We took a trip to L.I.T to do an experiment using real sound measuring devices to test how loud the speakers on our phones were.
The aim was to see if there was a discernible difference between the volume put out by two different makes of phones.
Phone A: Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini.
Phone B: HTC Desire.
We thought that the fact that the HTC wasn't as old as the Samsung and that both speakers on the HTC were facing the same way and on the Samsung they were facing opposite directions, the HTC would be louder.
1) Take one sound meter and put it lying flat 1 foot (thirty centimetres) away from the phone.
2) Take phone A and hold it upright with the speaker facing the sound meter.
3) Play ringtone and record the results.
4) Take phone B and repeat last two steps.
5) Repeat steps 2 to 4 with a constant tone of 1000Hz generated with the app Pro Audio Tone Generator.
6) Repeat steps 2 to 4 with a constant tone of 500Hz generated with the app Pro Audio Tone Generator.
The results with the ringtone were inconclusive as they weren't the same ringtones. That is why we played the tones of 1000 Hz and 500 Hz. They showed that the HTC was not louder than the Samsung but that they were pretty much spot on so our original hypothesis was incorrect.