Mobility Digest Review: Veho SoundBlaster Portable Speaker

Our phones have become much more than for making calls, we used then for music and video on the go and sometimes the volume is a bit low and a lot of phones don’t have decent speakers built-in sadly. For review today our friends at Mobile Fun have sent me over the Veho SoundBlaster Portable Speaker that can connect to your devices via Bluetooth or line-in via the supplied cable. The speaker is small and very portable and it even has a built-in rechargeable battery. Overall I’m impressed with this gadget, it works and works very well. So read on…

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor:  Mobile Fun

Price:  £17.95 / $28.40

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Veho SoundBlaster Portable Speaker

The Veho SoundBlaster is a small, egg sized speaker which produces unbelievable sounds and connects wirelessly. Allowing you to listen to your music as it’s meant to be heard.

Listen to your music wirelessly, via Bluetooth, or using the 3.5mm audio cable with the Veho SoundBlaster portable speaker.

Unbelievable sound reproduction
The Veho SoundBlaster is a small, egg sized speaker which products unbelievable sound reproduction. It’s small size makes it fully portable so you can take it anywhere and listen to your music as it’s meant to be heard. The Veho SoundBlaster also features built in Bluetooth so you can wirelessly pair your device and play your tunes without getting wires tangled. The Bluetooth works with a 10 meter range so you’ve got the freedom to move around without having to carry your speaker around with you and still keep your music blasting.

3.5mm audio socket for universal compatibility
The Veho sound blaster also features a 3.5mm audio socket which means that you can connect any 3.5mm audio device, such as phones, MP3 players and computers, to the speaker and start enjoying your music. The 3.5mm audio cable is also included with the speaker so all you need to do is plug it in and press play.

Rechargeable battery to listen to your music for longer
The Veho SoundBlaster also comes with a rechargeable Li-on battery which gives between 7-8 hours of music playback, more than enough to listen to your favorite albums. It also comes with a USB charging cable so when the battery does run low you can easily charge it up from any available USB port.

Specifications:
Output: 2.4W
Rating Power: 1.8W
Size: 50W x 50L x 35H (mm)
Speaker: 36mm micro speaker, 40Ohm
Frequency response: 100Hz – 20kHz
Signal to noise: >85db
Distortion: <0.5%

What’s in the Box?

The Veho comes in a hard clear plastic box with specs and info listed on it.

Unpacking everything you’ll find the Veho speaker, user manual and an anti-static bag with two cables in it.

In the bag you’ll find a double ended audio cable and a USB power cable.

The Veho speaker itself cylinder shaped and small. It’s two inches tall and about one and a fourth inches across. The top has a metal speaker grill on it and the side have a rubberized non-slip coating on them. The Veho logo is on what I would call the front.

On the back you’ll see connections for line-in, power and there’s an LED as well.

On the bottom is the main switch with three positions for On, Off and Bluetooth. When you want to just use the Line-in function you turn it to on and for Bluetooth you turn it to the Bluetooth icon, simple really. The bottom also has a rubber non-slip base around the outside edge.

 

Impressions / Review:

The first thing you’ll need to do is charge the Veho and that’s done over regular USB. A red light will come on to indicate charging and then it takes about four hours for a full charge from a dead battery. If you’re like me though you won’t wait until the battery is dead to charge the Veho. I charge my phone when I see the battery at about the half way point. Anyway, that four hour charge gets you about three hours of play time over Bluetooth or Line-in, so there’s no real difference using Bluetooth or not.  Yes battery life in only three hours but for me that’s fine, I don’t think I’ve ever used any portable device for three hours straight. I should note that it’s three hours for playing audio at maximum volume, you should get about 7-8 hours really.

I was curious and I tried to use it while it was charging so I hooked up my PS Vita via the Line-Cable and it works. It’s not something I’d want to do often as you’re really limited for movement with two cables coming out of the Veho.

Once it was charged I connected the Veho via Bluetooth to my PS Vita and it worked just fine. Pairing and connecting was easy, I just had to enter ‘0000’ the first time and then every time after I just had to turn the Veho on and it automatically connected to the PS Vita.

On the Veho is the LED which is either blue or red. Red is for charging as I mentioned, but it blinks blue when connected but no audio going through it and then it stays solid blue when audio is coming out of it.

Using it with the PS Vita the sound was very good, much better than I expected but the volume was rather low and that is the fault of the Vita and not the Veho itself. The Veho doesn’t have a volume control on it sadly, I wish it did as the PS Vita plays most things at a rather low volume.

I also used the Veho with my HTC Titan Windows Phone and it was the same way to connect and pair, just turn it on and enter the passcode.

Using the Veho with the Titan the volume was very loud, but then the Titan itself is loud.

The sound with both devices was clear and full sounding, I was genuinely surprised by just how good this little speaker sounds. I turned the volume all the way up and there was very little distortion.

The only complaint I could have about this little gadget is the fact that there isn’t any way to control the volume on the device itself. Some devices like my PS Vita are at low volume at times, certain games for whatever reason are set at a low volume and no matter what you do you still can’t hear it clearly if there’s any background noise. Some games though are nice and loud played through the built-in speakers, it all depends which game you play really. I would have liked to see a master volume on the Veho speaker so you could basically amplify the sound coming in for those devices with lower volume.

 

Conclusion:

The Veho SoundBlaster Portable Speaker is small and portable and very nicely made so you can take it with you and not worry about anything happening to it while it’s in your bag with all of your other stuff.

The sound is surprisingly good and I really like the fact that it has two connection options so you can use it with pretty much every device you own.

The price isn’t bad I think, it’s under $30 and considering the build quality, ease or use and sound quality, it’s well worth it.

You’re not limited to the devices I used either, you can use it with device really as long as it has Bluetooth or a stand 3.5mm jack on it, in fact Mobile Fun recommends using it as an iPad Speaker.

 

Pros:
+Decent sound
+Rechargeable and long lasting battery
+Bluetooth or Line-in options
+Simple to use
+Small and portable
+Seems durable

 

Cons:
-No volume control on device