Cut the cord with these fantastic wireless speakers…
Portable devices are great for carrying your music out and about with you at all times, but even in the most expensive hardware, their built-in speakers tend not to be. If you want to listen to music while outside your house, whether it’s in your garden, at the park or even somewhere like a caravan or hotel room, you need to get hold of a good portable speaker. And that’s why we’ve put together a list for you.
Features To Look For
When trying to pick a good portable speaker, you need to keep an eye on the following things:
• Wattage. Anything less than 4W is fairly meek, but check whether you’re looking at the combined output or the output per driver (in which case you can probably double it, assuming the speakers are stereo).
• Battery life. If you’re buying portable hardware, then it’s important that it lasts when you take it out of the house. Five hours tends to be the bare minimum, but we’d like to see seven or eight hours for a halfway decent piece of hardware.
• Weatherproofing. There are different standards you can look for, but the language used is normally enough to let you tell whether it’s properly waterproof or just ‘weatherproof’, which normally means water can’t get into the electronics if it’s lightly splashed but that it won’t survive a severe downpour or submersion.
• Connectivity. 3.5mm input and Bluetooth connectivity essentially come as standard in portable speakers, but look out for wi-fi, USB input and NFC pairing abilities if you want your speaker to be compatible with a wide variety of devices rather than just a phone or tablet.
Low Cost: Veho 360 M4
Bluetooth speakers are typically quite expensive, but at around £24.99 (give or take £5), the Veho 360 M4 is priced well – especially for the sort of use it’s designed for. That’s because the Veho 360 M4 is a supercompact unit designed with portability in mind. It’s just 6.5cm high and 5.5cm across, with a built-in battery (charged over mini-USB) that powers it for up to five hours of playback. A carry sock protects the unit wherever you choose to store it while you’re on the go. It is quite unashamedly designed for use on the move, rather than at home.
Of course, a focus on making it small and lightweight does come at a cost, and here that price has been paid by the sound quality. Its dual 2.2W drivers mean the sound isn’t much better than you might find in most laptops, but don’t be too disheartened. If you’re using it with a phone or tablet, it’s still likely to outdo the built-in ones by some distance. A 3.5mm jack input does allow you to connect it to non-Bluetooth devices, but what really makes it stand out from the pack is the built-in micro-SD slot, which allows it to play MP3s and – combined with the on-unit volume and track controls – effectively turns it into a stand-alone stereo. It’s that, combined with the low price, that makes it a great choice for people looking for portability first.
All Rounder: JBL Flip 3
Priced at £100, the JBP Flip 3 is the latest in JBL’s line of highquality Bluetooth speakers. It might seem expensive, but when you consider how versatile the JBL Flip unit is, you’ll be more than happy to splash out. As well as having a solid, high-quality construction and fantastically powerful dual 8W speakers, the JBL Flip is stuffed with additional features that make it perfect for virtually every user. If you’re listening to music or watching TV, you’ll appreciate the loud volume and high dynamic range. If you’re using it as an office piece, the echo-cancelling speakerphone functionality will doubtlessly prove useful. If you’re using it as a portable speaker, the fact that it comes with a tightfitting protective pouch will make sure your investment is protected inside any rucksack, and the splashproof (though not fully waterproof) design allows it to be used outdoors without any great concerns.
The unit itself can be positioned either horizontally or vertically, so it’s undeniably spaceefficient, and the built-in rechargeable battery allows it to run continuously for eight hours without any need for a recharge, so if you take it out with you, there’s no reason to drag the charger along too. As mentioned, it can also function as a smart speaker for your phone, allowing you to answer and reject calls and switch between different callers. The aux input even lets you connect non-Bluetooth devices to it as well. As both speaker and speakerphone, it’s got almost everything you need. It may not have the most original or extensive feature set, but it’ll sit happily in virtually any niche, and that makes it worth considering.
Best Battery Life: Audio Pro Addon T3
At £165, the Audio Pro Addon T3 isn’t what you’d call a low-price speaker, but it’s literally built for portability from the top down, with an integrated carry strap at the top and rubberised mounts at the bottom. Available in five colours (orange, black, green, grey and white), it has a stylish, retro-inspired simplicity that looks good in any situation. Certainly, this is one speaker system that doesn’t compromise on its design.
Of course, its real value is in the battery life. At normal volumes it can stretch to as long as 30 hours at 50% volume, and even at max volumes the manufacturer claims it’ll reach 12 hours. That’s despite containing three drivers (two 5W tweeters and a 15W subwoofer) for a combined output of 25W, putting it well beyond what most portable speakers even approach. The battery is so powerful that you can even use the built-in USB port to charge your smartphone.
Of course, there’s a trade-off here, and that’s the size and weight of the unit itself. It’s portable, but it’s not something you’re going to slip in your bag as you run out the door. It’s going to need its own system of pulleys and levers to get it out of the door at all. Obviously that’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s no surprise the handle comes integrated. You have to plan to use this one.
Still, it sounds great, and connectivity is good. Bluetooth 4.0 gives you compatibility with a variety of devices, and there’s also a 3.5mm input jack and USB port. On something of this size we would have liked to see something more complex, like RCA input, but maybe the lack of those is calculated. Who has RCA cables outdoors anyway?
Still, between high-fidelity audio and a superb battery life, it’s more than worth the money. Just don’t be under any illusions about quite how portable a speaker you’re getting.
Best Rugged Speaker: Veho Vecto 360
Running your speakers outdoors might sound like a good idea if you live in a country where there’s nothing but perpetual sunshine for months on end, but here in the UK we have to prepare ourselves for the eventuality of rain at a moment’s notice. In which case, if you’re looking to run some outdoors audio system, you might want to consider a hardy, weatherproof system like the Veho Vecto.
Unsurprisingly, Veho is a British company, and the Vecto is one of its more popular products, having been around a year or two now. Despite the low price (it retails for around £49.99 at the moment), it’s utterly packed with features – Bluetooth with NFC pairing, dual acoustic drivers, and a micro-SD slot with 4GB card included that turns it into a stand-alone stereo. It’s powered by a 6000mAh powerbank, which can charge a smartphone several times over or support up to 16 hours of play over Bluetooth. And it comes with a clip-in carabiner, which should give you an indication of just how rugged it is.
The feature set is capped off by IP64 water-resistance, which prevents damage from even heavy water splashes and rain. The robust chassis and rubberised coating mean it’s plainly designed for outdoor use, and it should take a beating without showing any significant damage. This does mean it tries to keep ports to a minimum, so rather than a standard 3.5mm line-in, you get a USB adaptor cable with micro-USB and 3.5mm converter. That’s odd, to say the least, though not a dealbreaker because Bluetooth is likely to be the primary input for anyone buying it.
The only major downside is that the speakers themselves are a bit weedy: two 4W drivers mean it’s only as powerful as a system half its price, and if you’re looking for outdoor entertainment, they’re not really going to do the job compared to speakers at an equivalent price. What you’re paying for here is the durability, which is fine as long as you know that going in.
Best App Control: UE BOOM 2
Most portable speakers tend to be aimed at fairly casual use, so they aren’t as smart as some of their indoor peers. Not so for the UE Boom 2 speaker, which retails for around £129.
But before we get to that, we should highlight its other features. The tube-shaped design means it’s strong and durable, with a 360º speaker grille to disperse sound around its entire body. The colours are vibrant and varied, so if you want a discreet piece of hardware, it isn’t going to fit the bill, but it also means it stands out from the monochromatic competition. It’s even built to IP7 weatherproof specifications, so it’s even capable of surviving total submersions. Bluetooth and a 3.5mm input are of course included.
The previous version of the speaker suffered with its sound quality, which distorted at high volumes. The follow-up has larger drivers and radiators, meaning sound remains clear even as it starts to pump it out. What really helps the sound quality, though, is the control app. Using this, you can adjust the bass and treble independently of the system’s default using any iOS or Android device. You can also control the volume and tracks, even from a device you’re not playing from, which puts it a step above almost anything else in its class.
The one issue we have with it is the battery life. It claims 15 hours, but that’s only likely at incredibly low volumes. We’d comfortably shave almost half of that time away if you’re listening at any normal loudness. Still, an eight-hour battery life is also pretty solid, if not stellar, and if you like having control at your fingertips, it’s worth it for these features. Plus it looks great (depending on your personal opinion, of course), and the sound quality is clear, and for the most part those things matter just as much as stuff like battery life.
Best Design: Marshall Kilburn
High-end design is one thing you can expect to pay through the nose for regardless of any sane consideration. That’s as true of portable speakers as it is anywhere else. And that being the case, we don’t feel too ridiculous recommending the most expensive speakers in this article: the Marshall Kilburn.
Designed by the famous maker of amps, the Marshall Kilburn resembles the famous musical hardware in its appearance, with a rugged plastic exterior and classiclooking grill – not to mention the famous brand name on the front. Pricing ranges from around £150 to £220 depending on where you can find it in stock, but it’s worth having to hunt around to get something this good-looking. The gold detailing and ampstyle control knobs give it a finish that make it both satisfying to use and look at.
Hardware-wise, it’s the absolute equal to any other speaker you’ll find above £100, with Bluetooth and 3.5mm jack connectivity. The battery life is up to 20 hours at 50% volume, and that means we’d expect a solid 15 out of it once you compensate for manufacturer truth-stretching. Portability is aided by the ‘guitar-influenced’ leather strap.
So while it doesn’t completely kill the competition on features, it’s hard to deny that this is a speaker that looks the part. Its closest alternative, at least in this list, is the Audio Pro Addon T3. There’s a lot to prefer about that speaker, but when it comes to which you’d rather look at? We challenge anyone to choose that over this.