*** Volvodriver Rating - 7 ***

Volvo breakdown -

Price - $150 USD

Auxilliary in (3.5 mm headphone jack)

Micro USB port to receive charge

Standard USB port to give charge

6000mAh lithium battery

Why would I need a bluetooth speaker? Always thought these things are for kids, I mean why would you want to have music blaring on a speaker in public, to piss people off? Maybe. I used to laugh at these things coz honestly for me they have no use, I guess you could take it to the beach or the park when you're having a picnic and play tunes there but as if we do that anyway and if we did as if you'd play music out loud and annoy other people. I saw no use for them, that is until I started noticing that some of these bad boys come with a speakerphone functionality. Now that's something I could use. I'm on more conference calls than I care to think about, and as everything has become globalised these conference calls can be at hours where you dont want to sit in the office. Having a quality speaker phone for these times would be ideal, much better than a headset or headphones as the sound is not directly in your ears and you can walk away and get a coffee or something and still hear the call.

So I have one, did I part with hard earned cash to get this? Well kinda, I was about to have a heap of frequent flyer points expire with Emirates so I went onto emirateshighstreet.com and in amongst all the crap you would never want, I found this. So I cashed in my points, paid $20USD for delivery (which I had to go pick up anyway) and voila! Here it is. Let's do the obligatory unboxing... first the box, a very nice solid box that has a pic of a JBL Charge 2+ with water around it, I guess this is meant to be a quick way of telling you it's water resistant, how resistant we don't know and I'm not gonna find out. Inside the box we have the speaker itself, and bright orange USB cable, wall plug and a couple of plug adaptors, along with a manual. No surprises here. The speaker itself feels really nice, solid build, nice firm rubbery texture with a thin metal grill on the front and back for the speakers of course. The side has a metally plastic type thing that is supposed to vibrate or something when the music is played... watevs. Pairing is pretty simple, you press the bluetooth button at the top then get your phone, tablet, PC or something to link up via it's bluetooth menu.

From there it's not really rocket science, anything you play, whether it's music or youtube or the phone ringing comes out on the speaker. I've had this speaker for a few weeks now and I've only used it once for music, when I first got it just to sample it, and I have to admit, for what it is it really thumped, I was seriously impressed with the sound coming out of this thing, I mean at full volume the bass was a little distorted but what do you expect? For the size and the fact it's wireless I was suitably impressed, this would be more than enough for me anytime, anywhere. I need to put that into context, if I was to have a party at home, I wouldn't use this, to me that would be silly, I would use my receiver paired to the floor standing speakers and a sub woofer the size of a small car, but for what I would use this speaker for it has excellent sound. There is also an option for it to accept multiple connections for music streaming, so up to three different people, or more specifically devices can send their tunes to this speaker over bluetooth one song after another, I was first quite excited by this, not about being able to steam music from different devices but I assumed this meant the speaker can have three devices properly paired to it via bluetooth at the same time, but no, this feature is only for music stream... something I don't care about so we'll end the discussion about it now. The speakerphone functionality, while it only works with one paired device at a time, is great, you can answer and end calls on the speaker and the sound from the caller(s) is great and very importantly I have had absolutely no complaints from anyone about not being able to hear me, the mic appears to be great, in fact nobody even knows I am talking to them over this thing, and honestly it's made taking conference calls in the home office such a breeze, I love it for this reason alone. The only thing I think is lacking here is a mute button, you can obviously do this on the phone but one on the device would have been great.

Great build quality	No simultaneous phone connection
Big battery that can charge	No mute button
Impressive sound	Why are the cables so bright?
Nice speakerphone
Auxilliary in

In the Box -

1 x JBL CHARGE 2+

1 x 5V 2.3A USB Adapter

1 x Micro USB Cable

1 x Safety Sheet

1 x Quick Start Guide

1 x Warranty Card

Quick Specs -

Weight: 600gm

Width: 185.2mm

Depth: 79mm

Height: 79mm

Power Output: 15W

Bluetooth Support: A2DP V1.3, AVRCP V1.5, HFP V1.6, HSP V1.2

Power Supply: 5VDC USB output: 5V 2.1A (maximum)

Battery Type: Lithium-ion Polymer (3.7V, 6000mAh)

Battery Charge Time: 4 hrs @ 1.8A

Music Playing Time: up to 12 hours (varies by volume level and audio content)

Bluetooth Transmitter Power: 0-4 dBm

Bluetooth Transmitter Frequency: Range 2.402 – 2.480 GHz

Bluetooth Transmitter Modulation: GFSK, p/4 DQPSK, 8DPSK