by Small Bluetooth speakers don’t care if your device has Lightning or 30-pin, or even if it’s a Mac or an Android phone. You can stream music from any Bluetooth device, and the audio-in lets you connect anything with a headphone jack. You won’t be blowing anyone’s hairpiece off with the sound, but they’re portable enough for travel.
The Braven 600 won the prize for sound quality: crisp, clear, and well defined. The 6-watt speaker also got louder than the other two we tested, and the built-in rechargeable 1400mAh battery kept it playing for nearly 12 hours—you can even connect your iPhone or other USB-charging device to its USB port and use some of that battery power to top off. At 6.3 x 2.5 x 1.8 inches and 12 ounces, it’s the longest speaker in our test, but also the thinnest, and easy to tote around, even poking out of your back pocket. The red aluminum (also available in black) looks great, but it’s the least sturdy on a table; we kept knocking it over with any little bump.
From top to bottom: Logitech UE Boombox, Big Blue Live, Braven 600
Logitech’s UE Mobile Boombox has a good-looking, rubberized exterior available in all black (shown) or in black-and-red, black-and-green, all white, and blue-and-white. It’s short and squat at 4.4 x 2.6 x 2.4 inches, and the lightest in this test at 10.5 ounces. The rechargeable battery lasts 10 hours, and it was easy to not only pair lots of devices (up to eight before it stops making new pairings), but also connect two devices at once and take turns playing. Unfortunately, it couldn’t get as loud as the other two speakers we tested, and the sound quality was just OK at mid volumes but quickly got distorted and icky past 80 percent or so.
