While people are busy comparing OSes and No of Apps, does anyone realize that the latest top phones such as HTC Desire HD, Samsung Galaxy S, SE Xperia X10 (including most if not all Android Phones), the Apple Iphone4, Nokia N8 all only have mono loudspeaker while the Nokia N900 has stereo loudspeakers. As far as i can remember, most if not all NSeries devices featured Stereo loudspeakers such as N73 and N95, and i simply cannot accept N8 to be the first NSeries with mono....

In fact i insist on getting smartphone with stereo loudspeakers only which was one of the reasons i chose the N900. The difference between mono and stereo is so huge and can hardly be ignored when you play music, video and ringtones. People may argue that they prefer to use wired or bluetooth headset and loudspeakers mean little to them but i think that is absurd unless they keep wearing their headset 24/7. Having stereo quality speakers means better sharing of media entertainment with others. At least I'm happy that my ringtone sounds much better than those with mono.

Stereo speakers, what, 3 inches apart?

Hmmmmm...

seriously, considering the "quality" of phone speakes, not having stereo is the smallest problem. My mono Tivoli radio sounds 1000X better than the n900 stereo speakers.

Get a good powered speaker for your phone.

Yeah, and pointed away from each other, and typically only inches away from the face. The stereo effect works well, what's your point?

The OP says "Having stereo quality speakers means better sharing of media entertainment with others" which means you have to be all snogging each other to be able to all "enjoy" the stereo

Having stereo is good, but not that good.

Agreed. The space/cost/weight would be better spent elsewhere in the phone.

i like the stereo in n900.
listening something like Beatles Remastered, that uses heavly the stereo feature, is a pleasure

Stereo speakers on a phone is what I like to call "Nice but no deal breaker". As long as a movie and ringtones sounds "decent" than im happy. But I dont listen to much audio from my phone like that as is. So meh

Very timely post for me;

I fired up my old 6210 Navigator this morning in readiness for sale and compared the sound quality with my N900.

Interestingly, the mono-speaker on the 6210 plays music with greater overall clarity, IMO.

However, ringtones and system sounds (I have SciFi SFX activated by the slide, lock and unlock courtesy of Lockdaemon) all sound far better on N900.

Speech, especially stereo speech with alternate voices from each speaker sounds better on the N900 as do 'doppler effect'-type sounds like cars speeding past, etc.

Stereo speakers are definately better for me, but are not the 'must have' I once thought they were.

Not to mention that the voice produced from stereo speaker is much better and louder particularly when answering phone call with loudspeaker