Portable Bluetooth speakers are very popular lately and many companies make them, the ability to use a simple Bluetooth speaker to add extra volume and quality so that your mobile device can play music to fill a room can be very convenient.
Anker had sent us their brand new Portable Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker Cube and I can honestly say this cube was very impressive for not only the sound quality from the size of the device, but the battery life which in my testing lasted greater than 14 hours constantly playing music, more on that later.
The dimensions of the Anker Portable Bluetooth Speaker Cube are 3.2 x 3.2 x 2.4 inches, this makes it a bit large for fitting in a small purse, but it will fit in a bag or backpack easily enough for travel. You charge the speaker by plugging it into your computer or a power A/C power supply so it charges via the MicroUSB cable.
There is an on/off switch on the back, so you can keep it powered off to conserve battery when you aren’t using it.
The front of the speaker has 1 small rectangular blue LED for letting you know when you power on, when it is in pairing mode (blinking) and more. There is a plus button for increasing volume, a play/pause button, and a minus button for lowering the volume. It’s that simple.
I am showcasing how the Anker Bluetooth Speaker Cube compares to the Anker Bluetooth Speaker Drum so you can see the size difference.
The cube has a slightly large speaker and you notice the sound has more bass and is more clear than the Drum. During testing with a variety of songs on my iPhone, iPad and kids Kindle Fire HDX, I was able to pair the device instantly and without issue each time.
You just select the Anker MP141 device in the the Bluetooth device list and holy cow I notice I had tested a lot of Anker devices in the past few months. I was starting to lose track of which one was which at this point.
So here is where testing began and lasted for hours, I had to hook my phone up to a charger to make sure my phone would last long enough to test the Anker Bluetooth 4 Speaker. I just queued a 20 hour playlist to help make sure that the speaker would last for the 20 hours of playback it is rated for.
I can tell you that the playback lasted as long as I could remember to keep tabs on it, I left my music player running overnight and throughout most of the day, 14 hours went by total and the speaker was still found playing off of a single charge before so much time went that I lost track. My playlist literally stopped at the 20 hour mark, but the speaker still had some power even after my tracks ended.
For the first few hours I was listening to the various songs and diversified my playlist between rock songs, electronica, classical, jazz just to see how it handled. I can tell you at max volume it does distort when songs are heavy on the bass, and the bass can only be so deep for a speaker of this size, but it does a very good job and is the best in class for a sub $70 Bluetooth speaker that I have tested.
After the 20 hours, I forgot I had the speaker paired, and with max volume set. So when my calendar reminders or phone calls came in, they blared over the speaker and startled the hell out of me. Just a word of warning, when you pair your Anker speaker to your phone via Bluetooth remember that all sounds coming out of your phone will come through that Anker speaker, this includes phone calls, calendar alerts and more.
The speaker only works as a speakerphone if the phone is muted, I can listen to a conference call for hours for example, but the moment I unmute the mic, the mic would have feedback from the speaker volume. So if you want to use the speaker as a speakerphone so you can just listen to calls, make sure you are muted.
Overall the Anker MP141 Bluetooth Speaker delivered a really great sound quality and volume at an affordable price, it is enough to fill a 10×12 room well and most impressive is how long the speaker lasts on a single charge, it will serve you all day literally and makes for a good office, bedroom or bathroom portable speaker so you can listen to your tunes while in the Shower, or while working out in another room or simply while going to bed.
Now, pairing the speaker with the iPad gives you another experience, you can actually have the iPad a few feet away and the speaker close to you so you can enjoy listening to the movie better and keeping the iPad at a distance 2 people can watch. The speaker can get much louder than the iPad 2 speaker so it is very convenient to use the Anker MP141 while watching a movie on your iPad.
It also does well for audio books, my kids listen to audiobooks on the Kindle Fire HDX sometimes, they listen to Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone over and over sometimes and having the speaker as their audio source was better than the Kindle Fire HDX as the speaker produces more volume and allows for a clearer and crisper narrator voice. So I had the Anker MP141 Bluetooth Speaker on the kids center table between their beds for a few nights and they enjoyed being able to listen to their audiobooks out of the speaker.
Note, your Bluetooth device will lose battery fast and die before the speaker will, if you intend to run the speaker and play audio through it for a long period of time make sure you have your mobile device or Bluetooth device plugged into a power source.