Small Bluetooth speaker. Situation normal then. As I always start these reviews, the Bluetooth speakers tend to slot into to different categories. First, there’s the diddy small speakers, like this one, that don’t have a great deal of bass and tend to be OK for the odd bit of garden dancing. Second is the massive, usually quite hefty Bluetooth speaker which have the extra “oomph” but are also quite weighty too.
So this one was firmly in the first camp when I got it. Lightweight, with a rubber lanyard and IPX7 waterproof. However, at each end there’s the “Enhanced Bass” system, and – when you pair the thing and start playing some proper dance tunes, these vibrate all over the place and, well, we tested that with Mr Coolsmartphone Duck, which you’ll see in a moment. However, if you’re in a rush, here’s the video review…
This portable speaker has a 24W output and gives a good surround sound experience. There’s wireless dual pairing and it’ll last for around 20 hours after charging for just 4 hours. It’s IPX7 waterproof, which means that it’s able to withstand immersion in water up to 1 meter for up to 30 minutes. So pretty decent then, and there’s a flap which covers the microUSB charging port and the 3.5mm audio plug which is where you can also feed your tunes in.
Soft-click buttons on the side let you power up the speaker, start Bluetooth pairing and turn on that X-Boom “enhanced bass”.
I left it on to be honest and you can see just how powerful it is in our “Duck Test” below. These are “behind the scenes” videos that I filmed as I was testing the speaker 🙂
You can see how those two channels on both end vibrate quite a bit to give the bass response and the “oomph” that you feel as it pushes the air about. Yes, it’s good, yes it’s fun to experience, but there’s also a crisp treble and detailed mid response too. It’s a great all-rounder.
Here’s another look at that bass response..
Now as you can see, there’s some massive buttons up front for adjusting the volume – you’re really not going to miss then. They’re soft-click ones and you can hold them down to skip tracks etc. You’re definitely not going to forget where they are.
The sound from this speaker was better than a normal speaker of the same size. The bass was really good, and the battery life was better than expected. It’s a great design and you can also get a couple of these and daisy chain them together to enjoy an amplified sound.
Update – This is now ÂŁ49.99 from Amazon.co.uk. Head here to get one!
It sounds great, it’s really easy to use and navigate, plus it’s a solid and well-built product which did really well in our tests. I liked how rugged but how sleek it looked, and it’s a really good product for the price.
Head to Tribit Audio for more information about this one.