Mobility Digest Review: Global Hawk Portable Bluetooth Speaker / MP3 Player

So I’m back with another review for you, and then I’ll have another in a day or two actually. Today though I have a portable Bluetooth speaker, but it’s much more than that as you’ll soon see once you keep reading the rest of the review. The speaker is from a company called Global Hawk, and was sent over for review by My Trendy Phone, I’ve never heard of Global Hawk and I’m sure you haven’t either, but I’m always up to give anything a go and overall I’m impressed by this little speaker. This speaker is very well made and it’s heavy, I mean really heavy, or at least much more than I expected it to be, it’s made of metal and plastic and just overall it’s not bad… so read on..

 

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: My Trendy Phone

Price: 33,40 EUR / $44.59

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

 

Specs/Features:

Portable Bluetooth Speaker – Blue

Enjoy Your music wherever You go and handle calls hands-free and with our portable Bluetooth speaker.

– Compact aluminum enclosure design
– Bluetooth: 2.0 interface standard
– 3.5 mm line-in for non-Bluetooth enabled devices
– Operating Distance: 10 Meters
– LED indicator status
– Built-in microphone for calls handling
– TF card slot
– Rechargeable lithium battery, charged by connecting the USB interface to Your computer
– Stream music through any Bluetooth enabled device
– Bluetooth password: 0000

Specifications:
– Bluetooth version: Bluetooth 2.0
– Bluetooth frequency: 2.4-2.48GHZ
– Bluetooth communication protocol: HS/HF, A2DP, AVRCP, OPP
– 3.5 mm line-in
– Audio driver unit: 40MM
– Audio RMS: 5W
– Audio frequency: 100HZ-18KHZ
– Audio SNR: S/N>=85DB
– Audio distortion: THD<=10%
– Music format: MP3
– Power volt: DC 5V/6V
– Battery life: up to 5 hours

-Dimension: 6.3 x 6 x 5.5 cm / 2.5 x 2.37 x 2.18 inch

Package includes:
– 1 x Portable Bluetooth Speaker
– 1 x Mini USB Cable (length 73cm)
– 1 x 3.5 mm audio cable (length 43 cm)

 

This product was provided by My Trendy phone for review where you can find all kinds of stuff including iPhone 5 accessories and much more.

 

 

What’s in the Box?

So as usual we start with the unboxing, and yes it’s a box, actually an attractive little box, it’s a gift style box I guess that has a magnetic closure on the front and some specs on the back.

 

When you open the box you’re greeted with the top of the speaker and an accessory box off to the side.

 

Once you get everything unpacked you’ll find the speaker itself, a user guide and two cables.

 

The two cables are USB and a double-ended audio cable.  The USB is used for charging and for connecting to your computer for control and transfers. The audio cable is used for connecting any device with a standard 3.5mm jack to the speaker.

 

So here’s the speaker, or actually the top of it which is a metal protective grill and the Global Hawk logo. I mentioned in the intro it’s heavy, this thing is solidly made, I’m talking if you threw this at someone you could knock them out with it.

 

On the bottom you’ll find the controls for power, volume up and down and play and pause along with answer/end call. In a circle around the control is a non-slip rubber pad so you can set it on most any surface and it will stay put.

 

The side of the speaker I got for review is blue metal, but there are other colors available. Around the bottom edge you’ll find the microphone, USB port, 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot.

 

Impressions / Review:

 

I’m one of those people that just jumps into stuff without reading the user guide and if I hadn’t read the user guide I would have missed out on a feature or two of this product.

First it’s a Bluetooth speaker and I connected it to my HTC One and my PS Vita and there it worked fine. Using it with my HTC One all of the controls worked, I could adjust the volume and play and pause but also I could navigate tracks as well. To move through your music tracks you just quickly push the volume plus and minus buttons, and this worked great with my phone. Of course it worked fine as a speakerphone too! I had no problems connecting it to my phone, turned Bluetooth on and searched for it and then entered 0000 to pair it and it was done.

 

I love my ZuneHD and I will use it until it dies but it’s not Bluetooth so I had to use the included cable for that, and that brings us to the second use for this product, as an external speaker. No controls here, just music but I didn’t expect any controls to work so no big surprise. Yes you can use the volume controls on the speaker to control the overall volume, but no controls for the ZuneHD itself.

 

You’ll remember there is a microSD card slot on the bottom edge of the speaker, well this speaker is also a stand-alone MP3 player! I toss some music on a microSD card and it worked flawlessly. I did find that it’s rather difficult to get the microSD card in and out of the slot though, that’s a good thing and a bad thing I guess as you won’t have to worry about the card coming out. Once the card is in it sits flush like the first picture below, the second picture is with the card in the ejected state just to show you the card and slot etc. Here the controls worked as well for navigating music and all that. So it’s a Bluetooth speakerphone but it’s also an MP3 player! I should also mention that this is compatible with microSD card up to 64gb in size, so that’s a lot of music!

 

So as I was reading the user guide I saw something about PC audio. According to the user guide you turn it on then plug it into a USB port and up popped a Windows Driver Installation window and I let it do it’s thing.

 

On my personal computer I use a nice high-end PCI soundcard so this didn’t quite work for me, what I mean is that this can be used as a PC speaker with audio over USB, essentially it has it’s own soundcard built-into it.

I hooked it up to my kids computer the same way and it worked perfectly, the sound played through the speaker.

On my computer though I did open up the Zune software and I found I could control it with the controls on the speaker, play, pause and forward and back worked just fine.

I then opened up VLC Media Player and the speaker actually let me control the movie I was watching with the controls on it. Not exactly sure why you’d use the control on the speaker as opposed to your mouse of keyboard controls but I guess it’s nice to have options.

If you have a microSD card installed you can transfer files directly to the card over the USB cable, so if you don’t have a card reader this can work just fine to put put music on the microSD card.

The speaker has 500 mAH rechargeable battery inside of it that should last at least four hours and I think that’s good enough.  Charge time is about two and half hours, but that’s over USB so it’s going to be rather slow like most things are.

 

I’m forgetting the most important part here I think, and that’s the sound! The speaker can get very loud, yes it’s not stereo but I didn’t notice it as much as with other speakers I’ve used.

Sound quality is very good, you can crank it all the way up and there’s very little distortion and there’s plenty of bass. This little speaker actually vibrates my desk and if it didn’t have the rubber non-slip base on it I’m sure it would vibrate itself right off my desk.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Talk about an all-in-one device, this thing does it all, I’m just amazed.

It’s a Bluetooth speaker.

It’s a Bluetooth speakerphone.

It’s an external speaker.

It’s an MP3 player.

It’s a PC speaker with multimedia controls.

It’s a card reader.

This product is one of the most useful Bluetooth accessories I’ve come across in my time reviewing products, this thing is truly and all-in-one device, it does everything really. Well not everything but you get the idea!

The sound quality is very good, and it’s simple to use with a decent battery life. For a “no-name” or “generic” brand this thing is impressive.

 

 

Pros:
+Multiple uses
+Simple to use
+Plays MP3 files from microSD card, it’s an MP3 essentially
+Very well made
+Includes auxiliary cable
+Can control PC music
+Rechargeable battery
+Very loud
+Good sound

 

Cons:
-Very heavy
-No case
-Hard to get microSD card in and out

 

 

Disclosure: This product was given to me for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review; I do not, never have, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products.