Jambox by Jawbone Review

The Jambox by Jawbone is a compact portable speaker that comes with wireless connectivity, an output capacity of 85 decibels and a sleek, sophisticated design. Matt Mira and Kevin Pereira take a look at the Jambox for Gadget Pr0n.

What You Need To Know

• The Jambox by Jawbone is pretty small: it's just a little taller than a Wii remote.
• The device is nicely wrapped with a stainless steel grille but the top and bottom are rubber.
• The rubber tracked quite a bit of dust which we didn't really like.
• There are very simple controls on the top: the plus button raises volume, the minus button lowers it.
• The circle button is a multi-function key; when pressed, it connects the speaker to pre-paired devices or tells you the current battery life.
• The side features the micro USB port for charging and software updates, an aux port cable is included and a three-way power switch.
• Down on the power switch turns it off; middle is for on and if you hold it up, it goes into pairing mode.
• It was very easy to pair this speaker with your Bluetooth device.
• Like the Bose SoundLink, all you have to do with the Jambox is put this in pairing mode and it'll show up on your smartphone or tablet.
• The range was solid, with well over 30 feet like the other Bluetooth speakers we've tested.
• We still feel like Bluetooth is more reliable than AirPlay, but AirPlay is still pretty new.
• Even with the small size, the Jambox had surprisingly good sound quality.
• The results kind of blew me away: this speaker gets loud and at full volume, the mids are clear, the lows are nice and bass-y and the highs definitely distort.
• This isn't the case when the volume is lowered but it's a little disappointing that you don't get the full spectrum at max volume.
• The audio is also very directional and it certainly won't fill up a room.
• All that said, the Jambox can also be used as a speakerphone, which is a nice feature to have.
• We weren't very impressed with the speaker phone: phone calls were really distorted and people on the other line had issues hearing us, even though we were very close to the speaker.
• The battery life was really good; Jawbone says the average is 10 hours.
• One cool feature is that the battery life is displayed on your iPhone.

Price

• $179.99

Rating

• 4 Seals of Approval out of 5. (How do we rate gadgets?)
• The Jambox pumps out a lot of sound for its size.
• The sound quality was really good for the most part.
• The Bluetooth connectivity is solid.
• If the speakerphone truly worked, this would be a 5 out of 5 rating.
• This is a very unique device and its portability makes it a compelling product for someone in the market for a compact speaker.

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