The SoundLink Mini charges in about 3 hours. The SoundLink Mini has a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts roughly 7 hours, which is about half that of the Logitech UE Boom and three hours less than the Jambox. Our biggest gripe is the lack of an included carrying case. But ultimately, the Mini's sound quality on music and movies made the lack of features far less of an issue. The Bose SoundLink Mini forgoes all of that, which may leave some feeling cheated at nearly $200. In some cases, like the Braven speaker, you can even charge your mobile phone. Other speakers in this price range - and below - offer speakerphone, onboard playback controls and USB charging of the speaker. We experienced dropouts with two walls (or a wall and a body) in the way, even though the speaker and our iPhone 4S were only about 12 feet from each other. The speaker's wireless range is very good - roughly 30 feet, standard for Bluetooth devices - as long you maintain a direct line of sight. The strong bass and overall output bests competitors like the Monster ClarityHD Micro and even larger speakers like the Jawbone Jambox.

The SoundLink Mini is loud enough to fill a medium-size room or power a small outdoor patio party, and we didn't hear any noticeable distortion, even at top volume. We watched episodes of 'True Blood' and 'Breaking Bad' on an iPad using the SoundLink Mini as the audio device, and dialogue, explosions and gunfire all came through very clearly with plenty of low-end rumble and crispness. Acoustic jazz has plenty of sparkle in the cymbals and presence in the horns, with powerful bass. Even Philippe Entremont's recording of Debussy's moody solo piano piece 'Clair de Lune' sounds lively. But bass and kick drums on tracks such as Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' have way more impact than with any other speaker out there at the time of this writing.īut it's more than just bass vocals and complex instrumentation on tracks like on Tower of Power's 'So Very Hard to Go' and The Beatles' 'Penny Lane' are impressively clear, with great overall tonal balance. That's not to say that deep bass in tracks like Ludacris' 'Helluva Night' comes through like full-size speakers - the speaker does have its limitations.

Click to EnlargeThe dual passive radiators and large, heavy magnets inside the SoundLink Mini give it extraordinary bass response, something lacking in literally all other speakers of comparable size.

Best mini bluetooth speakers 2013