This review comes almost two years after the UE Boom was originally
unveiled. Unfortunately, this is the time it took Logitech (the company
had acquired Ultimate Ears) to bring one of its most popular and well
received wireless speakers to India. If you've been eyeing the Boom and
have still not been able to get your hands on one or are simply looking
for a new wireless speaker, here's our review...
Build and design
There are no two ways about it that the UE Boom is a wireless speaker with personality. It looks very alluring thanks to its colourful can-like cylindrical body with a two tone design. The middle, top and bottom parts are made of rubber-like material while the rest (essentially the part which emits the sound) has a mesh-like fibre material.
The speaker is water and stain resistant (IPX4). The speaker weighs 538grams and is 180mm tall. It's easy to lug around and you can carry it inside your backpack or travel bag without any problems.
We have to say the design of the speaker makes it an iconic device - the volume control buttons are big plus and minus engravings near the top of the rubberised portion with a UE tag just next to it. To be honest the fibre mesh look gives it a very apparel-like feel instead of the usual industrial design gadgety one. The top edge has a small recessed power button that's hard to distinguish from the surface if not for the LED light it houses. A very small bump just above it is the Bluetooth button (even this one has a tiny LED light).
The bottom edge has a small D-shaped loop for attaching a lanyard or you could just take it out and mount the speaker on a tripod stand. The micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack are placed right next to it. The UE Boom is available in a number of colours; the one that was sent to us for review was Aqua comprising of green and blue colours.
Features and performance
The UE Boom offers 360-degree sound through its cylindrical design which means the sound level would be the same at all sides of the speaker. The speaker features two 1.5-inch drivers and two 2-inch passive radiators. It has a wireless (Bluetooth) range of 50 feet, can pair up to eight devices and connect with up to two devices at the same time. It even supports NFC. Another interesting feature is that you can pair two UE Boom speakers with one source for a much richer stereo sound experience.
The UE Boom app (available for iOS and Android) facilitates this feature and also lets you tweak sound frequency settings for one speaker through equalizers. It even alerts you if there's a firmware update available for the speaker! We updated the firmware via a simple OS X app and got a new feature - the ability to turn off the speaker via the mobile app through Bluetooth LE support.
The speaker's rechargeable battery comes with a claimed playback time of 15 hours which matched up to a large extent to the real world performance. The speaker als features a microphone for phone calls through mobile phones.
We have to say the UE Boom is one of the loudest speakers we've encountered and thanks to the 360-degree output it's uniform across all regions of the room. Sound output is rich, clear and crisp, especially while dealing with mid-range frequencies. It excels at reproducing voice focused acoustic tracks. We had a great time playing the latest groovy pop tracks. While it reproduced the beat in The Weeknd's Can't feel my face without any hiccups, with bass-heavy tracks you'll notice some distortion at high volume. The thumping beat at the beginning of Kanye West's Love lockdown gets distorted a bit. Inspite of this flaw, we still feel the UE Boom is one of the best wireless speakers available at this time and most users will be happy with its performance.
The Rs 14,995 price tag may feel a bit steep though. You can check out other options such as the JBL Charge or the Logitech X300 if you don't want to spend a lot and need a wireless speaker for casual listening. Remember that you won't get the same quality in terms of sound output and loudness. The Bose SoundLink Color is another good option if you can spend about Rs 10,000.
Build and design
There are no two ways about it that the UE Boom is a wireless speaker with personality. It looks very alluring thanks to its colourful can-like cylindrical body with a two tone design. The middle, top and bottom parts are made of rubber-like material while the rest (essentially the part which emits the sound) has a mesh-like fibre material.
The speaker is water and stain resistant (IPX4). The speaker weighs 538grams and is 180mm tall. It's easy to lug around and you can carry it inside your backpack or travel bag without any problems.
We have to say the design of the speaker makes it an iconic device - the volume control buttons are big plus and minus engravings near the top of the rubberised portion with a UE tag just next to it. To be honest the fibre mesh look gives it a very apparel-like feel instead of the usual industrial design gadgety one. The top edge has a small recessed power button that's hard to distinguish from the surface if not for the LED light it houses. A very small bump just above it is the Bluetooth button (even this one has a tiny LED light).
The bottom edge has a small D-shaped loop for attaching a lanyard or you could just take it out and mount the speaker on a tripod stand. The micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack are placed right next to it. The UE Boom is available in a number of colours; the one that was sent to us for review was Aqua comprising of green and blue colours.
Features and performance
The UE Boom offers 360-degree sound through its cylindrical design which means the sound level would be the same at all sides of the speaker. The speaker features two 1.5-inch drivers and two 2-inch passive radiators. It has a wireless (Bluetooth) range of 50 feet, can pair up to eight devices and connect with up to two devices at the same time. It even supports NFC. Another interesting feature is that you can pair two UE Boom speakers with one source for a much richer stereo sound experience.
The UE Boom app (available for iOS and Android) facilitates this feature and also lets you tweak sound frequency settings for one speaker through equalizers. It even alerts you if there's a firmware update available for the speaker! We updated the firmware via a simple OS X app and got a new feature - the ability to turn off the speaker via the mobile app through Bluetooth LE support.
The speaker's rechargeable battery comes with a claimed playback time of 15 hours which matched up to a large extent to the real world performance. The speaker als features a microphone for phone calls through mobile phones.
We have to say the UE Boom is one of the loudest speakers we've encountered and thanks to the 360-degree output it's uniform across all regions of the room. Sound output is rich, clear and crisp, especially while dealing with mid-range frequencies. It excels at reproducing voice focused acoustic tracks. We had a great time playing the latest groovy pop tracks. While it reproduced the beat in The Weeknd's Can't feel my face without any hiccups, with bass-heavy tracks you'll notice some distortion at high volume. The thumping beat at the beginning of Kanye West's Love lockdown gets distorted a bit. Inspite of this flaw, we still feel the UE Boom is one of the best wireless speakers available at this time and most users will be happy with its performance.
The Rs 14,995 price tag may feel a bit steep though. You can check out other options such as the JBL Charge or the Logitech X300 if you don't want to spend a lot and need a wireless speaker for casual listening. Remember that you won't get the same quality in terms of sound output and loudness. The Bose SoundLink Color is another good option if you can spend about Rs 10,000.
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