Bose SoundLink Mini review

Its lower mid-range sounds smooth and well rounded, too, but although its audio characteristics lend themselves to hip-hop, dance and even some metal, the speaker is not the all-rounder one might hope for. High-frequency sounds, particularly the upper registers of strings, brass and woodwind in chamber and orchestral music, sound a little harsh and become uncomfortable to listen to for an extended period. The emphatic bass also sounded artificially loud in these test tracks and is the first thing to distort when you push the volume up past the 80 per cent mark. Despite these complaints, the SoundLink Mini is perfectly fine for most forms of music, goes up to satisfyingly loud volumes and really lends itself to some musical genres in particular.

However, the speaker’s performance in our battery life test was among the worst we’ve seen. Bose only quotes a seven-hour battery life, but at the same volume levels we use to test other portable Bluetooth speakers, the SoundLink Mini lasted for just five hours and 20 minutes. It produces a rich, room-filling sound while it lasts, but that kind of battery life is only suitable for a speaker you want to move around the house, rather than take out and about with you. Between this and the absence of convenient features such as NFC, the SoundLink Mini seems distinctly overpriced, despite its beautiful styling.