I have tested a lot of Bluetooth speakers and I still love it when I find something fun and exciting. The Alonso A5 is just such a speaker.
Many speakers simply sit there and reproduce sound. A few, do it with style. The A5 is one that uses colorful LED lights to bring life to the music and add a little fun to the task.
One interesting thing you will note, which is really the only complaint I have, is that there isn’t any English in the manual aside from the name and description of the speaker. Even with this difficulty, it did not take me much time to figure things out.
One the underside of the speaker is two buttons. One has a symbol usually associated with power so, I pressed it. Once pressed, a rumble of music can be heard and a pleasant-sounding voice speakers in a colorful language that I cannot honestly say I understand, followed by an English speaking one letting me know I just turned on the speaker. At the same time, colorful lights splash across the entire surface of the speaker, hinting at things to come.
Pairing was easy. When I went into my Bluetooth settings, the speaker was already showing up on the list so I paired it. Again, a voice in both the other language as well as English informed me that I had paired the speaker nicely.
One other button exists on the speaker and this one sits right beside the power button. It seems to have one function which is to control the lights. When no music is being played, the button allows you to turn off the light function. In fact, it even says something to that effect. When music is being played, the button allows you to switch the visual mode of the lights. There are a few, and one of them is such that it kind of reacts to the sound being played at that moment.
There is a TF or micro SD card slot on the underside of the speaker as well. I have no information on the size that can fit but pretty sure it’s standard MicroSD card. This speaker functions as a portable music player as well. I did note that there are no volume control buttons nor is there a pause or even a back or forward button.
One other feature typical with Bluetooth speakers that I simply cannot, from the manual, determine if it exists, would be a mode to interrupt the music playing so that incoming phone calls can be taken care of through the speaker. I will say that near the spot where you plug in the charging cord, there does appear to be a small hole. Also on the bottom of the device is another slightly larger hole. One of them could be a microphone. I do not believe that the latter would be an effective placement of a mic, however.
I have sent the manufacturers a message asking them to help me with all the unknowns. I will update this review once I learn more. However, I must say that even with the unknown issues, I like this speaker. It is colorful and reproduces music well.
The response from the brand was not what was expected. Sadly rather than completely share with me the many features of their product to base my review upon, they directed me to look at other people’s reviews of the product to learn what they should have made available to me, especially seeing as the manual is not in a language I can read. I do not look at other people reviews or opinions of a product before writing my own review. I feel that doing so would bias or influence my review and that would mean you would not be getting my honest assessment of the product. Sadly this lack of information sharing by the brand leaves me in a bad state. You see, I love the product. If all things were equal, I would give it at least 4.5 out of 5 stars. Not having a manual that I can read, has to cause a loss of points. I must then give the product a rating of 4 stars. I do that because I honestly cannot expect everyone to speak English no matter how prevalent it may be. Sadly, however, I have to drop another full star due to customer service. Since the information, they did give conflicts with information even on their website and then being told to look at other people reviews, this leaves me no choice but to give this otherwise great product only 3 out of 5 stars.
Sorry for the rant, but I desire to provide you, the dragonblogger reader, the best that I can give. As such, I discovered an additional feature. The ring at the very top of the speaker can be turned. This raises and lowers the volume that the speaker plays at. When you do turn it, you will see a red color of light descend from the top as you raise the volume and also ascends as you lower it. This is nice sadly there is no visual indication that this function exists.
According to the Amazon list of features, this speaker is supposed to be able to answer the phone when you are using the speaker in Bluetooth mode. There is also supposed to be a feature that allows me to change which song I am listening to including pausing the entire thing. I have not accidentally come across this feature. I also have not discovered the size of the TF card.
According to the box, the only place English is used in the description of the product, the battery life is rated at 4 hours. Amazon has 5 hours listed in one part of the description of the device, and 6 in another. The brand’s website says 6 and possibly more in another. Just what the true battery life is, is simply not apparent. It does seem reasonable that running the speaker without lights would increase the battery life, but what would be the fun in that.
So my final thought is this. I truly love this speaker. I love the shape which is so different that it makes it an interesting addition to anyone’s home. I love the fact that the sound coming from the speaker is rich, and now that I know that there is a built-in volume control, and have heard the speaker at full volume, it sounds amazing. Despite the annoyance of not having any English instructions, nor any clear direction on the other features I cannot verify, I would still recommend this product. If you need a great speaker at a great price, this is the one you should consider.
You can read about the product from the Anonsuo A5 official product page here.
Alonso provided me with their Bluetooth speaker to review. All opinions are 100% mine and mine alone.
