Best bluetooth speakers review

Best Bluetooth Speakers 2019, Portable And For Any Budget

While your phone’s speaker may be good enough to play your music on the go, they’re far from the ideal solution. Their sound doesn’t carry far and as far as frequency range is concerned, phones typically fail to impress. Thankfully, Bluetooth speakers are cheap and rugged enough now that anyone can afford to upgrade their sound without breaking the bank. Take, for example, the Anker SoundCore 2, an affordable, durable Bluetooth speaker that proves you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get robust-sounding audio.

The SoundCore 2 gives you a staggering 24 hours of battery life, a ruggedized and water-resistant body, and much better sound than your phone’s speaker. While it doesn’t quite hold against other speakers in the category in terms of audio performance, the Anker SoundCore 2 is still an incredible value for the price. Anker won’t win any accolades for the SoundCore 2’s design; it’s a generic-looking black bar with power, playback, pairing and volume controls on the top.

In its price range, the Anker SoundCore 2 is an excellent entry-level Bluetooth speaker. We loved it for its 24-hour battery life, rugged build quality, and water resistance. While its sound quality leaves something to be desired in the power and clarity departments, it will please most people. It’s loud enough to fill a small room but will struggle to be heard on a noisy beach or street. This is to be expected from such a compact speaker with stellar battery life but it’s a trade-off nonetheless.

The first improvement that the JBL Flip 4 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker has made over its predecessor is in its waterproofing. The Flip 4 can be plunged under the surface until your heart’s content. It’s two-thirds the length of a school ruler and, at 18,16oz/ 515g (about as heavy as a football) shouldn’t be any inconvenience to carry around.

Impressively, JBL has also put a 3.5mm input on the speaker, hidden under a rubber flap alongside its micro-USB charging port, as a supplement to its Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity. Activating the Bluetooth is easy; just hold down the dedicated button on the top of the speaker, next to the playback controls. Bluetooth 4.2 also means that you can connect up to two devices to it at any time. JBL has managed to squeeze a little more juice out of the 3000mAh battery with more efficient amplification and circuitry, giving the JBL Flip 4 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker a 12-hour battery life.

For those wanting a bit more volume, you can pair multiple Flip 4s together using the JBL Connect app. If you’ve got at least two speakers, you can make them play the same song simultaneously, or set one of them as the left channel and one as the right for a greater sense of scale. For the moment, this only works with other Flip 4 speakers, as only they support JBL’s Connect+ function, so you won’t be able to connect a Flip 4 to a Flip 3.

The JBL Flip 4 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker is a good portable speaker, intuitive to use, with pretty solid sound quality, and small enough to slip into the side pocket of any rucksack. While other speakers might take pole position in pure sound quality, we’d still be happy to take this one on our travels.

Like the UE Boom 1 and 2, the newest model in the portable speaker line has a cylindrical build for 360 sound, and with a height of around 18cm, it’s pleasingly compact and easy to hold on the go. The Ultimate Ears BOOM 3 Bluetooth Speaker comes in a range of two-tone iridescent fabric finishes, including sunset red, lagoon blue, forest green, and night black.

Aside from looking great, this fabric is designed to be super durable, as it was originally engineered for motorcycle jackets and fire equipment. The calling card of the UE Boom 3 is its incredible waterproof rating, which means it can be totally submerged in water for up to 30 minutes thanks to a super tight interlocking weave and a fully protected charging port. If you plan on taking the Boom 3 into the pool for a dip, it also floats, although, for most of us, the waterproof rating will prove most useful in the shower.

On the top of the speaker you have an on/off button and a ‘magic button’, which can be used to pause, play and skips tracks. You can also use the magic button to directly access your playlists from a select few music providers. To do this you will need to set this feature up in the accompanying Megaboom app. Disappointingly, this feature only works with Apple Music if you’re on an iOS device, and Deezer Premium if you’re an Android user. With so many Spotify users out there, the experience would really be improved with Spotify integration.

The rubber casing that housed the buttons on the UE Boom 2 is gone, with the large ‘+’ and ‘-’ volume buttons integrated directly into the fabric grille. While this looks far more aesthetically pleasing, it does make the volume buttons a little harder to push down, particularly if you’re using the speaker in the shower.

All in all, the UE Boom 3 is a solid little speaker that addresses some of the issues of its predecessor, the UE Boom 2. With a wireless range increase of 15 feet, and increased waterproofing, it’s certainly an improvement on the previous generation, but Ultimate Ears still haven’t quite achieved perfection in the UE Boom 3. Having the ability to change the equalizer settings is a nice touch though. Battery life has also stayed the same between the generations at 15 hours, Overall, this is a great Bluetooth speaker and will give you quality sound when you are mobile.

Each of the speakers is compatible with IOS and any other Bluetooth-capable smartphone, so no matter what kind of phone you have, rest assured it’ll work with the OontZ Angle 3. And if you have an Echo Dot or a Kindle, the OontZ Angle3 IPX5 Portable Bluetooth Speaker will work with those devices as well.

Pairing can sometimes be a bit of a hassle if there are multiple phones connected to the speaker. The OontZ Angle 3 tends to automatically pair with the last phone that used it, and unpairing that phone/pairing a new one can get a bit frustrating at times. That said, that seems to be a pretty common issue among most Bluetooth speakers. The OontZ Angle 3 also doesn’t have the option to change tracks or adjust the volume on the unit itself. All it has is a Play/Pause button. So if you’re the kind of person who leaves their phone in another room and wants to control the music from the unit itself, you’ll probably need the PLUS version or the 3XL version (both of which also offer track-back/track forward options on the unit).

The OontZ Angle3 has a maximum volume output of 10 Watts, which is plenty for small to medium get-togethers. And though you would expect the quality of the bass to diminish in proportion to the volume, the Passive Bass Radiator in the OontZ Angle 3 offers better bass quality without sacrificing the necessary clarity to fully enjoy your music. If you have a massive house party, you might find it a little hard to hear the lyrics or higher-end frequencies over the din, but having used it firsthand at my own parties, I can attest that you’ll still be able to hear the powerful bass tones over the noise.

The OontZ Angle 3 is also built to withstand some minor dropping and mishandling, the rubber wrapping on the ends helps cushion the speaker from any unexpected falls, which is a great added benefit. If you’re looking to spend as little money as possible, there are cheaper options out there. But for the price, I haven’t found a speaker that strikes the balance of quality, durability and affordability that the OontZ Angle 3 provides.

The Wonderboom Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker is a small pebble-shaped speaker that looks like a slightly squished version of the company’s flagship UE Boom 2 speaker. It has the same soft rubber finish top and bottom, and a grille running around its bottom. Large, front-facing volume controls line its front and three control buttons sit on the speaker’s top. The top central UE button is primarily used for pairing, but in theory can be used to play, pause and skip tracks with various combinations of presses. I generally ignored them in favour of my smartphone’s on-screen controls, however. The only design flourish is a rugged fabric hook that sprouts out of the device’s top.

The design may sound barebones, but thanks to UE’s use of a varied colour palette, those looking for something noticeable can make it fairly ostentatious and easy to spot, which will be useful for people like skateboarders and surfers looking to add a soundtrack to their exploits. The Wonderboom is available in various colours.

The speaker’s also pretty rugged, with UE having built it to IPX7-rated standards, which means it can survive submersion in 1 metre of water for 30 minutes – though actually getting it below the surface is pretty tricky, as the Wonderboom is buoyant and naturally floats. Its waterproof and ruggedness is a blessing for regular home use.

If you’re looking for an affordable Bluetooth speaker then the Wonderboom is one of the best options around. The speaker is ridiculously loud and features a nigh-indestructible waterproof chassis that lets it survive everything from accidental bumps and scrapes to excursions into the bathtub or pool. Add to this a robust 10-hour battery life and the Wonderboom earns its place as one of our most highly recommended portable speakers. The only downside is that, like all speakers at this price point, it’s a little sloppy with the way it handles mids, which makes some genres of music sound a little flat or unbalanced. Taking all into consideration, we can say that Wonderboom is one of the best speakers you can get in its price range.