Bowers & Wilkins T7 review

Bowers & Wilkins is a British company with a rich heritage in making high-end speakers but to date that hasn’t extended to Bluetooth wireless speakers. For a long time, Bowers & Wilkins has been producing speakers that work wonderfully with Apple devices, either through the inclusion of the old 30-pin Apple connection, the newer Lightning port or by using Apple’s AirPlay wireless protocol for wireless music streaming. This Apple affinity slightly left non-Apple device owners out in the cold but now we have the Bowers & Wilkins T7, the company’s first wireless Bluetooth speaker.

As the company is known for its precision-engineered loudspeakers, we were unsurprised to find it has launched a premium Bluetooth speaker, rather than going after the highly competitive low-cost market. At £300 the T7 is one of the pricier Bluetooth speakers available but is also arguably one of the best-looking we’ve seen.

The T7 is larger than your average Bluetooth speaker, measuring about the size of a hardback book, but the T7 benefits from the extra size both acoustically as well as in terms of battery life. The T7 is rated at an incredible 18 hours of battery life and we found ourselves easily getting nearly this amount. We only charged the T7 once in a fortnight having used it for a few hours each night so you’ll have no problems providing a musical accompaniment to your next dinner party or garden barbeque.

Usually we’re slightly aggrieved when a Bluetooth speaker uses a DC charging port rather than Micro USB as it means you need to carry a separate charger, but as the T7 weighs a considerable 940g it’s not really designed to be taken on the move. It’s also not ruggedised and doesn’t come with any sort of carry case. Instead, you’re more likely to take the speaker around the home as you move room to room or it could remain plugged in on a bedside table or kitchen counter. Its good looks mean you’ll likely be more than happy to have it left out on display.