When it comes to portable Bluetooth speakers, the market is saturated with thousands of different makes and models. However, few do stand out from the others for various reasons, whether it be bang for your buck, unique designs or special features.
Personally, I love seeing devices that are unique in design or have certain features that are either hard to find or unique to the product itself. Today, we’ll be going through a few of those, specifically, some speakers we think, stand out from the rest that you should consider if you’re in the market for a Bluetooth speaker that you can take with you and also show off to your family and friends.
This device in particular I’ve been having a ton of fun with. Of course, it’s a Bluetooth speaker which you can either store music on (with an SD card) or stream music from your phone to the device via Bluetooth just like other Bluetooth speakers. However, that’s not its main attraction. Shaped like a mini-computer with a keyboard, the Divoom Ditoo Plus come with RGB keys that you can customize to your liking. However, the main feature is the screen and pixel art.
Using the Divoom app, you can create and animate pixel art that you can display on your Ditoo Plus’s screen. While creating something like that takes time and patients, luckily, if you’re like me and don’t have time for that, you can download different animations and pixel art from your favourite shows, anime, cartoons, characters, or really anything you can think of which are made by other Divoom users and uploaded to the Divoom app.
While the battery life of the product is only around 5 hours, the sound it produces is not like a cheap everyday Bluetooth speaker. It actually sounds really clear and gets to a decent volume level (if you prefer loud). In saying that, this device can be used while it’s charging, so if you have this on your desk at home (or work), just keep it plugged in and you’ll never run out of juice!
The JBL Clip 4 has been extremely popular over the last few months. While its only special feature is that its IP67 water and dustproof, this is a big reason people go for this speaker. Not only is it small and compact, but it provides excellent sound quality and has 10-hour battery life.
It features a small “clip” so that you can hang it off your backpack, handbag, off your belt strap, virtually anywhere you can clip it on. They are excellent devices especially if you’re an explorer or beachgoer. Being dustproof and waterproof, you’ll have no issues taking this with you anywhere while it’s being exposed to the elements. It comes in a range of colours too, so you can find something that suits your style!
This is a big speaker. While it doesn’t run on battery like other entries on this list it has a ton of special features that you won’t be able to find in other speakers. Bring the festival to your birthday party with its 360° sound, allowing you to fill your entire venue with high-quality sound from every side of the speaker and provides you with long-distance bass, simply just hook up your phone via Bluetooth to get started.
The speaker also features party lights, which can fill even big spaces full of red, green and blue lighting. So it’s like having a portable nightclub. You can also plug in two microphones into it which will then allow you to sing along to your tunes, so you can basically use it as a karaoke machine as well. The features don’t just stop there! With the gesture control on this device, you can be the DJ by simply gesturing at the top of the speaker, skip tracks, turn up the karaoke mic, control the volume and more, just by waving your hand. If gesturing isn’t your thing, then you can also voice control it through the Fiestable app.
Finally, with Taiko Game Mode, it features some rhythm games you can play with friends and family and also keeps track of high scores, allowing you to input your name or initials if your score makes it to the top 10.
This is much like the Sony entry, however, the JBL PartyBox 300 comes with an in-built battery for charging and portability, allowing up to 18 hours of playback. It also features party lights at the front of the device, giving you a fantastic light show. However, it is not as sophisticated as the Sony model, nonetheless, it’s an eye-catching feature that you’ll be pleased with. It rapidly changes the colours based on the music you’re playing, giving you a bit more of a “party” feel to the whole speaker (after all, it’s in the name).
Much like the Sony, you have guitar and mic inputs so you can either rock out with your guitar/bass or you can plug in a microphone and have yourself a karaoke night! While you can connect and stream music to the speaker via Bluetooth, for those who want to save some battery life, it also supports USB playback. So you can plug in a USB with your favourite tunes and let the speaker take care of the rest while you go enjoy your party.
We have yet another Divoom entry. Their products, generally are unique with either their features or design. This particular model not only works as a Bluetooth speaker but can also be tuned as an FM radio. It supports SD cards as well, so you can load all your favourite songs onto it and plug it into the device so you can start listening with big sound. Even though the device is small, it provides you with loud volumes and clear audio.
It comes with a strap so that you can hang it off something or attach it to something else, it features up to 5 hours of playback time (it can be used while charging). Giving this to someone as a gift? No problem! It comes in a premium gift package, so no need to wrap it. They make excellent gifts, are lightweight, have a nice design that comes in a variety of colours and has excellent sound quality.
The JBL Boombox 2 is an extremely popular model, for good reason. They’re fairly bulky, however, they come with a strap so that you can put it over your shoulder and take it with you. Why we’ve chosen this as one of the entries is that for its size, provides almost unmatched sound quality at the high volume levels it can produce. Not only is it extremely clear at even higher volumes, but its bass will shake your room. A cool feature is that you can daisy-chain many of these speakers together or other compatible JBL speakers with it, to create a sound system in between those speakers. Not that I think anyone needs more than 1 of these considering how loud they get, but at bigger venues or for a party, multiple speakers are a treat.
It features up to 24 hours of playback depending on how you use the device. That’s 6 hours more than even the JBL Partybox which is a much bigger unit than this. While it’s not entirely waterproof or dustproof, it is splash resistant. So if you’re worried about getting splashes on it while you’re by the pool, that’s no problem. However, avoid dunking it in the water at any time, this will ruin the speaker. Finally, it also features a built-in power bank so that you can plug in your phone for example to keep it charged up, after all, Bluetooth streaming does take a toll on your battery, but with the JBL Boombox 2, you can keep the party going.
