Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker Review
Thanks to a snazzy cover that doubles as a support stand, innovative design, and well-balanced sound, the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker is a great choice for your portable audio needs.
Pros
- + Sleek, stylish design
- + Loud and balanced audio
- + Cover doubles as a stand
- + Automatically powers down when you close cover
Cons
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The Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker offers big, rich sound in a small, sleek package. Starting at $299 ($349 for the leather version), this 2.9-pound device has a clever cover that not only doubles as a stand but turns the device off when closed. If you want a Bluetooth speaker, this is the one to get.
At 9.5 x 5.1 x 1.9 inches and 2.9 pounds, the SounLink is a bit heavy, but it’s still very portable, easily slipping into a messenger bag or large purse. It’s also fairly rugged, as Bose claims to have exposed the Soundlink to vigorous drop testing as well as environmental testing for sand, salt, fog, wind, and moisture.
Thanks to its smart chocolate-brown leather cover, the Soundlink Wireless Mobile Speaker looks elegant in just about any setting. Bose offers additional leather covers in Burgundy and Tan as well as nylon covers in black, red, and purple. The covers are also sold separately ($29.95 nylon, $49.95 leather) for added customization.
The best part about the SoundLink’s design is that the leather cover flips back, acting as a stand and revealing a slate-gray speaker grille surrounded by chrome. When you flip the cover closed, it automatically shuts down the speaker to save power, similar to the Smart Cover on the iPad 2.
The sides of the Soundlink are decorated in gray brushed aluminum, and the top is black matte plastic with six large flat buttons for power, auxiliary mode, Bluetooth pairing, mute, and volume.
Setup and Ease of Use
Pairing the SoundLink to various devices was as simple as pressing a button. Once our laptop and smartphones were made discoverable, we simply pressed the Bluetooth button on the speaker for a couple seconds. A flashing LED slowed down to a glow, letting us know that the speaker was ready to pair with our iPhone.
As with most Bluetooth devices, the speaker has a range of about 30 feet. We love that the SoundLink stores the six most recent Bluetooth devices in its memory, allowing for almost instantaneous pairing on next usage.
Audio Quality
With four low-profile neodymium transducers and dual opposing passive radiators, the Soundlink Wireless speaker provided a very balanced performance. Whether we streamed music from our smartphone or laptop, the speaker easily handled everything from Styles P and company’s gritty hip-hop anthem «Harsh» to Lady Ella’s bright up-tempo vocals and big horn section on «I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm». The Soundlink easily filled a medium-sized room, and sounded best when the speaker was situated somewhere in front of us.
Sadly, there’s no speakerphone capability. In the event that a call does come in, the Soundlink pauses the music and resumes as soon as the call ends. During our testing, we found that there was little to no latency when chaging tracks stored on our iPhone, but a second or so of lag when using Pandora.
Battery Life
Bose claims that the Soundlink Wireless Mobile speaker‘s lithium-ion battery can last 8 hours at typical listening levels and 3 hours at high volume.
The $299 Bose Soundlink Wireless Mobile speaker gives listeners big, rich sound in a sleek and stylish portable package. It’s simple to set up and boasts a versatile cover, and the ability to store six Bluetooth devices in memory gives it a kind of «set-and-forget» quality that users will enjoy. Those who need speakerphone capability will want to look elsewhere, but overall the Soundlink is a great choice for those willing to spend more for a superior portable audio experience.
Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker Specs
| Accessories Type | Speaker Docks |
| Brand | Bose |
| Company Website | http://www.bose.com/ |
| Size | 5.1 x 9.6 x 1.9 inches |
| Weight | 2.9 pounds |
Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Wireless Speaker — Leather (Old Version)
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Top positive review
I have bought so many speakers for my office. I just hate plugging in my iPhone when I arrive at the office. I want the podcast I’m listening to to just switch to my office speaker when I arrive. And that’s exactly what happens. I do have to turn the speaker on first. At that point my iPhone assumes the speaker is my choice so long as I leave BlueTooth switched on in the iPhone general settings.
I’m seriously considering buying a second one for home now. I’m becoming something of a fan of BOSE. I have a lot of their gear these days. If you’re a teen looking for a seriously loud loud-speaker, perhaps this isn’t for you. I don’t blast music at the office. I listen to a little music and office acceptable levels. Mostly, I listen to Podcasts while on the way to work, and I typically want to finish them as I walk in the office. And I don’t want to have to plug the phone into something. I just want the speaker to take over for my headphones. That’s what this does.
I wish it had a remote though. I can change the volume from my phone, but the screen goes into screen saver mode and it takes a few strokes to do it. Sometimes I’d appreciate it if it had a mute on a remote so when a phone call comes in I could quickly cancel the sound. I can double-tap the iPhone and get the quick player controls and pause it. Not too bad.
I’d give this a solid 4/5 stars.
Top critical review
This product is almost worthless for me, but I do have to take some of the blame.
After working fine for the first few days, now it will link with my laptop (MacBook Pro) only about 10% of the time, usually after 10-plus tries and usually only after I’ve turned off my wi-fi network. Since I bought it primarily to stream Spotify, disconnecting from the home network isn’t really a solution.
There is no online support on Bose’s website for this product.
I see that there’s a firmware update . however — and this is where I guess it’s partially my fault — I have either lost or thrown away the connecting cable, so I can’t use that. Plus, I threw away the packaging after it seemed to work okay for the first week (more blame for me, I guess — I should have my entire attic taken up with packaging materials in case something goes wrong).
I’m not positive, but it looks as the connection on the stereo cable is proprietary. Does anyone here know if a replacement cable is available somewhere? Right now, I’m out $367 for a worthless (and frustrating) piece of equipment.
Too bad, I was excited by the positive reviews. Now, I’m about equally annoyed with Bose and with myself.
UPDATE (A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER): A hard re-boot helped some and I called the Bose service line (and got through after only 10 minutes on hold). The guy told me that maybe this speaker isn’t fully compatible with the MacBook Pro and I would need to call the vendor. He also told me that it might be that I can’t use the speaker with a home wi-fi network because of interference. I mildly objected that (a) the MacBook Pro isn’t exactly an obscure brand and (b) a lot of people use Spotify for their music, so ruling out home networks might not be the best marketing strategy for Bose.
But on the positive side, he told me that I was wrong about the connecting cable being proprietary — it’s a standard mini-USB to USB cable. I had one of those around the house and I was able to install the firmware update without any problem.
So since the hard re-boot and the firmware update, I’m now usually able to link up to the speaker after only 3-5 tries. Two minutes, tops. We’ll see if that lasts.
I have accordingly upgraded my stars to «2.» The speaker does sound good when it connects and connecting is now only a mild pain in the neck. But then I’ve also now spent roughly 2-3 hours of my life trying to get the thing to work the way it’s supposed to. And talking to the vaunted Bose tech support team was more than a little annoying. They’re selling a speaker that isn’t compatible with Mac and it’s not their problem?!