XBOOM Mini Portable Capsule Speaker with Rechargeable Battery and Enhanced Bass+ Resonator - Red

We bought two of these, based primarily on the good reviews, and a good price on them. One produces good sound, but when turned up above normal speaking volume, starts cutting out. By this, I mean all sound stops for a second or two and then begins, and then stops, then begins. This problem is the worst with our Sansa mp3 player, but it still cuts out with tablet and laptop at a slightly higher volume.The other doesn't produce very good sound, especially compared to the other one. It sounds like it is distorting, even at the volume of quiet speaking. However, it works all the way up to full volume, and gets quite loud for such a small speaker.We emailed the company directly, as we hadn't decided what to do yet, but haven't heard back from them. We wanted to like these, with all the good reviews, but it seems like we got two defective ones.Update: July 30, 2013It took a while for the company to get back to me - apparently my email was filtered out by their spam filter. However, after a second email, they were quick to get back to me, and diligently worked to try to resolve the problem. They sent me two more speakers, with a pre-paid return postage label, so I could easily send the other two back.The two new speakers both sound good for such a little speaker. Interestingly, every one of the four I got sound different. One is definitely broken and sounds bad. The other three sound slightly different, but all sound good. Neither of the two replacements have the problem of cutting out at high volume when hooked up to my Sansa mp3 player, that one of the originals did. I'm happily keeping these two replacements.Just for fun, I connected the speakers together to listen to music. The sound quality appears to be the same, but they do produce significant volume this way. We won't use them like this, and for our purposes, they are plenty loud by themselves. However, if your are interested in this feature, they really are expandable in this way.It was weird to get two flawed speakers at once. However, the sound of these other two are really quite good for such small speakers. Couple that with the company's great customer service, and I would definitely recommend these.

Well, I'm coming to this mini speaker from an old RCA SP10 Portable Speaker, which is a seven-dollar-terrible-thing. So, the X-boom Mini is actually an upgrade for me, despite the fact that it's still a rather inexpensive speaker. I got sick of the poor sound quality of the RCA SP10, and went off to research slightly better quality mini speakers, which is when I discovered the X-boom mini. Anyway, since my previous speaker is extremely low-end (seriously, the only way I could've gotten one cheaper is if I'd bought one at Dollar Tree), the X-boom shouldn't have too hard of a time impressing me. So, let's find out how it did...Let's start off with the most important aspect - the sound quality. I'm no sound engineer or anything (far from it), but I'll give my best opinions. It is indeed better than my old crappy speaker (even I can tell that), and I'm rather impressed. I tested it with a variety of songs, and some videos with only talking in them (Dr. Ashen on youtube! Woo!). First I tried some rather bass-heavy songs (a Heavy Bass Dubstep Mix on youtube), and it was pretty good. I could literally feel the vibrations on the table at full volume! The bass of course isn't going to be the same as you'd get from a huge speaker, but for it's size, it's not too bad. Next I tried some nice screechy metal ('Funeral in Carpathia' by Cradle of Filth). The speaker managed to convey all the beauty of the song, and I can happily report that the speakers didn't crackle or pop at all - even during the highest-pitched shrieks! After that I tried some opera to get even more of those high notes ('Lucia di Lammermoor' - the Vitas version) and it sounded absolutely lovely (also no popping or crackling)! Then I tried some classical music for a softer piece (Clair de Lune - Claude Debussy). I'm pleased to say that even at high volume I didn't hear any hissing during the quiet parts. Lastly I tried some basic pop music ('Out Alive' and 'Sleazy' by Kesha). Unsurprisingly, it did well with that too.I'm pretty darn pleased with the basic sound quality, so let's talk about some other aspects related to audio. The volume is surprisingly loud, and it effectively boosts the volume output of other devices (it's certainly able to play videos on my computer louder than they normally sound through my monitor's built-in speakers). This is an important point because one of the main reasons I needed a tiny speaker was to boost the low volume on my professor's barely-audible low-quality lecture videos. I noticed that at even at max volume, the sound quality of the speaker barely distorts at all, so this should help me on those lecture videos. Other than volume, there's one more thing to consider: the whole open vs. closed thing. I've found that 99% of the time, everything sounds better if the unit is open. I got fuller, better sounds that way. This was certainly true for all the music I tested. However, there is one circumstance I found where it's better to leave the unit closed. If you are listening to a low quality recording of someone speaking (like a lecture, ahem) where there's a lot of fuzziness/static noise in the video, it helps to close the speaker. I've noticed that doing so helps cut out some of that white noise and make the voice a bit more audible.Now let's talk about the physical characteristics of the speaker. I ordered the green one (just because it looked like a fun color) and I can say that the online pics are true to color and appearance. When I saw the pics I actually thought there might me a light on top of the speaker (yes, I'm an idiot sometimes) but it's just a shiny reflective silver thing on top of the speaker itself (from the pics, it looks like the black one might actually have a red-colored top). I like the ridges on the speaker's body because they help to make gripping it easy, whereas if it were perfectly smooth it might be hard to keep a hold of a small slippery round thing. The function where it pops open is easy to use and figure out (just twist slightly to the right). The "accordion" thing is fairly stiff, so you will have to apply a little bit of force to close it, but just be gentle with it to avoid damage. On the bright side, this means it'll never collapse while open. Size-wise, it measures about 2 inches in diameter and 3 inches tall open (2 inches while closed). Amusingly, it's about a third the size of my old speaker (which is shaped like a big rectangular bar thing) yet sounds much better.I like the fact that it has it's own volume slider (my old speaker didn't have one and was purely dependent on the volume from the original source file). I also like the built-in audio jack cable. It's attached directly and recessed into the bottom of the speaker. This was a major selling point for me because I really hated how my old speaker didn't have one of these, so I was forced to awkwardly attach the needed cables to it with rubber bands during storage. The cord is rather short (measuring only 4 inches), but it gets the job done. Plus, if you need to use it farther away from its source, it also has a separate audio jack input so you can use whatever male/male audio cable you have to attach it to whatever you want. I also noticed there are little rubber feet on the bottom to keep the speaker from sliding off a table easily - that's attention to detail! The power button works well (it's just a little switch that isn't stiff at all) and when on it lights up a blue LED light. This is rather bright, but thankfully once you set it down on a flat surface it blocks out most of it. The light turns red while charging (via a standard USB to mini-USB cable) and blue again once full. I'm also really happy to report that you can charge this speaker while using it and it doesn't create any disruption in the sound quality (seriously, my old speaker would become so distorted/buzzy that it was unusable during charging).As for battery life, well, I'm not exactly sure. I've used it for several days and I timed my usage each time. The amazon page advertises 12+ hours of continuous use. I got over 26 hours of use! It wasn't on full volume the whole time, and there were times were I paused the video/song to go do something in another room so the speaker was on but not actively making sound, but I'm still duly impressed! After 26 hours of testing, I forgot to turn it off that night and it actually sat there on for the whole night and yet, it still didn't run out of charge, and I only quit my testing because I got tired of waiting for the battery to drain. If you ran it at full volume constantly, it might drain the battery faster, but either way, I can safely say that the battery life is absolutely excellent!I guess the last thing to talk about is the accessories it comes with. The makers of this product were actually pretty kind about including a useful number of accessories. It comes with a little cloth drawstring bag to hold it in, and a couple cables. One of the cables is a longer male/male audio cable and the other is a strange audio jack/ mini-USB to USB charging cable hybrid thing. This is a strange inclusion since it's about the same length as the other audio cable, and because of the way it's made, the charging portion of it is really short. I don't know why they didn't include just this one hybrid cable, or just a normal USB cable to go with the other audio cable. Weird, but oh well. One thing I really like is that both cables have a little velcro closure thing on them to keep them tidy when rolled up. It's a small touch, but I appreciate the effort. The last thing to come with it is an instruction manual. This is an extremely minimal folded piece of paper with some very basic instructions on how to open and close the unit, how to charge it, what accessories it comes with, and how to use the "buddy system". Really, though, this thing is so self-explanatory and easy to use that an instruction manual isn't necessary at all. As for the "buddy plug system," although I don't own a second Xboom, I did plug in my crappy old speaker and it sounded fine (well, not really fine - it sounded like a good speaker playing at the same time as a crappy speaker, but you get my point). Of course if you wanted to do this, it'd be better to have two Xbooms so there'd be some volume consistency (I couldn't get my old speaker to the same volume since it doesn't have its own external volume control). I don't really see a whole lot of use for this system since anyone who wants a portable speaker probably doesn't want to lug around multiples of them just to get louder sound, but it's nice that the option is there. Plus it would be hilarious to link 160 of these together and hold a rave party! I seriously hope someone does that and puts the video on youtube...Well, if it's not apparent by now, I can say that I'm thoroughly pleased with this speaker. I can't think of any real cons to it - except maybe to integrate the charger into the base along with the audio cable, and make those cables a bit longer. Really, though, those are just nitpicks - this unit has no serious flaws of any kind. Even the enhanced bass they advertise is pretty good. I'm really impressed with the sound quality for the price! Even though the Xboom was more expensive than that crappy seven dollar speaker of mine, sixteen bucks (the price at the time) isn't exactly going to break the bank and it was entirely worth it for the difference in quality. If you need a tiny portable speaker, then I highly recommend the Xboom Mini Portable Speaker.

Broke after 2 weeks, not worth the money.