iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker Review

If you’re anything like us, you most likely haven’t gotten all of your Christmas shopping done yet, (or perhaps not even started it yet). Fortunately, for people like us, there is still ample time to search for that great tech savvy gift that will light up someone’s holiday season. Coincidentally enough, the iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker is definitely one such device that fits the bill. Small and compact enough to perfectly fit in a stocking yet powerful and robust enough to stand alone under the Christmas tree, this Bluetooth speaker is certainly one gift you won’t want to pass up.

PACKAGING & DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS

The packaging of the speaker is fairly straight forward. Sporting a white and blue design, the box promptly displays the iClever logo, an image of the speaker on the front.

The back displays detailed specifications of the speaker on the back, and a small blurb about the product.

Upon opening the package we first find a protective sheet of styrofoam with the speaker located just underneath. The speaker itself is wrapped in plastic and sitting on another piece of styrofoam. Underneath this last piece we find the operation manual, a 32” long USB cable, and a 40” AUX cable. Many Bluetooth speakers don’t come with an optional AUX cable so this is a nice surprise, even though the cable may not be that long.

Looking at the speaker itself we can’t help ourselves, but be taken back by its beautiful design. Sporting a polished chrome exterior with blue accents this little speaker is gorgeous. It is definitely obvious that design was one aspect not skimmed over in the making of this product. Unfortunately, it seems that the design may have been all too pertinent, as there are a few minor oversights with this speaker. First off, the Bluetooth media controls are located on the underside of the speaker, leaving the user to constantly pick up the device to access them whenever needed. Second, the polished chrome look may be a very attractive design choice, but with the user constantly picking the device up to access the controls underneath, very noticeable fingerprints are left behind. These two small design flaws don’t necessarily break the overall value of the speaker at all, but they are still noticeable enough to be a nuisance.

Continuing on with the speaker layout, the back holds the ports for the USB and AUX cables, as well as a LED indicator that indicates charging status.

The bottom hides the media controls and the power switch.

The front contains the noise cancelling microphone and the Bluetooth button. The button itself lights up blue indicating connection status as well as controlling the phone call features.

FEATURES

Let’s start off with the most important aspect of any Bluetooth device; connectivity. To pair the speaker to your Bluetooth device simply turn the speaker on by flipping the power switch on the bottom. It will instantly go into paring/discovery mode where it will attempt to connect to any previously known device. If no device is found, the Bluetooth button will continue to blink blue indicating it is in discovery mode until a device connects. Once connected the speaker will chime and the blue light will stop blinking and instead become solid. If no device pairs with the speaker within 15 minutes, the speaker will turn off, saving battery power. If you hold down the Bluetooth button, the speaker will drop its connection and instantly switch into paring mode, a great and hassle free way to quickly pair multiple devices.

As for the AUX port, it works easily enough. Just plug your device directly into the back and it will immediately jump on top of any Bluetooth device already connected. Once unplugged the device quickly attempts to reconnect to the last known device and usually connects within 2 seconds.

The 3 media buttons on the bottom are your standard play/pause, next, and previous. The next and previous buttons also double as volume changers when held down. If they are both held down simultaneously for roughly 3 seconds, the device will forget all Bluetooth connections. This makes the speaker forget all previously known connections and is indicated by an auditory chime. The controls have a rough 1 second delay once pressed.

This speaker also has phone call capabilities, although we don’t highly recommend them. The noise cancelling microphone works quite well, but it’s the incoming audio that makes this aspect fall short. As we were testing out this feature, the people we called could hear us just fine. Unfortunately what we were hearing on our end was so muffled and degraded that we struggled to understand what they were saying at all. This could have been a great feature but the muffled audio makes it nearly pointless. What’s the point of a phone call if you can’t make out what they’re saying?

SOUND QUALITY

For an average priced speaker we weren’t expecting too much out of the ordinary but fortunately we were pleasantly surprised. For its small size the iClever boasts a very loud yet robust audio experience. It has great treble, decently powerful bass, and some strong lows. The only shortfall would be right in the middle where the speaker exhibits some slight distortion. Once again, given its compact size this is to be expected, and all-in-all it’s not too overpowering to take away from the acoustics themselves. We tested all genres of music on this speaker and quickly found out that pure vocals sound by far the best on this speaker.

The speaker’s powerful treble coupled with its great highs and lows lead to a very full-bodied experience that definitely push the vocals straight into the centre of the musical experience. Most genres perform very well on this speaker but any that require heavy bass do suffer slightly. One great aspect of this device would be the speaker location. Having the speaker on the top forces the audio up and outward filling the room with an even layer of sound. There are no directional issues where you have to point the speaker exactly where you want the audio to go. As well, the generous weight of the speaker keeps it from bouncing and sliding around any surface, even when the heaviest bass lines are being dropped on max volume. In a nutshell this is one great sounding speaker!

REPORT ANALYSIS & FINAL THOUGHTS

This speaker will run you anywhere from $30 up to $80 depending where you purchase it. For this asking price and looking at the speaker as a whole, I can definitely recommend it to anyone seriously interested in purchasing a new speaker. It’s easy to using pairing feature and its strong, robust sound greatly show just how much thought was put in the design of this product. Sure the media controls being located on the bottom and the constant fingerprint issue is a slight nuisance but definitely not enough to reduce the quality of this product.

For anyone looking to buy a new on the go speaker, or maybe that next Christmas gift on your shopping list, we highly recommend the iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker. Its gorgeous design coupled with a strong robust sound make this device a great asset to anyone’s technology arsenal.

Check out the iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker Pricing on Amazon!