HP has been including Beats Audio on their tablets and even laptops for a fair while now, but from today that’s a thing of the past. HP has announced a new partnership with premium audio brand Bang & Olufsen to use their B&O Play audio experience to HP PC’s, Tablets and accessories.
B&O Play includes a dedicated hardware audio processor which includes ‘a dedicated audio island isolates the sensitive audio circuits from other signals on the motherboard’. The hardware refinement also extends to the headphone jack which has limited metal components to prevent any possible issues with grounding.
Software wise, the B&O Play experience includes an audio control panel to allow customers to customise their audio experience manually, or use preset configurations which have been individually tuned by HP and Bang & Olufsen.
Of the new partnership, Paul Gracey, business manager, Personal Systems Category, HP South Pacific said
Audio plays an important role in the experience customers have on their PCs, tablets and accessories whether it’s watching a movie, listening to music or Skyping with friends and family. With their passion and expertise, we are thrilled to work with Bang & Olufsen to create exceptional sound experiences for customers.
While HP has announced that the Bang & Olufsen branding will be used on HP’s Spectre, OMEN, ENVY as well as select commercial PCs, and the B&O Play brand will be used on HP Pavilion PCs, tablets and PC audio accessories, exactly which devices we’ll see using the B&O Play experience hasn’t been announced. But we won’t have to wait too long, with HP advising that the first PC will arrive in May.
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OK. B&O is, at least, a refined, if overpriced product, whereas Apple has bet on a ghetto blaster brand.
I wonder if HP dropped beats or Apple the new owner of beats dropped HP?
I hope that it’s a case of HP having given the Rotten Fruit Co the flick.