When it comes to portable audio, Bose has a lot of good solutions in the market. The Bose SoundLink Mini is one of the best sounding portable Bluetooth speakers we’ve reviewed but it was a bit expensive. Not everyone is willing to spend about Rs. 17,000 for a portable speaker. Besides, there are plenty of other portable speakers that sound decent, but a lot more affordable. To go with the trend, Bose has now launched the SoundLink Color, a playful, colourful portable speaker which is priced reasonably around Rs. 11,000. It doesn’t look anything like the SoundLink Mini, but can we still expect the premium sound quality the Mini offers? Let’s find out.
Design and Build
The Bose SoundLink Color features a playful design. To go with the portable speaker trend, Bose has given the Color a funkier look than any of its earlier Bluetooth speakers. It features a box-like cabin which doesn’t look very portable, but can fit into a small bag. The body is made of plastic and is available in array of bold colours including blue, red, black, white and a mint-green. We had the blue variant which looks a bit like a child’s toy.
The speaker is light, weighs 0.57kg, but doesn't look very sturdy. The drivers present in the speaker are responsible for most of its weight. They fit so tightly into the cabinet that you can feel them vibrating when you touch the grill on the outside. To avoid the monotony in the design, the speaker also features rubber pads at the side and at the bottom. The pads though add more to the look than to the build. At the top, there are similarly designed rubber buttons as seen on the SoundLink Mini. There are three LEDs placed above the buttons that indicate the charge and the source playing. The auxiliary and the micro USB ports are placed at the back. They aren’t covered by any flaps for protection. Speaking of which, the SoundLink Color is also one of the first portable speaker from Bose that does not come with a carrying case. You’ll have to buy that separately. Additionally with the speaker, you’ll only get a USB cable and the adaptor.
Features
The Bose SoundLink Color offers pretty simple features. The speaker has Bluetooth connectivity that according to Bose can stream music from a good 30 feet. The speaker can remember up to 8 paired devices, so everybody in the family can pair it with their smartphones. Unfortunately, the Color doesn't feature a microphone for voice calling. This was a surprise considering it’s a feature found in some of the cheaper portable speakers today.
The speaker also features aux connectivity if you want to play music via devices that do not support Bluetooth. You can simply change the source by pressing the preferred source button at the top. If you’re not sitting close to the source then you can also use the Play/Pause button on speaker to control the music when playing via a Bluetooth device. However, while using an aux cable that button can be used to mute the speaker.
The speaker is powered by a lithium-ion battery that Bose claims can last for a good eight hours on full charge. The best part of the speaker is that it can be charged via a micro USB cable, which allows you to charge it with the help of a laptop or a power bank, besides the provided charger.
Performance
SoundLink Color might look small, but it’s pretty loud for its size. Thanks to the dual passive radiators, the speaker has a rich and deep bass but it isn’t as good as the SoundLink Mini. The speaker even distorts a little at high volumes and that becomes really prominent while playing songs with plenty of instruments in it. Compared to the Sound Link Mini the speaker doesn’t sound very sharp either, especially in the highs. While playing rock songs, the cymbal shots and guitar riffs got overpowered by the distortion. Vocals on the other hand sounded clear in all the songs that we played. When it comes to detail, we felt the Bose SoundLink Color was average. It managed to play every detail clearly while playing electronic and dubstep music, which is pretty satisfying for its price.
We still think that the SoundLink Color sounded the best while playing slow indie pop and jazz songs that are focused more on the mids and a little on the lows. We played 'Hey Now' from the London Grammar and were just mesmerized by the depth of vocals and the music. To sum it up, the Bose SoundLink Color has a heavier and richer sound compared to most of the portable speakers we’ve tried before. We also noticed that the sound of the speaker, while playing the same song via the aux cable sounded a little bass heavier. This worked out really well for dubstep and some heavy metal songs. The speaker was able to stream music seamlessly from a distance of 30 feet but we did notice a little stuttering whenever we put our smartphone in a pocket. This sometimes even occurred at a shorter distance of 15 feet.
Conclusion
The build quality might not be very good but we are pretty impressed by the depth and the rich bass of the SoundLink Color. We wouldn't really compare it to the SoundLink Mini, but it's still worthy enough of its Rs. 11,200* price tag. Like most portable speakers, we wouldn’t recommend it for heavy genres. However, when it comes to listening to slow acoustic and melodic songs, we doubt if there is any other portable speaker that performs better than the SoundLink Color for that price.
