Product Reviews

Firstly I have to declare that I'm a big speaker audiophile, and thought I had no use for a prortable speaker, but this changed very quickly when I came across this speaker. The speaker is small, but the size to weight ratio on picking up the box was encouraging. Weighing in around 250 grams for a cylindrical unit 75mm in diameter and standing 85mm tall (Approx) it suggested that quality componentry had been used, but the unit remaining light enough to be truly portable. The speaker is well boxed as you would expect from Sony, with instruction books and setup instructions greeting the new owner on opening. Inside the box was the speaker and the now fairly industry standard USB charging lead. I have multiple USB mains adaptors so finding a charging source was no issue, however this may not be the case for all purchasors. The unit has inbuilt re-chargable batteries which were fully charged in circa 180mins, giving 16hrs of use according to Sony. The unit is also claimed to be IP67 resistant to dust and water such that the unit can be safely dropped in water and survive. Certainly the exterior tactile rubber reinforces this capability and offers an easily held surface whilst protecting from minor impacts. Closer inspection revealed in my opinion a high quality of manufacture with no weak areas. Buttons for: on/off, Volume up/down, multi function button for play/pause/rewind etc, and Add, form depressable buttons in the control area of the outer rubber. Those familiar with the multi purpose button on headphones will immediately know what the various prods on the multi button will do. The add button allows for a second speaker to be added to form a stereo pair. The buttons are marked according to function by bold symbols moulded into the rubber casing, they repond with a positive click but the black symbols on the black rubber background are not easily identified by eye, in low light. That said with only four buttons to remember the purpose of, this isnt likely to be a problem. The unit paired via bluetooth quickly and promptly with my telephone, there is also a socket for audio in via a 3.5mm audio jack behind a rubber sealed panel alongside the charging port. The fist thing to note is the range at which it will work. Indoors most items struggle with indoor walls but this speaker had no trouble where other equipment gave up the ghost. Operation of the onboard buttons were quick and snappy with the phone reacting quickly. The sound from such a small unit was jaw dropping, not music concert pressure bass but sufficient to wonder how it was producing it. Experimentation on different surfaces were all good, but on a firm bit of wood or a table the speaker was capable of passing low frequencies through the base of the unit to use the resonance of the surface. This seems to be assisted by the rubber ring on the units base which secures the unit on the surface, this also protects the surface from scratches. With the speaker at ear level on a good surface it was easily bookshelf speaker quality with tight punchy bass and crisp highs. This speaker has re-educated my old beleifs that a small unit equals poor sound. Certainly the unit is far superior than the telephones hands free mode. The most impressive feature to me however was that the unit has an inbuilt microphone. Voice commands to the telephones virtual assistant were faultless. The microphone also lends itself to conference calls, with the unit in the middle of a table of four people, the dialogue with the the users dialled up was vastly better than the telephones hands free, with nobody asking for the conversation to be repeated. This suggests that the unit can capture and transmit sound clearly to all sat at the table and through the cell network. With so many uses and portability this is now a tech must have in my wish list. Simply Awesome.