Mobility Digest Review: Kitsound Mini Buddy Penguin Speaker

Today for review I’ve got one for the kids, well adults can use it to but you might look silly carrying a little penguin around with you! Seriously though today for review I have the Kitsound Mini Buddy Penguin Speaker and it’s just as it sounds a very small penguin shaped speaker and it’s cute and I have to say it’s extremely loud and has some decent sound. This little speaker has a standard audio connector on it so it will work with pretty much everything, and it has a rechargeable battery so you don’t have to worry about buying batteries for it. Read on…

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: Mobile Fun

Price: $16.49

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Specs/Features:

Kitsound Mini Buddy Penguin Speaker

Listen to your music with style thanks to the cute mini penguin speaker.

Compact design can be taken with you wherever you go
The KitSound Penguin Buddy is an ultra compact portable speaker. It may be small but it packs a loud punch. Use this speaker to listen to your music wherever you go.

Powered by USB
The Penguin Buddy can be powered by charging the Li-on battery. This little Penguin comes with the USB cable that will have your Penguin pumping big sounds in no time.

3.5mm jack is universally compatible and supports daisy chaining
Compatible with a wide variety of devices, the Penguin Buddy has a 3.5mm jack. This makes it compatible with everything from iPod’s and smartphones to laptops and also allows the speakers to be daisy chained for a more immersive audio experience.

Find more Apple speakers and more at Mobile Fun!

What’s in the Box?

 

The box for this little penguin is plastic and see-through

There’s not much in the box, just the penguin and it’s USB charging cable.

This is a great little product overall but sadly it comes with a proprietary power connection which I think is just rather stupid.  If you lose the USB power cable you can’t ever charge it again, why not use a standard microUSB connector? I don’t understand why companies feel the need to do things like this, it makes no sense to me at all.

So here’s the penguin itself, and yes it’s cute!

He even has rubber wings on the sides that are somewhat movable.

On the back is the actual speaker, or the holes for it are there, the speaker is inside. The speaker seems well protected from damage I think, you could just toss it in your bag and go without worrying about it.

On one side you’ll notice a female audio connector, this is there so you can daisy chain more than one together if you want.

Coming out of the top you’ll see the audio cable six inches long and there’s also a key ring so you can attach it to your keys or wherever.

On the bottom is the power switch and charging port.

The penguin speaker is all plastic of course and it’s surprisingly heavy for the small size, it does seem well made.

 

Impressions / Review:

 

On the bottom is also an LED to indicate power and charging. It doesn’t seem to change to indicate charging, when I plugged it in to charge it was still blue. Oh well… it would be nice if it was red to indicate charging, but we can’t always get what we want….

So I said the penguin is small, but to give you an idea of just how small here it is with my ZuneHD, HTC Titan and iPod Touch 4g, which I also used for testing.

When you first start to use it you’ll notice the sound is clear, actually very clear, sure it’s not full range as it is only one speaker but it’s decent quality sound overall for what it is.

I turned it up and was very much surprised by just how loud it can get, I mean this thing  can get really loud and it doesn’t really get distorted unless you’re playing something with heavy bass in it.

Battery life seems decent, I haven’t had to charge it yet and I used it for a few hours already for testing.

There’s not much more to day really, it’s a cute penguin and it’s speaker.

 

Conclusion:

The Kitsound Mini Buddy Penguin speaker is actually a decent product, with good sound quality and a high volume.

It’s well made and the speaker itself if well protected so you can just toss it in a bag and go and not really worry about it, or you can attach it to something with the key ring.

The only real issue with this product is the USB power cable, if you lose it you can’t charge it ever again. I don’t understand why they couldn’t just use a standard USB connector that’s readily available.

 

 

 

Pros:
+Very loud
+Decent sound actually
+Small and portable

 

Cons:
-Proprietary power connection