I’ve finally got around to posting my review of this lovely little speaker. Sadly I’ve not managed to do as much testing as I wanted to as life as gotten in the way. However I will update this in the next few months with more tests. Full review (some more pictures) is here http://arwenx7.com/soundcore-mini-2-review/
So I’ll start off by saying I am by no means an audiophile. I enjoy listening to music, but I’m not super fussy when it comes to the quality. So long as it sounds good, doesn’t crackle or generally be annoying it is normally good enough for me.That said, I can tell the difference between a good speak and a bad speaker reasonably easily. Especially when I can listen to them in a side by side comparison.
The basics:
This new Soundcore Mini is mostly made of a metal (aluminium?) upper part and a rubberised lower part. The lower part is where all the controls are located. The buttons have a good solid feel to them, no accidental “Did I press that?” moments. The buttons are Power, Volume Down, Play, Volume Up and the bluetooth pair button. They are flanked by two LED’s, a white power light on the left and a blue bluetooth light on the right. The charging port (micro USB) and AUX in port are also located on the lower half. They are deeply recessed into the body and covered by a rubber “plug”. The metal and rubberised combo makes the speaker feel robust enough to stand up to some abuse, which it more than likely will occur with what I have planned for it!
Looks wise, this little speakers looks awesome in my opinion:
I’ve now used this sound core for around 40ish hours. In that time I have charged it twice, and it is currently showing as 30% battery left on my phone – which seems to be about accurate. For anyone interested, I don’t have accurate charging and discharging times. This is mostly because I simply forgot to track them…Whoops!
Pairing the speaker with an android smartphone is a doddle. The play button doubles up as a pause button (press and release), skip track (quick double press) and activate Google Now (long press and hold until the chime).
The quality of the sound from this speaker is better than the original Soundcore Mini, and is perfectly fine for what I am wanting it for. It’s a bit more bass-y than the original mini, but not overly so. It also seems “clearer” to me. It fills the rooms I’ve been using it in with volume to spare, and using it outdoors is more than acceptable, if your intentions is to deafen your next door neighbours you may even succeed !
This speaker has been used mostly around my house. I’ll stick it on when I am doing house work, making dinner, doing some craft work or working on my car/bikes in the garage. So it contends with other noise around me, from the washing machine, a drill, the pressure washer or even just my pet parrot ZaZu.
This being IPX7 waterproof, I felt the need to test this fully. I do use my current SoundCore mini in areas it may come into contact with water, so I would feel much better using the new Mini 2 since it is certified as waterproof. Although the manual does state not to submerge the unit… That sounded like a challenge to me!
So I done some tests.
First test:
Simple submerging in fresh tap water.
The deepest tub I could find was 50cm tall, so this is what I tested with. However I found a little interesting thing, the speaker floats!!
Uploading…
So I stuck it in an upturned flower pot and stuck a brick in with it to wedge it at the bottom!
After around 30min I took the speaker out and turned it back on. It works absolutly perfectly. Sound can be slightly distorted until the water had been “blown out” of the top of it. Turning it upside down while playing music fixes that quickly.
Test two:
Submerging while playing in tap water:
So either the bluetooth signal cuts out or water simply dampens the sound so much you can’t hear it. Either way, I count this as a pass!
I will be doing further testing with this speaker. I was planning on submerging it in a river and hitting it with a pressure washer to see how it held up. However life has gotten in the way with me testing so I’ll update this when I get a chance to do these tests!
Overall, I am very pleased with this speaker. I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind paying bit of a premium for an excellent quality and reliable little speakers that sounds ace.
Pro’s
Sound quality over previous version
Waterproof
Small and light
Robust
Con’s
Bit expensive for a mono speaker
No SD card slot
No FM radio
Still charging via micro USB rather than USB-C
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