Sound Blaster

Notebooks are notorious for having terrible speakers. Our recommendation: Get a good set of headphones, or a stereo or three-piece speaker set.

A lot of laptops these days are including some version of Dolby surround, or attempt to emulate surround sound using just the two speakers included. It's generally better than the standard sound, but not magnificently so. If you want real surround sound, either find a laptop with optical audio out (usually desktop replacements), or if you've got an ExpressCard slot you can add in Creative's X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook, with optional Speaker Docking Module for up to 7.1 sound.