ZenBeats X7 Review : A bluetooth speaker that works better wired

I've always wanted a Bluetooth speaker for myself because sometimes, I feel like blasting music when I am out and about. A lot of us use our smartphones for it, but you might know that I use a Galaxy Note 8, and the loudspeaker isn't the note 8's stand out feature.

Recently, a company called as ZenBeats reached out to me and offered a review unit of their X7 Bluetooth speaker. Needless to say, I was hyped! I replied to their Facebook message and got it delivered to me.

It has been about Four days since I've been using the speaker, and I think I'm ready to give you my final thoughts on it. So, here is my full review of the ZenBeats X7 Bluetooth speaker.

Unboxing and impressions:

Unboxing experience of this product was, frankly, great. The box was properly sealed and the top cover was snugly fit on to the package. Along with a micro USB cable for charging, they have also included a short aux cable, which is a nice touch in my opinion.

These are the specifications of the speaker as mentioned on the box and the manual.

Usability:

Operating with was fairly straight forward. The circular button is for power on off and switching modes, the '+' and '-' signs are used to switch music tracks on single press, and can be used as volume toggles on long presses.

I think the functionality of these switches should have been the other way around, but I guess you won't be changing the volume all that much on a portable speaker like this. You can always toggle the same with your phone anyway.

Connection over Bluetooth was established within seconds. But one thing that bugged me is that there is no pairing protection on the speaker. This means that, anyone who is in the discoverable range of this speaker can connect to it without a second's delay.

Speaking of delays, I noticed major audio delay when playing YouTube, or any video content for that matter via Bluetooth to this speaker. Everything is perfectly fine and video and audio work in proper sync when the speaker was plugged in with aux cable, but that defeats point of having a wireless device, doesn't it?

Initially I thought it must've been an issue with my smartphone, so I hooked it up with a laptop. Same problem. Whenever you are playing a video to audio lags behind by a couple of seconds after it has been playing for a while. It's fine in the beginning but gradually, the delay gets more and more noticeable.

Pausing the video for a while and then playing it back does fix the issue temporarily, but that isn't the solution. It goes back to that delayed state after a couple of seconds anyway.

Sound quality:

The sound quality is not what you would expect from a traditional Bluetooth speaker. They claim that the speaker has extremely good bass, but I found that the bass response is pretty underwhelming.

Other than bass though, everything else is absolutely fine. The mids are properly elevated and the vocals are crystal clear. Why would say this makes for an excellent Mini home theater speaker rather than a great music player.

Of course, you will have to like it and with the aux cable because you will have that annoying delay over Bluetooth when watching movies.

There is a slot to insert an SD card into this thing is well, so you can directly play music without connecting it to anything. That is the best way to play media on this thing in my opinion, because you get to be wireless and don't have to worry about the Bluetooth range.

That Bluetooth range is pretty good on its own. I left my phone in the hall and took this Bluetooth speaker with me to the bathroom, because it is splash resistant. Even though the device and the speaker were two walls apart, the connection was not lost even for a moment.

When you have inserted the SD card, it starts to scan for music from the root directory, and works its way through other directories present on the card. It is advisable that you load all the music files in the root directory itself, but even if you have it inside some other folder, it will eventually get there.

My problem is, it does not remember the volume that you have set before switching it off last time. Which means that every time you turn it on, it starts blasting music at the default set volume immediately from the SD card without even giving you a chance to switch between modes.

Also, removing the SD card as a pain. The slot is located on the top corner which is covered by the upper shade of the speaker. I don't know how their engineering team ended up designing it in such a crappy way, but even my slim fingers could not get the SD card out. I literally had to grab a pair of tweezers to pull the damn thing out of the speaker.

Oh, and here's one more crap cherry on the poop cake; the play/pause button on the far right side of the speaker doesn't work.

I don't know if it's broken in my unit or it's some weird compatibility issue that the company hasn't found a workaround yet, but it has no effect on anything.

Be it Wired, wireless, or SD card mode, pressing the button in anyway does not affect the music playing. The only way to stop the music is to pause it in your phone, or switch off the speaker itself, which is Ultra annoying.

Battery Life:

I am not sure how long you are supposed to charge this thing. I charged it for about 25 minutes the day I got it, and it has been 4 days since. I ave been using it (mostly wired) for about 2 to 3 hours a day. In other words, I am willing to accept the company's claim of 18 day battery life. It could be closer to something like 15 Days though.

Final verdict:

It's pretty obvious at this point, isn't it? For the price of nearly 3000 rupees, you have to deal with all these inconveniences and settle for a speaker which is the average at best when it comes to playing music. For the average consumer, I think it's safe to say you should stay away from this speaker.

I didn't spend anything all this, so I will continue to use it as speaker for watching movies and occasionally playing music. Again, it's very good when it comes to playing realistic media, such as human speech, and other cinematic sound effects. But are the speakers at lesser cost can deliver the same performance.

ZenBeats people, thank you for this review unit. But it is not worth spending the amount of money you are asking for it. If I was spending money from my pocket on a speaker, I would rather get something like the JBL Go instead.

There you have it. My honest review of the ZenBeats X7 Bluetooth speaker. You know what you thought about it in the comments down below. Also, let me know if you own this speaker and have a different opinion on it.

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Cheers!