set of on-board speakers is fine but they are still not going to be anything extraordinary. A $20 pair of earbuds will be a better solution no matter how good a notebook's on-board speakers are. That's my point. I just don't see a need to make this type of thread when we all know that every notebook out there has mediocre on-board speakers. There is a varying degree of "crap" quality but they are all still "crap" nonetheless.