Here we are, another day, another Bluetooth speaker review. It seems there are so many options to choose from on the market, so how do you decide between all the ones available out there? You could choose based primarily on one factor, such as sound quality, price or battery life, or choose a good mix in-between all of the above. Of course if you spend enough there’s a high chance you’ll get both great sound quality and battery life, but who wants to spend a ton of money on any one thing in particular? Bem’s latest wireless bluetooth speaker is just the sort of thing if you’re looking for said great combination, and it even has an absolutely fantastic design to boot.
Last year we reviewed the 2013 model and were pretty impressed by them. This year Bem has upgraded the unit but kept the same basic design with just a few tweaks. Like last year this thing is a tiny little cube compared to a lot of other larger Bluetooth speakers out there. The speakers themselves are situated on top of the cube, which allow for some really nice acoustics no matter where you place it. Being a cube you can just stick it wherever you want and position the speakers to the best of the room’s advantage too, giving this another one up in the design arena.
Speaking of design Bem updated this year’s model with wireless charging via an included cradle, which solves the problem a number of people seemed to be having with last year’s model if Amazon’s reviews are anything to go by. Basically it seems there was an issue with the USB port where people were able to break it easier than they felt they should, and now since the charging is all wireless you won’t have to worry about breaking the port. There’s still a micro USB port on the back of the speaker too in case you forgot/lost/whatever your charging cradle too. The speaker itself is made out of a soft touch plastic, which feels really good when touching it. The buttons on the front face of the speaker are capacitive, so you don’t have to apply any pressure when pushing them. This was much better than physical buttons for a small speaker, and made it super each to pause/play the music and adjust the volume as needed.
Sound quality from the speaker is mostly great. Given the size there’s not a whole lot of bass from the unit, but I don’t expect that from something this size. Nevertheless that’s a big area that could be improved upon, as some music just felt so flat because of the lack of any real vibration in the bass. Mids and highs sound excellent though, and I found myself chilling out to plenty of rock, new age, classical and other music that doesn’t require too much bass to adequately enjoy. That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy more bass-heavy genres, you just might enjoy those genres on other speakers more than this one.
Battery life is phenomenal too, and I found myself only having to charge it once per week with listening daily at my desk at work. It’s difficult to pinpoint how many hours I could get this thing playing exactly, but it’s quoted at 8 hours of playback time and it definitely met or exceeded that in my testing. It’s also a built-in rechargeable battery, so no messing around with annoying AA batteries or any of that silly nonsense. Of course this means that if you aren’t able to charge it somewhere, it’s dead for good, so take that for what you will. At least having a micro USB port means that it’s likely compatible with any charger your phone is compatible with, so no need to take extra chargers around.
Bem’s Speaker Mojo comes in a variety of colors too, although it’s not quite the rainbow that was made available with the regular wireless Bluetooth speaker. This one is also more expensive than the other one, but given that it has both wireless charging included out of the box as well as the ability to be used as a loud speaker for phone calls gives it some added value over the regular speaker model. Overall the Bem Speaker Mojo is a great product, but at the retail price I feel there are better speakers out there for your money. If you can get it under $50 it’s definitely worth it, but $79.99 is just to much for the sound quality that’s produced here. Check out the product link below for the official website.
