- VERDICT
The Bose SoundLink Flex is one of the best quality portable rugged Bluetooth speakers we’ve heard and the fact it’s built to go anywhere just makes it even more appealing. Don’t go on your next camping trip without it.
When it comes to Bluetooth speakers there are a lot of brands to choose from but there aren’t many that can match the Bose quality with its new SoundLink Flex rugged speaker.
This is a product for those who love the great outdoors and want to take their music with them.
And thanks to its sturdy design, the Bose SoundLink Flex can go anywhere. It also has an IP67 rating which makes it waterproof and dustproof.
And if you drop it in water – don’t worry – it floats.
The speaker is made from soft touch silicone and has a powder coated steel grille along with a fabric loop so you can hold it or hang it.
The Bose SoundLink Flex is 20.1cm long, 9.2cm wide and 5.2cm thick and weighs 600g.
Along the top edge are the controls – power button, volume and Bluetooth.
And you can also pair the SoundLink Flex with other compatible Bose speakers with SimpleSync to add more sound around your home or just make it a bigger sound wherever you are.
As you would expect from Bose, the sound quality is superb and includes a brilliant level of bass that’s just right and not too dominant as we’ve heard with other speakers.
The nuanced sound is delivered through the custom-designed transducer with DSP (digital signal processing) also providing crisp sound.
What we liked was the fact the Bose SoundLink sounded great no matter how it was placed or how we were holding it or hanging it.
Position IQ does the heavy lifting here. It can sense how the speaker is sitting or hanging whether it’s upright, on its side, lying flat or hanging and adjust and optimise the sound and deliver crisp clear sound.
And it’s also quite loud if you want it to be so it can easily fill a room or your camp site or picnic spot.
We tested the durability by accident – we suppose no one drops something on purpose – when we dropped it from standing height on a tiled floor.
There were no scratches we could see and the Bose SoundLink Flex kept on playing without skipping a beat.
On the battery side, we couldn’t get the full 12 hours that Bose said but closer to 10 hours – we think that’s because we were playing it at near full volume.
Turn down the volume a bit and we suspect you’ll get closer to the 12-hour mark but were still happy with the playback time we got from at the louder volume.
Connecting the Bose SoundLink Flex to your smartphone takes seconds with the speaker announcing the device’s name when it pairs via Bluetooth and tells you the battery levels as well.
It would have been good to have three or four small LED lights that can view the battery level at glance.
The Bose SoundLink Flex is priced at $249.95 and is on sale now.
VERDICT
The Bose SoundLink Flex is one of the best quality portable rugged Bluetooth speakers we’ve heard and the fact it’s built to go anywhere just makes it even more appealing. Don’t go on your next camping trip without it.
