Logitech who were the first Company to introduce a UE Boom 360 degree, waterproof portable wireless speaker has launched a brand new speaker that is almost twice the size, of its impressive smaller family member.
At $349, the new UE Megaboom, is a serious “kick arse” speaker that delivers excellent sound, looks good and is available in multiple colours.
It can also be paired to create stereo sound.
This products sits alongside the high quality small Wireless speakers that are now being delivered by Hi Fi Companies such as Bose, Harman Kardon or Bowers and Wilkins.
It is so good that products like Jawbone who pioneered this category are struggling to get sales up against the likes of UE Boom.
The UE Boom doesn’t just sound better, it’s got a smarter design and has some highly practical features such as when one presses the up down volume keys one is instantly told how much battery life is left in the device.
Logitech claim that you can get around 20 hours of battery life out of their large UE Boom, I got more than 24 hours before it was calling for a juice top up.
When you pair it with a mobile smartphone I got 11 hours though at about nine hours the device started to struggle, what I don’t know is whether this was a Bluetooth issue or a battery issue.
When I first got this device I listened to several pieces of music stored on my hard drive, these included Eric Clapton to some classical and jazz music and several pieces of music streamed from Google Music as well as JB Hi Fi Music, all of the songs sound good with good base and excellent clarity with an acoustic guitar track.
There are some truly terrible-sounding big brand Bluetooth speakers sitting in our office and this is defiantly not one of them.
The dimensions are 22.6 cm round and 21.1 cm high and while this does not fit “easily” in the hand like the baby Boom it does pump out impressive sound from a sub $350 device that weighs in at 0.8 grams.
The cylindrical shape throws sound in a cylindrical arc than the forward-facing drivers found in brick-shaped speakers that throw the sound out from and not around. . Tiny circular UE Boom foot pads keeps the speaker from “moving” around on a flat surface.
The device has a 30 metre Bluetooth range however this depends on what is between the source and the speaker.
On the downside the UE Boom app is less than impressive, while I was able to pair two UE speakers I did have to have three cracks at trying to get it to work.
The “Double Up” pairing feature needs a lot of work, however when paired you can deliver a true stereo pair with one playing the left channel and the other playing the right.
While the software works on a smartphone it is not designed for a tablet which is a serious mistake as I would love to have a customised tablet app.
On the bottom of the speaker is a folding D-hook that you can use to hang it in a shower. The thread hole for the screw also fits a tripod which when you have two working in stereo looks cool.
The bespoke app has a bog standard EQ along with an alarm feature, you can also remotely power up the speaker using a smartphone so you don’t have to get up from a desk to turn on a UE Boom speaker.
For: A Great speaker that is going to take a lot to beat, all a salesperson has to do is turn it on 5/5
Against: The application software is very average compared to what is coming from the likes of Harman Kardon for their JBL range. Software 2/5
