Listening to music on a smartphone speaker is passable, but to truly enjoy your tunes you should invest in good headphones and/or a Bluetooth speaker. While I enjoy bobbing my head while wearing my Beats Solo 2 headphones, sometimes I want to relax on my couch, lawn chair, or bed with nothing on my head. For this, I connect to one of my favorite portable Bluetooth speakers, the UE BOOM.
Today, Ultimate Ears announces a successor to that portable Bluetooth speaker -- the unimaginatively named UE BOOM 2. Yes, this popular speaker is getting an upgrade. The best part, however, is that the price stays exactly the same. Sweet!
"Designed to get wet, muddy and beat up, UE BOOM 2 blasts insanely great sound in every direction. Using the same high-quality materials you have come to expect from Ultimate Ears, UE BOOM 2 is waterproof (IPX 7), drop-proof (from up to five feet high), disruptive and bold, plus a whole lot of fun. It's the size of a water bottle, so stick it in your bike's water bottle holder or clip it to your bag, turn up life and add dimension to any moment", says Ultimate Ears.
The company further explains, "building from the award-winning UE BOOM 360-degree speaker that Ultimate Ears introduced in 2013, UE BOOM 2 is 25 percent louder with a longer wireless range of 100-feet and a completely waterproof design, so your music can be shared no matter where you are or what you're doing. It has a 15-hour all-day, all-night battery life, plus, new and innovative tap control that allows you to skip songs, without needing to have your phone in-hand".
One of the fun things about the UE line of speakers is the funky colors. This time we have BrainFreeze, Cherrybomb, GreenMachine, Phantom, Tropical and Yeti. You can see the designs above. Go ahead and click them -- they are very high-res and beautiful. My favorite color of the mix, however, is the most conservative -- the all-white Yeti. Classy.
Like other UE speakers, you can control them with an iOS or Android app, including connecting two for increased volume or improved speaker separation. With the UE BOOM 2, this includes connecting other UE models. In other words, if you own something like the UE ROLL or first-gen BOOM, you can link them to the BOOM 2. Very cool.
Like I said earlier, the price stays the same, so you can score one for a reasonable $199. It will be available later this month directly from Ultimate Ears or other popular retailers.
Will you buy it? Tell me in the comments.