The Naztech Mini Boom speaker is a compact, affordable external speaker that plugs into your device with a built-in 3.5 mm jack. The interesting thing about this little guy is that it doubles as a reasonably good stand-alone music player too, thanks to a microSD memory card slot, playback control keys, and a dedicated headphone jack. Of course, if you want to share the music, the Naztech N15 Mini Boom Speaker unscrews and opens slightly to allow sound to spread evenly in all directions.
Style
The Naztech N15 Mini Boom speaker is extremely portable, fitting easily in a front pocket. The design all-around is smooth, ensure it won’t get caught on anything during transportation. The only thing that really sticks out at all is a lanyard loop.
The bottom of the speaker has a groove built in to stash the cable and jack, with a little tab jutting out the side to pop it out. This is a great way to keep everything compact, though it necessitates having a fairly short cable. Having your phone or tablet continually that close to the speaker might not be practical if you want to use your phone regularly while music’s playing, but that all depends on your usage scenario.
The LED indicator is a little on the bright side, but the speaker is usually out of sight, even when it’s in use. The speaker is available in black, blue, and pink color schemes, ensuring you’ve got something to go well with your sense of style.
Function
The three playback keys handle track skipping, pausing, playing, and volume control, though only when it’s being used as a stand-alone player. In fact, if you hit the play keys with a microSD card while also plugged into your device, both sources will play simultaneously. That’s really too bad, since it would be easier to tweak playback with a single keypress on the speaker than having to unlock your device first to do anything from there.
For such a little thing, the Naztech Mini Boom can pump out some impressive volume. At the upper levels, it didn’t have any noticeable distortion and was audible through a whole room. Busier rock songs with a lot of drums tended to be a bit tinny, but overall I was happy with the quality. Still the ideal use case is for nearby listening – say, a handful of people around a table. Unscrewing and opening the speaker allows for an even spread of sound. You aren’t going to get a ton of bass out of the speaker, but sound is still very sharp.
As a stand-alone player, the Naztech N15 Mini Boom Speaker is about on par with most compact music devices. Without a screen, you won’t have any options for pulling up tracks on demand, or access more advanced features like playlists. Still, the fact that it can operate as a music player on its own is great, and if you have a long history with smartphones, odds are good that you have a spare microSD memory card kicking around that you could load up with music.
The Naztech N15 Mini Boom Speaker has its own lithium-ion battery that charges up in around four hours. After two days of intermittent use, I still had a charge on the speaker, which is definitely good enough for me. My one serious qualm on this front is that the speaker uses mini USB to charge, which isn’t a cable I tend to keep handy anymore, and it can be a pain keeping it separate from the rest of the tangle.
Pros
- Compact, streamlined design.
- Excellent value
Cons
- Mini USB charging
- Short headphone jack
Bottom line
The speakers on most phones aren’t exactly renown for their quality; sure, they’re good enough to take a call, but not much else. External speakers like the Naztech N15 Mini Boom can at very least make your mobile devices passable ambient music players, if not good ones.
Those that are really gung-ho about their mobile audio systems will probably be willing to shell out more than $19.99 for their speaker, likely for access to Stereo Bluetooth streaming, but for a basic music the Naztech N15 Mini Boom does an excellent job. Its ability to function as a stand-alone music player is just the icing on the cake.
Need to share the tunes on your phone regularly? You can pick up a Mini Boom speaker from ShopAndroid fro $19.99 (currently a buck off).