Jawbone Mini Jambox review

The tiniest model in the Jawbone range is the Mini Jambox, available in a staggering array of colours and patterns. While many portable speakers look a little cheap and tacky, Jawbone’s blocky little speakers ooze style.

The Jambox is around the same size as an elongated pack of butter, and feels well made. The silver metal finish and dimpled decoration of the version we reviewed is particularly attractive. Inside the speaker is a stereo pair of drivers and, in between, a passive bass radiator to help round out the bottom end of the speaker’s sound.

On the top, you’ll find a play/pause button that remotely controls your Bluetooth audio source, and the speaker’s volume controls. The right hand side bears a power switch, Bluetooth pairing buttons, Micro USB charging input and a 3.5mm input for other audio sources. The Mini Jawbone also has a built-in microphone, so you can use to it make hands-free calls. Unusually, its Simultaneous Multipoint connection feature means that you can connect two devices to it: one for music streaming and the other for calls.

Detailed configuration of Simultaneous Multipoint and other settings is available via Jawbone’s Updater program, which lets you configure the speaker’s settings from a Windows PC via a USB connection. This tool also lets you update the speaker’s firmware, change the audible prompts it uses to tell you its status and enable LiveAudio virtual surround sound, which is designed to make games and films more immersive. As far as surround sound goes, it’s not particularly impressive, but it’s notable that such a tiny speaker manages to produce any impression of directionality at all. You have to connect the speaker to your PC to switch modes, though, and doing this just to play a game on a tablet seems like more effort than it’s worth.