News - Beats Electronics buys back shares from HTC, firm failed to cough-up

[HEXUS]

HTC's shaky position and lack of financial clout lost the firm its majority share.

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[miniyazz]

Maybe if they restarted putting microSD card slots in their phones it would help matters!

[Brewster0101]

Maybe if they restarted putting microSD card slots in their phones it would help matters!

And stop using naff under powered batteries in their phones.

When Samsung are kicking out such perfect devices, HTC can't cut corners - which is what they are doing.

[Jingee]

A gimmicky brand to have for HTC, especially when there are other problems for them currently.

[Biscuit]

Whats with the HTC bashing :/ I love my One X! Battery isnt the best, but its alright and i havent once wished i had an SD slot so far.

Beats is pointless though, im pretty sure its just a dynamic EQ!

[crossy]

Whats with the HTC bashing :/ I love my One X! Battery isnt the best, but its alright and i havent once wished i had an SD slot so far.

My eldest traded up to a One S at the weekend, and I've got to say that I'm quite impressed. If that's how quick a "midrange" phone is then the One X must be real turbo-phone. In which case I couldn't help thinking that I probably would have been happy to have it - if it wasn't for the fixed battery.

Hope HTC come out of the doldrums, if for no other reason than if they fail then I'm going to look like a right chump for recommending the One S!

Maybe Microsoft can make an investment - after all aren't HTC the "other" Windows phone maker (other than Nokia of course).

Beats on the other hand ... meh.

[Biscuit]

I think the One S is generally (in benchmarks at least) faster than the One X, the One X just has the most glorious screen ever though!

Everything about Beats is crap tbh, the headphones sound terrible aswell!

[HalloweenJack]

LOL at the story - read this yesterday and amazingly the spin was the other way around - for example:

http://www.cnet.com.au/htc-selling-b...-339340893.htm

In April, an HTC product executive alluded to how unsuccessful this experiment has been for the company, telling CNET, "an accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone".

seems like HTC offloaded Beats shares before they dropped even more in value....

[wombat]

Ahh Beats...the puffy jacket of the headphone world. Style is one thing and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for the price they should at least sound half decent (not from any reviews I've seen).

[cheesemp]

Whats with the HTC bashing :/ I love my One X! Battery isnt the best, but its alright and i havent once wished i had an SD slot so far.

Beats is pointless though, im pretty sure its just a dynamic EQ!

Yes it is - On XDA someone has extracted it from a HTC phone and made it available to install on other phones (for example my Samsung note). Haven't bothered myself.

[crossy]

LOL at the story - read this yesterday and amazingly the spin was the other way around - for example:

http://www.cnet.com.au/htc-selling-b...-339340893.htm
In April, an HTC product executive alluded to how unsuccessful this experiment has been for the company, telling CNET, "an accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone".

seems like HTC offloaded Beats shares before they dropped even more in value....

Problem - as I see it - is that Beats only really works "properly" if you've got a Beats-enabled audio source connected to Beats head/ear-phones. And since Beats headphones are definitely "premium" priced I can understand why someone with a Beats phone isn't going to run out to spend 1/3 cost of the phone on some 'cans.

Ahh Beats...the puffy jacket of the headphone world. Style is one thing and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for the price they should at least sound half decent (not from any reviews I've seen).

I note also that HP - who were/are a Beats licensee - also seem to be not pushing the tech as much as they used to in their laptops. The "Features Beats audio" has been a long way down the spec list of the machines I've looked at.

[Biscuit]

Problem - as I see it - is that Beats only really works "properly" if you've got a Beats-enabled audio source connected to Beats head/ear-phones. And since Beats headphones are definitely "premium" priced I can understand why someone with a Beats phone isn't going to run out to spend 1/3 cost of the phone on some 'cans.

I dont buy it, its just words. There is no 'beats enabled' headphones.... they are just headphones. They convert the electrical signal into vibrations, thats it.... unless there is any evidence of the contrary?

I would put my bayerdynamics up against any set of beats headphones, both on style and quality of sound.



(p.s. this is not me)

[Animus404]

I wouldn't be swayed from one product to the other based upon Beats branding. Infact imho the more discreet the branding the better.

Also, I've always been quite happy with my Sennheiser headphones.

[crossy]

I dont buy it, its just words. There is no 'beats enabled' headphones.... they are just headphones. They convert the electrical signal into vibrations, thats it.... unless there is any evidence of the contrary?

The gen I've got here is that the Beats headphones are carefully tuned and that tuning is designed to match the similar "tuning" that the Beats branded hardware gets. Personally I think that sounds like a complete load ...

I would put my bayerdynamics up against any set of beats headphones, both on style and quality of sound.

Ditto - and I'm VERY sure that my DT660's - while not top of range - will be "better" than the Beats gear. Apart from anything else the Beats gear seems to feature noise cancellation pretty heavily, which of course the Beyer's don't need because of their construction. NC sets always leave me with the suspicion that the NC technology might be a bit too aggressive and end up deleting sound components rather than only background noise. No, the Sony and JVC (one in-ear, the other over-ear) sets I've got are good, but I much prefer my Shure 535 and Beyerdynamic DT660's respectively. And if that makes me a snob in some folks eyes, then so be it.

(p.s. this is not me)

DT770's - nice! Oh, it's not you, shame ... I was going to say how cute you looked! (lol)

[Biscuit]

The gen I've got here is that the Beats headphones are carefully tuned and that tuning is designed to match the similar "tuning" that the Beats branded hardware gets. Personally I think that sounds like a complete load ...

Yeah, 100% marketing bollocks. Im sure they have emplyed some good people to work on them, im not convinced enough of the budget goes on actual sound development rather than style though.

Ditto - and I'm VERY sure that my DT660's - while not top of range - will be "better" than the Beats gear. Apart from anything else the Beats gear seems to feature noise cancellation pretty heavily, which of course the Beyer's don't need because of their construction. NC sets always leave me with the suspicion that the NC technology might be a bit too aggressive and end up deleting sound components rather than only background noise. No, the Sony and JVC (one in-ear, the other over-ear) sets I've got are good, but I much prefer my Shure 535 and Beyerdynamic DT660's respectively. And if that makes me a snob in some folks eyes, then so be it.

Yeah im not sure about noise cancelling, i think it has its place (aeroplane or train) but i much prefer to just block it out as much as possible in most cases.

DT770's - nice! Oh, it's not you, shame ... I was going to say how cute you looked! (lol)

Wonderful thing about DTs is you can buy parts if they do break... not cheap like but still. Need to replace one of the speakers in mine, has a feint rattle at VERY certain frequencies

Yeah im not particularly cute unfortunately

[lowkifan]

Beats was just a gimmick/craze for a little while and was never going to be a long term success while their are better branded headphones for sound quality, Sennheiser. HTC need to stop releasing phones so often and fix the battery issues and spend more time developing a quality phone.