This quirkily designed Bluetooth speaker certainly packs a punch worthy of its cool ‘espresso’ branding.
The Gear4 Espresso Bluetooth speaker measures no more than around four inches in height but the sound it produces is worthy of a much bigger speaker. Its sound is not ‘tinny’, as we expected from using speakers of this size and bigger in the past, but rich, even dynamic.
Clever placement
Where you put it makes all the difference too, as it picks up deeper, more bass-sounding notes when it’s placed on wood or, better still, something hollow. A hollow object such as a kitchen bin allows the sound to reverberate and thus leads to a bigger, more amplified effect.
Cool in the kitchen
It’s a great addition to the kitchen, due to its cute espresso cup styling. It looks equally at home on kitchen units or in the bathroom as it’s so small and unobtrusive while blasting out its great sound. The speaker comes in six colour options – yellow, black, green, pink, orange, cyan.
Rechargeable battery
When you first get it out of its box, it should be charged, as it features an inbuilt rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The unit has a 4 hour battery life, and a range of up to 10 meters or around 30 feet. It omits a beep when its battery is low and when it’s out of range.
Streaming music
Next, there's the fun bit, when you connect it with a Bluetooth compatible device such as an iPod, iPad or smartphone. It’s easy to pair the speaker with a compatible Bluetooth 3.0 and up device. Then you can stream music from your device to the speaker. We also tried streaming Spotify from an iPod to the speaker and it worked seamlessly. Volume control is via your device rather than the speaker, which we found to be a good idea as that’s where you are selecting songs to play.
Out & about
The speaker’s handy carabiner clip means it can also be securely attached to clothes or bags when the user is out and about or at the gym for example.
Price
The Gear4 Espresso Bluetooth speaker is available from Amazon and is currently for sale from £17.00.