I love to listen to music on my iPhone, and at home I prefer to connect this to an actual speaker. But having tried various different ones, each have their pros and cons, so I'm yet to find the perfect speaker that fulfills all my needs without missing out on others, so any tips from others who have tried good ones would be most welcome. But to start off, I'll share with you here some of the speakers I've tried so far, and what I feel are the various pros and cons of each, so hopefully some of you will find this stuff useful, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you also about all the pros and cons of any that you have tried aswell, so we can all get a good picture of what options are available to us, and how they have fared in terms of real world experience. So here's my contribution to start this discussion off...
1) The first one I tried was the JBL Onbeat Venue Speaker.
www.amazon.com/dp/B00B5RP0C0
THE PROS:
I initially loved this because aswell as being able to be used with a headphone jack and bluetooth, it also has a special drawer that pops out which contains an inbuilt iPhone/iPad dock. (only for lightning cable models, but that covers most). Out of the three I will mention in this comparison, the sound quality and bass on this speaker is amazingly good. However, while that is all good, I feel it was heavily overpriced for what it does, and it does have some really annoying things about it, which I will mention in the cons below...
THE CONS:
My first niggle is that while the iPhone dock part is really useful, it is only useful at all if your phone case happens to fit. Unfortunately very few do. So you either have to not use a case, only use certain cases, or keep taking the case off each time, which kinda negates the usefulness of having a dock in the first place.
The second niggle is that caused me endless frustration is that the bluetooth pairing is very temperamental. (ie: it would often forget itself the next time you switch it on, and even though your iPhone has stored it perfectly, you'll often have to wrestle with it by completely deleting the entry, and repairing it all from scratch. The toggle between outputs is very badly designed also. You'll often have to press the button a number of times, scrolling through the lot, before you can get it to register. And often when you do get it to connect, it often has the habit of blasting out at a volume way higher than when you last used it, so you have to try and quickly turn it down to a level that doesn't completely deafen you. Needless to say, I quickly fell out with this speaker despite initially loving it.
2) The second one I tried was the KitSound Boombar
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JAHBOZ4
THE PROS:
This one pairs up nicely, and doesn't have that annoying problem of forgetting the device. It is also rechargeable via USB, and is very nice to use. This is also much more compact than the bulky JBL I first tried, so fits much better in more places around my house (even on small shelves and mantle pieces). The battery also lasts extremely well, and they provide a nice portable case for it for when travelling, and I have brought it with me many times while on vacation.
THE CONS:
While its true to say that this is portable, because I can fit it easily into my laptop bag, bear in mind that it's not portable to the extent where you can put it in a jacket pocket, so I wouldn't consider this a bring it with me everyday to work kind of speaker. (Instead I treat it as more of a bring it with me whenever I'm on vacation kind of speaker). While the sound quality of this speaker is pretty decent, it's not anywhere near as loud as the JBL. (but in many ways the JBL was too loud anyway, and this speaker is actually still sufficient for most of my needs, but the difference between the two is definitely noticeable).
3) The third one I tried was the Hydrobeat Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0145JW0RW
This one was not actually intended to be my main speaker, but I initially bought it so that I could listen to music when I was in the shower.
THE PROS:
As far as how waterproof it is, it's actually very impressive, and in my personal experience it totally lives up to its claims on that. (at least, so far so good, and while I try not to do this ion purpose, I have got it splashed directly with the showerhead quite a few times, and it's still just as good as the day I bought it). I also love how it lets you change track right from the device, and the sound quality is actually very good. (stronger in fact than the soundbar speaker I mentioned earlier in section number two). It charges via USB aswell (though obviously don't try to charge this while you're in the shower). This speaker is also nice and small too, so is very portable (you literally can bring this one with you in a jacket pocket if you want to). This speaker also has a window sucker to stick it to either the glass of your shower screen or to the wall tiles (though there are some cons to this, which I will state below...)
THE CONS:
While the sucker is a good idea at first, it tends not to stay up for very long. While it is well built enough to not get damaged when it hits the floor, I guarantee you this will fall off a few times if stuck to a wall. So consider sticking this to something horizontal like the top section of your bath, or to the soap dish on your shower riser rail, and you'll be fine, but obviously this would have been alot better if it stuck well on a vertical wall (which it does for a short while, just not very long). Another not so desirable quirk of this speaker is that if you use it in another room and happen to walk past the line of sight between the speaker and the iPhone, it sometimes has the effect of interrupting the sound for a brief second, which is not perfect. However, that being said, it's only a minor niggle, and doesn't happen very often. Plus the connectivity other than that little niggle is actually very good, and doesn't forget the device like the JBL speaker did. It pairs up instantly with the iPhone the moment that you power this speaker on, which is much more the functionality I want it to have.
I hope you all found this helpful, and look forward to hearing which ones you guys have tried. Don't forget to include the cons aswell as the pros, as this part is extremely helpful, and is the main point about genuine people trading experiences as opposed to just hearing what companies think about their own products. We want the fuller picture here, so that our decisions can be more informed.
Anyways, now it's your turn...
1) The first one I tried was the JBL Onbeat Venue Speaker.
www.amazon.com/dp/B00B5RP0C0
THE PROS:
I initially loved this because aswell as being able to be used with a headphone jack and bluetooth, it also has a special drawer that pops out which contains an inbuilt iPhone/iPad dock. (only for lightning cable models, but that covers most). Out of the three I will mention in this comparison, the sound quality and bass on this speaker is amazingly good. However, while that is all good, I feel it was heavily overpriced for what it does, and it does have some really annoying things about it, which I will mention in the cons below...
THE CONS:
My first niggle is that while the iPhone dock part is really useful, it is only useful at all if your phone case happens to fit. Unfortunately very few do. So you either have to not use a case, only use certain cases, or keep taking the case off each time, which kinda negates the usefulness of having a dock in the first place.
The second niggle is that caused me endless frustration is that the bluetooth pairing is very temperamental. (ie: it would often forget itself the next time you switch it on, and even though your iPhone has stored it perfectly, you'll often have to wrestle with it by completely deleting the entry, and repairing it all from scratch. The toggle between outputs is very badly designed also. You'll often have to press the button a number of times, scrolling through the lot, before you can get it to register. And often when you do get it to connect, it often has the habit of blasting out at a volume way higher than when you last used it, so you have to try and quickly turn it down to a level that doesn't completely deafen you. Needless to say, I quickly fell out with this speaker despite initially loving it.
2) The second one I tried was the KitSound Boombar
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JAHBOZ4
THE PROS:
This one pairs up nicely, and doesn't have that annoying problem of forgetting the device. It is also rechargeable via USB, and is very nice to use. This is also much more compact than the bulky JBL I first tried, so fits much better in more places around my house (even on small shelves and mantle pieces). The battery also lasts extremely well, and they provide a nice portable case for it for when travelling, and I have brought it with me many times while on vacation.
THE CONS:
While its true to say that this is portable, because I can fit it easily into my laptop bag, bear in mind that it's not portable to the extent where you can put it in a jacket pocket, so I wouldn't consider this a bring it with me everyday to work kind of speaker. (Instead I treat it as more of a bring it with me whenever I'm on vacation kind of speaker). While the sound quality of this speaker is pretty decent, it's not anywhere near as loud as the JBL. (but in many ways the JBL was too loud anyway, and this speaker is actually still sufficient for most of my needs, but the difference between the two is definitely noticeable).
3) The third one I tried was the Hydrobeat Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0145JW0RW
This one was not actually intended to be my main speaker, but I initially bought it so that I could listen to music when I was in the shower.
THE PROS:
As far as how waterproof it is, it's actually very impressive, and in my personal experience it totally lives up to its claims on that. (at least, so far so good, and while I try not to do this ion purpose, I have got it splashed directly with the showerhead quite a few times, and it's still just as good as the day I bought it). I also love how it lets you change track right from the device, and the sound quality is actually very good. (stronger in fact than the soundbar speaker I mentioned earlier in section number two). It charges via USB aswell (though obviously don't try to charge this while you're in the shower). This speaker is also nice and small too, so is very portable (you literally can bring this one with you in a jacket pocket if you want to). This speaker also has a window sucker to stick it to either the glass of your shower screen or to the wall tiles (though there are some cons to this, which I will state below...)
THE CONS:
While the sucker is a good idea at first, it tends not to stay up for very long. While it is well built enough to not get damaged when it hits the floor, I guarantee you this will fall off a few times if stuck to a wall. So consider sticking this to something horizontal like the top section of your bath, or to the soap dish on your shower riser rail, and you'll be fine, but obviously this would have been alot better if it stuck well on a vertical wall (which it does for a short while, just not very long). Another not so desirable quirk of this speaker is that if you use it in another room and happen to walk past the line of sight between the speaker and the iPhone, it sometimes has the effect of interrupting the sound for a brief second, which is not perfect. However, that being said, it's only a minor niggle, and doesn't happen very often. Plus the connectivity other than that little niggle is actually very good, and doesn't forget the device like the JBL speaker did. It pairs up instantly with the iPhone the moment that you power this speaker on, which is much more the functionality I want it to have.
I hope you all found this helpful, and look forward to hearing which ones you guys have tried. Don't forget to include the cons aswell as the pros, as this part is extremely helpful, and is the main point about genuine people trading experiences as opposed to just hearing what companies think about their own products. We want the fuller picture here, so that our decisions can be more informed.
Anyways, now it's your turn...
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