GADGET GIZMO REVIEW............... BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS (1)

GADGET GIZMO REVIEW BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS (1)

Headphones and earphones are usually great, but if you love your music and carry it everywhere on your smartphone, you must have – at some time or the other – wished for better audio quality

    1. Bose SoundLink Mini
    The SoundLink boasts a full sound that’s defined by its distinctive bass output. Play any sort of music – the layered instruments in The Alan Parsons Project, the warm acoustics of Clapton’s guitar in Layla, the atmospherics in A R Rehman’s Yeh Haseen Vadiyan, or even the dance beats in David Guetta productions – and this speaker comes out top.
    Does not have a built-in microphone. This means you can connect it via Bluetooth to play songs from your smartphone, but you can’t use it to answer hands-free phone calls.
    Full battery gave us anything between six to 6.5 hours of playback on a single charge.

    RATING 7.5/10 PRICE Rs.16,200

The SoundLink is a premium speaker that promises audio fidelity with surprising bass output and room-filling sound in a super compact form factor.

2. JBL Charge
    The Charge is small enough – the size of a Subway sandwich – to easily fit into any backpack, or even a largish handbag; it’s sturdily built to take on knocks and bumps.
    It is capable of a full-bodied thumping sound thanks to a built-in bass port. Whether it’s Adele belting out Rolling in the Deep, or the vocal harmonies, guitar, chimes, et al in Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair, this JBL powerhouse renders it beautifully and with an output that’s enough to fill a small- to medium-sized room.
    Like the Bose SoundLink Mini, this device is not equipped with a mic for hands-free calls. Instead, it doubles up as a portable battery pack. Its 6000mAh reservoir, which gave us a little over 10 hours of music on a single charge, can also charge your smart-phone via a full-sized USB port

RATING 7.5/10 PRICE Rs.9,990

Wholeheartedly recommend the Charge to anyone who wants a portable speaker to take along on a road trip. The music will make your journey pleasurable, and you'll never know when the extra battery juice will come in handy to power your phone.

   
3. F&D Swan
The F&D Swan is an aesthetically-pleasing speaker. The top of its swan-like neck sports touch-sensitive buttons for Bluetooth pairing, volume control, and you can even navigate from one track to the next, or the previous song. Sound-wise, these aren’t as loud as a Jam Plus, but are capable of a warmer, less harsh sound. The Bluetooth speaker is also equipped with a microphone for hands-free calls whenever it is paired with your smartphone. During tests, the folks we called told us that we “sounded distant” and “slightly muffled”. On a full charge, we got around four to 4.5 hours of playback.
RATING 6/10  PRICE Rs. 3,990

Decent sound in a compact, good-looking, package, and at a budget price. If you want something for hands-free calls, you might want to give the F&D Swan a miss.

Savio D’Souza Tl131117