Bose has been making great quality speakers for years, and their new SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker simply continues that excellence – in a very small and portable package. Priced at $329 CAD for the Black aluminum finish and dark grey nylon cover, to $379 CAD for the silver finish with the dark brown leather cover, the SoundLink Wireless brings Bose quality to users of Bluetooth equipped devices with great portability.

The design of the SoundLink Wireless is sleek and modern and should appeal to anyone looking for a small, great quality speaker they can easily throw in a bag and take with them anywhere.

The SoundLink Wireless is 13 cm H x 24.4 cm W x 4.8 cm D and weighs 1.3 kg. The Lithium-ion battery onboard takes between 2-3 hours to attain a full charge from empty and users can expect about 8 hours of listing time – depending on the volume you play your music at. Obviously, the louder you play your music, the more power it takes, so the less battery time you get and the more your neighbours get annoyed.

Photo courtesy Bose – The Bose SoundLink Wireless Speaker

The cover protects the front of the speaker when not in use, and folds back to provide a stand to support the speaker while it’s being used – a nice touch. When you shut the cover, it automatically shuts the speaker down and saves battery life.

This isn’t a speaker designed to fill an empty hall with sound. It’s designed for portable use, so you’d use it on the beach, in the back yard, on the boat, anywhere where a portable speaker is wanted. So the compact design accomplishes goal of having a portable speaker for those times when you want music on the go.

Photo courtesy Bose – Bose SoundLink Wireless Speaker from the inside

The sound, derived from the six speakers stuffed into this small package, is quite impressive. Bose has a series of three great videos to explain how these speakers achieve the crystal clear sound you’d expect from Bose speakers.

I took my test version to the lake and used it to listen to my favourite Jesse Cook songs while sitting on the deck in the evening, and on the boat it added a nice bit of quiet background for an evening sitting enjoying the sunset.

The beauty of this speaker is that with artists like Cook, who plays such intricate music, the clarity the SoundLink Wireless offers lets you hear every note. To demonstrate the power of the SoundLink Wireless, I fired up AC/DC’s Thunderstruck – a song I always play when I’m testing speakers – and cranked it up for a few minutes so my rocker neighbor could appreciate the amazing sound quality and lack of distortion (although with Thunderstruck it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re hearing distortion or the band) coming from such a small enclosure.  The speaker has enough quality to hear every note of quietly played acoustic guitar and every note of amped-up rock music – quite impressive for something so compact.

Photo courtesy Bose – The Premium Edition of the SoundLink Wireless Speaker

The SoundLink Wireless will connect with pretty much any Bluetooth device you might have, whether it’s Mac, Android, PC, tablet, iPhone – whatever. Setup is very simple and takes only a few seconds. You can listen to music stored on your smartphone, or tablet, or use AirPlay to stream from your computer. You can stream content from Pandora or Rhapsody, or Internet radio or other streaming services.

You can’t however, use the SoundLink Wireless Speaker with your iPhone or smartphone. If you’re streaming from that device and you get a call, the music shuts off while you answer the phone, and resumes when you hang up.

You get the SoundLink Wireless speaker, the adapter, and a stereo cable to use with an MP3 player or other audio input device. You can control the SoundLink in two ways; through whatever device you’re using to stream content from, or directly by using the volume up and down buttons on the device itself. I use an iPhone; so I crank the volume on the SoundLink Wireless up manually, and then use my iPhone to control it. If you just use the iPhone, for example, you can have the volume set at full on the phone, but you’ll get more volume by also using the buttons, so by cranking it up first, I have complete control of the volume right from my phone. Because it uses Bluetooth, the range for controlling and streaming content is about 30’ maximum. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be more than 30’ away from the speaker ever.

Photo courtesy Bose – The Bose SoundLink Wireless Speaker comes with a variety of colour options for covers

An additional $35.99 CAD will buy you a car charger, and red and purple nylon covers are available for $29.99 CAD, and burgundy and tan leather covers for $49.99 CAD.

This is a fun, high quality, portable speaker that’s easy on the eyes, a treat for the ears and something that will make you the life of the party.

PROS: Great sound in a compact package; Bose quality; great battery life; simple setup; the magnetic cover that shuts the speaker off is a great touch

CONS: Expensive; I honestly can’t find much to complain about with this speaker.

About Murray Hill

Murray Hill has been a freelance columnist appearing regularly in some of the most prominent Canadian newspapers since 1974. He began writing about technology over twenty-four years ago and he still maintains the belief that there's a gadget or gizmo for every situation and application. His fascination with technology and gadgets has endured for over fifty years, and has led to many familial discussions about the the difference between the words "need" and "want" when referring to tech. Based in Saskatoon, connect with Murray at: murray@communicatto.com

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