Picking a Bluetooth speaker can be a bit of a nightmare. There are thousands of brands, models devices. You can opt out for a known brand, or take your chances and pay less for a brand you never heard before of. I already covered rather an excellent swimmer in the portable speakers’ category Sensport Rave 1, now I have a chance to take a look at its little brother Sensport Move Mini.
The little brother that can’t swim – Sensport Move Mini
The Sensport Move Mini looks somewhat similar to the Rave 1. A rather rugged design encourages the use of the speaker in the harsher than home conditions. To support that claim the Sensport Move Mini comes with the IPX6 rating. It does not make it watertight, however, you can spill a glass of water over it without killing it.
The interface is pretty minimalistic. The black buttons blend in nicely into a rubberised enclosure. They are hard to press, limiting accidental presses, but making the actuation harder. It’s not a concern really, as I usually use my phone to manage the music and the volume.
A nice, but not really needed addition is the microSD slot. If you have a spare card, you can load it up with music and listen to it without a need of using your phone’s battery. There will be no interface, so make sure to organise the playlist beforehand. It’s an extra feature, I’m not going to take it against the Sensport Move Mini.
I have not discharged the speaker yet. It has been a couple weeks and I’m inclined to believe in the out of the box specification of 26h as the battery is still reporting 80% on my Android Pie Pixel.
Sound
The Sensport Move Mini may be small, but it packs a punch. The sound is really good considering the size of the box. It gets loud, for the most part, the music is clear. Just avoid cranking it up all the way, as the music experience is not going to be as good.
I liked the default sound profile, the music was nicely balanced without any additional tweaks in the EQ. Whatever the genre you might be into, you will find that the music sounds well. I’d put it on par with Google Home mini, which has a great sound to size performance.
Not flawless
Most of the Bluetooth speakers have pretty decent connectivity. With no size limitation, bigger battery the Bluetooth range was always great. Unfortunately, I have to report that the Sensport Move Mini comes with a much shorter range. If you keep the line of sight – everything is perfect, but I walked away about 5m (15ft) putting my body (bodies are made of 70% water, and water is great at blocking Bluetooth signals) between the speaker and my phone. The music got interrupted.
Conclusion
The Sensport Move Mini is a nice alternative to all who want a decent sound while keeping the speaker compact. While Bluetooth range can be a concern for many, realistically speaking, I discovered this by accident, and it would not affect the way I usually consume my media. Looks like the Sensport Move Mini is a pretty decent competitor in the sub £30 price range.
