But honestly, in the face of such quality, these criticisms feel churlish. If I was being really picky, I’d say the app lacks some polish, and being splashproof rather than truly waterproof seems like a missed opportunity. Honestly, there are very few downsides to this product.
You can also use the speaker as a portable charger for your phone ideal for a weekend of camping, for example. The battery lasts an astonishing 100 hours which, yes, I did successfully test for myself. I realise I’ve described this speaker as a product rivaling a traditional speaker, but it’s portable credentials are second-to-none. An accompanying app allows you to adjust the EQ in very, very granular detail, to make sure everything is just so. To my ears, it was slightly more 'true' than the Wonderboom II – personally, I prefer the latter, because I like souped-up sound, but I suspect serious audiophiles would opt for Minirig’s way of doing things. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test the multi-speaker function – I only had one device to review – but having had a gander across the internet, I’ve seen nothing but glowing write-ups of the feature.Īnyway, the sound quality of the solo speaker is top notch. I don’t have a clue how the folks at Minirig have managed it, but you could potentially replace your entire at-home audio setup with a few of these and not notice the difference. I was tempted to describe it as “impressive for its size”, but actually, this thing blows some of the bigger, traditional ‘at-home’ speakers I’ve tested out of the water. The first thing to say about the sound is volume. It has a solid heft, tasteful grill, and I liked the matt black design (a variety of jazzy colours are available.) This is the luxury end of the Bluetooth speaker market: £140 or thereabouts is punchy, but to hold the Minirig 3 feels worth its price.
Why we like it: The incredible volumes it can reachĭesigned by professional DJs in Bristol, the Minirig brand has one heck of a pedigree, which I am pleased to say this particular device more than lives up to. For £90, you're getting an excellent quality unit here. So you do knock it into the pool or drop it in a puddle, fear not.īattery life is solid, at 12-13 hours, and it charges pretty rapidly (although it comes with a microUSB rather than the USB-C standard, which tech companies are moving towards.)Īs for the price, it's neither the cheapest nor the dearest in this list. The other great feature of the Wonderboom II is that it is waterproof and floats on water. It works brilliantly every time and requires no fiddling about with setting your own EQ modes. This helps your music cut through the wind on a blustery day or drown out the noise of passing traffic, for example. Tap this button and the playback is automatically adjusted for the outdoors, becoming louder and crisper. This the “Outdoor Boost” button and, in my opinion, it’s the Wonderboom II’s biggest selling point. On the bottom of the device, there’s a mysterious little button with a tree on it. It’s not a particularly uncommon feature – most of the portable Bluetooth speakers I reviewed support it – but it’s useful nonetheless. The sound is mono but you can link two Wonderboom’s together to achieve stereo sound. The Wonderboom coped admirably with everything in my music library (admittedly, I lean more towards pop than heavy metal). The base is solid and the highs sparkly bright. Easy peasy.Īs a result of it being round, you get a solid 360 degree sound, so it's good at filling spaces. The controls are self-explanatory: one button to turn it on and off, another to activate Bluetooth pairing mode, and a big friendly + and - on the front to adjust the volume. It's about the same height as a can of Coca-Cola, and a little bit wider. It’s light enough to carry around easily, but has enough weight that it feels premium. The Wonderboom II offers several modest improvements on the original formula, while maintaining everything that we loved about the previous model. The summer after they launched, these brightly-coloured little speakers were pumping out tunes just about everywhere you looked, putting an end to the idea that portable speakers were tinny.
When it comes to mini speakers, Ultimate Ears’ Wonderboom was a not-so-quiet revolution.