Boost was first released more than 4 years ago and it was a real step forward in portable bluetooth speaker market that impressed the whole tech world because of that powerful punchy mid bass in such a small speaker. It's the original successor of Anker Premium bluetooth speaker which was also impressive but had issues. I love a lot of things about this speaker but there's something missing in its sound signature that's why I had to check the Soundcore Motion+ but hey, that was in the past because the upgraded boost has a real 9 band eq now. You can tailor the sound which is a huge deal. So in this review article I will share my experience, thoughts and opinions about this speaker and I think after reading this, it should be more than enough to make a clear decision.





Inside the Box
Nowadays, budget portable bluetooth speakers don't come with such good packaging like this one. Soundcore boost came inside a rigid, thick and hard cardboard box which can keep the speaker much more secure than normal foldable less thicker paper boxes. I really like the box and the details on the box are nice, clean and enough to give you an overview of the speaker. The new upgraded version has a totally different looking box which feels a lot cheaper than the original box. It has a similar design like the soundcore motion+'s box but the new material is not that sturdy. Now let's find out if there is anything special or not in the box.

I like the fact that boost was inside a soft touch polythene bag which will not give you cheap vibe. There was another black paper box on the side and inside that box you're gonna get a micro-usb cable, user manual and happy not happy card. I think it's pretty decent and minimal but there wasn't anything special in the box. It's nice that there was at least a charging cable but the cable was kinda cheap compared to the speaker. Point to note that upgraded boost comes with a type-c cable which is much better in quality and supports data transfer feature.



Design and Build
I really love this boxy, round and refined design of the speaker. It literally looks like a super cute small soundbar. The overall look is very clean and gorgeous. It has rubberized plastic material on top and bottom. The rest of the speaker sides are wrapped with condensed soft fabric mesh. This kinda high density mesh can't prevent the sound from not being able to open up and come out hanging forward. More details about this in sound quality section. The bottom has very small rubber feet which is not really helpful. Top portion of the speaker is so unique and has an excellent design. Every button has its own flashy looking circle around it. The buttons are raised little bit from the surface. I absolutely love how the top looks on this device - so sweet and cute.

They are using decent quality materials for the build that don't feel cheap to the touch. It has a weight of 585 grams which is kinda in a balanced position of portable speakers. The form factor is small, nice and smooth which makes it very portable. All the ports are on the left side under a water-resistant cover. The overall finish is pretty good but can get dirty over time even though it doesn't attract fingerprints that much. So the build and design is very good and it is really a simple, clean and minimal looking gorgeous speaker in case you want to travel with this.


Configuration
Soundcore boost is stereo which is much better than mono but because the speaker is small and the drivers are too close to each other you just only get some sense of stereo imaging. The speaker is 20 watt rated. On the front side there are 1.75″ x 2 active drivers and one passive radiator in-between the drivers. So each driver is 10 watt rms and there is another identical passive radiator on the back side. Those are full range drivers and handling the frequency range that they are capable of. Passive radiators are for helping out the drivers so that the speaker can produce some decent mid bass. This speaker can reproduce from 60 hz to 18 khz within +/- 3 db and this is very impressive for such a small device - 7.7 x 2.5 x 2.6 inches.

The original speaker had micro-usb for charging, aux input and usb-a power out for charging external compatible devices. The upgraded boost gets usb type-c and a tws stereo pairing button by replacing the old micro-usb and aux-in port. In addition, the new boost supports soundcore app. So you can update the firmware from the app wirelessly and control some other features like powering off, accessing the volume, eq presets, custom eq and some other less useful features. By the way, I forgot to mention that they are using high quality neodymium magnets for the front two full-range woofers.


Sound Quality
Although the upgraded boost has titanium cone drivers, the sound signature on both is similar. They both have warm nature in their sound. I like the warm sound because it doesn't make the overall sound muddy. There is that bass up button and it boosts bass by more than 6 db at around 75 hz. But there's no dynamic bass boost for low level listening. On average listening volume you will get a significant bass boost if you press bass up but at higher volume the difference is very small. By the time you hit 85% volume the bass will not increase proportionally but mids and treble will increase. Even though overall boost has a nice warm sound signature, it sounds little bit off from a balanced sound.

First of all, sometimes that huge boost at 75 hz gets too punchy, uncontrolled and unnatural with low distortion. It can make the speaker vibrate a little bit so you should turn bass up off when the track is bass heavy. At low volume bass frequencies fluctuate sometimes which is a weird little bug in new version. Then the vocals sound little bit recessed and do not pop as they should. So as a result the sound doesn't open up quite well. The treble is there but it lacks some sparkle and shimmer. The speaker has really condensed fabric mesh covering the drivers. Without that mesh the speaker would sound more open. The new upgraded boost supports custom eq, so you can overcome this problem by tweaking the sound using the eq. There's no decent soundstage going on here because the drivers are very close.

So definitely the upgraded boost is better because you can fix some of the problems using the custom eq which is a huge deal in this budget category. Overall the sound is pretty natural and bass is so impressive for a small speaker. This speaker outperforms other speakers in its price and size. It has a full bodied sound and gets pretty loud at higher volume. This speaker is a lot of fun even though it's not gonna deliver rich detail in your music.


Features
The original soundcore boost didn't have that many features but the new upgraded version has a lot of crazy features that can make this speaker really unique and special in budget category of portable wireless speakers. Anker's well known BassUp technology works well here. The device supports usb type-c charging at 2 amps and also it can charge external compatible devices like smartphones via usb type-a port at 1 amp that works as a power bank. You're gonna get ipx7 waterproof level with the speaker. So you can submerge this under water for a short period of time but don't play with sand around this speaker. NFC is supported and bluetooth 5.0 is used in soundcore boost. The latency is good enough and you're not gonna experience any significant delay while watching videos and movies.

The most important and useful feature is it supports the soundcore app and TWS pairing. You can do a lot with the app which is exceptional in this price range. This app is a huge deal because you can customize the sound as you like using their proper 9 bands equalizer. In addition, you can check battery status, update the firmware, adjust the volume, set auto power off, access some eq presets and turn the speaker off. These are the most useful features in the app and their clean UI makes everything really simple and easy. You're not gonna get that many features with any other speaker brand at this price.


Battery Backup
Soundcore is claiming upto 12 hours on a single charge at about average 60% volume. Their claim is okay as I get more than 16 hours backup at or below 50% volume. It gets pretty loud for a small speaker and you can enjoy it in outdoor situations but you can't do party with this speaker. When the battery is low a single white led will flash. It takes about 3 hours 20 minutes to do a full charge. Battery is rated at 5200 mAh in total combining 2 (18650) cells. If you use BassUp all the time then you will get less battery backup because it takes a lot more power to drive the drivers for bass frequencies than higher frequencies. So overall, a very powerful speaker with solid battery backup plus power bank feature.


Conclusion
This speaker is full of features and the sound is well balanced for most scenarios. There are other speakers in this size if you wanna keep it easy and portable enough. JBL flip 6, Bose Soundlink Flex, Bogasing M4, Tribit Maxsound Plus and Huawei Sound Joy are some decent sounding speakers in this size category. Soundcore Boost offers an exceptional balance of build quality, sound, design, reliability, features and price which is extraordinary. Boost is the champion in my opinion then I will pick tribit maxsound plus for its very neutral sound and cheap price. I like the jbl flip 6 but it's not so cheap and other speakers are less interesting.

I hope you've got enough information from this article to decide if you wanna buy the boost or not. I highly recommend this speaker and absolutely love its super cute clean boxy soundbar type gorgeous design. This speaker is waiting for you to amaze you. Check the official webpage to explore their presentation.

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