5 Of The Best Portable Bluetooth Speakers In 2024
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As spring approaches, our thoughts turn to backyard cookouts and poolside mai tais. The seasons that draw us to the great outdoors are rapidly approaching, and with them, a whole lot of portable speakers.
Bluetooth speakers have become a ubiquitous fixture at parties, picnics, and poolside. The best portable speaker brands make products that fit easily in a bag but produce powerful levels of sound for hours without running out of battery. But with thousands of options on the market, we've reached the point where you can find Bluetooth speakers at your local dollar store. And lest you think that only the cheapest speakers should be avoided, rest assured that awful products exist at every price point. If you go shopping without reading reviews, you'll likely end up with a speaker that sounds bad, has even worse battery life, or breaks completely.
That's why I've spent countless hours (and destroyed who knows how many of my stereocilia) testing portable Bluetooth speakers and investigating product reviews to find the five best speakers for most people. As a pro audio enthusiast and music engineer, I'm always on the lookout for great audio products. Here, the most important selection criteria were sound quality, design, durability, feature set, and battery life, all weighted against price to figure out the best bang for your buck. More technical concerns like latency were not considered since they won't impact the average use case.
Our top pick for portable Bluetooth speakers in 2024 is the best all-around speaker for most people. With that said, we've got other options for those who want minimalism, luxury, or the biggest and best product money can buy. Let's dive in.
The best overall: UE Boom 3
The UE Boom 3 is not my favorite UE Boom product, but it is the latest one the company makes, and that makes it the best portable Bluetooth speaker overall. Over the years, UE — which was acquired by Logitech in 2008 — has consistently produced the best-sounding and most feature-packed portable wireless speakers on the market, and the Boom 3 continues that trend.
While I preferred the previous Boom 2 for features such as an NFC tap to pair and the carabiner ring on its base, the Boom 3 still provides the room-shaking sound that made me fall in love with UE's products in the first place. It's also smaller than the original two models lengthwise while still having a diameter roughly equivalent to a Coke can, which means it fits comfortably in car cup holders, bicycle water bottle mounts, or backpack side pockets.
Thankfully, Boom 3 still retains some of UE's best features, like a 360-degree speaker array that helps it sound great when placed on a table or countertop and IP67 water and dust resistance. There's also PartyUp, a feature that lets you connect up to a whopping 150 speakers together to play audio simultaneously. Unfortunately, this cannot be used to create wireless surround sound, but it absolutely makes parties better when multiple people bring a Boom product.
The main downside to the Boom 3 is that it charges over an archaic micro-USB connection, which means that for anyone who's all in on USB-C, you'll need to keep another cable around. The Boom 3 does have wireless charging, but only through a proprietary dock, which is sold separately.
Portable luxury: Sonos Roam
Sonos is best known for its wireless speakers that coordinate to create multi-room audio over Wi-Fi. They're also known for being quite expensive. The Sonos Roam is, therefore, a bit of an ugly duckling in the company's lineup: a portable Bluetooth speaker that integrates with existing Sonos networks. But the ugly duckling, of course, turned out to be a swan, and the Sonos Roam is a fantastic speaker, even at its somewhat eyebrow-raising price, which hovers around $180 at the time of writing.
The Roam is shock, dust, and water resistant with an IP67 rating, which makes it great for light outdoor activities like backyard get-togethers. However, if you bring it within range of your home Wi-Fi, it can connect to a preexisting Sonos network for those who own other Sonos products. Its elongated teardrop shape helps it fit well on deck railings or the corner of a bathtub. Other nice-to-haves include USB-C and Qi wireless charging, compatibility with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and Apple AirPlay 2.
Of course, sound is what really matters, and the Roam delivers. Compared to the UE Boom 3, which tops this list, the Roam outclasses it with clearer mids that don't compromise the thumpy bass. The Roam shines brightest with acoustic music, where its airy quality comes to life, while bass-heavy genres like hip-hop and EDM are a bit less impressive but still great for the size.
On the downside, the app was extremely finicky when I set up the Roam during my brief period of testing. But with everything set up, those headaches were in the rearview mirror. It's also worth mentioning that the Roam 2 is slated to release in June, so you may want to hold out until then.
Best small speaker: Sony SRS-XB100
Sony is pathologically incapable of coming up with catchy names for its audio products, and the SRS-XB100 is no exception, but clunky names hardly matter when the products they represent are this good. Coming in around the size of a small coffee mug and often dropping below $50 in price, this little Bluetooth speaker could produce great sound, according to reviews from trusted outlets. Wrapped in an IP67 water and dust-resistant casing that boats Sony's long-celebrated product design and lasts roughly 16 hours on a charge, the SRS-XB100 is the perfect companion for hiking, grilling, or at the kitchen table.
Design-wise, the XB100 is roughly the shape of a coffee mug, an impression only furthered by the handle-like strap coming off the side. It looks the part of a Sony product, with cheerful colors and edges that are playful and refined. Speaking of refined, the XB100 produces much better sound than its predecessor, the XB13, thanks to an internal passive radiator with a surprising punch in the bass range. Sony also tossed in what it calls its "Sound Diffusion Processor," which the company claims helps to spread sound across a space. While it's unclear how much work that processor is doing, the XB100 certainly does fill a room with more sound than you'd expect for its size.
Best in a crowd: UE Megaboom 3
Oversized tech products make me giddy with joy, which is why I deeply love the Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3, which also made this list last year. As the bigger brother of the UE Boom 3 that tops this list, it is essentially the same product, only larger and louder. Where the regular Boom 3 is about the size of a Dasani water bottle, the Megaboom 3 has roughly the same form factor as a large Nalgene. This is a speaker that can easily take over a small party but still fits into a backpack or tote.
Let's get some negatives out of the way. One thing I do not care for is the Megaboom's default equalizer setting, which heavily overemphasizes bass and makes thumpy hip-hop or dubstep songs sound downright muddy. However, your tastes may differ. If you enjoy a speaker that can rattle nearby dishes, you'll probably love the Megaboom 3. Additionally, the speaker only charges over Micro-USB, a downright archaic standard in 2024, or UE's proprietary charging plate dock. I would much prefer USB-C and Qi wireless charging, like what's found on the Sonos Roam.
Yet, once you've tuned the EQ a bit, the Megaboom 3 is an incredibly versatile and rugged speaker that sounds great. More importantly, it gets very, very loud — so loud, in fact, that I have never been able to test it at full volume for more than a few seconds before I start to worry about damaging my ears.
Like the normal Boom 3, the Megaboom 3 pairs with other UE Bluetooth speakers for group playback and is coated in a rugged, cloth mesh exterior that's easy to clean. Because it's IP67-rated, I clean mine in the sink, but I do not recommend emulating my recklessness.
Serious partiers only: JBL Partybox On-the-Go
Everything else on this list is for reasonable people who want to slip a sleek speaker into a backpack. The JBL PartyBox On-the-Go is not. At a proud 19 inches wide by nearly 10 inches tall and clocking in at a few pennies shy of $300 at the time of writing, the PartyBox is not meant for a picnic. It is meant to shake the roof tiles of a raging house party.
The On-the-Go is actually the smallest version of JBL's absurd line of party speakers. Whereas larger PartyBox models roll around suitcase style or have a package-like handle, the On-the-Go comes with a shoulder strap that lets you wear it like a tote. (Also attached to the shoulder strap is a bottle opener, in case you were doubting JBL's commitment to the partying lifestyle.) It includes a microphone that comes in handy for broadcasting party announcements or for spontaneous karaoke sessions.
In terms of audio fidelity, the PartyBox On-the-Go isn't anything to brag about. With a range of 50 Hz to 20 kHz, it can't capture the lowest end of most song mixes, but it gets far louder and thumpier than anything else on this list. Portable Bluetooth speakers are never meant for audiophile quality, and the PartyBox knows that. It doesn't want you to appreciate the crisp detail on a snare tail. It would rather be the soundtrack to your beer pong tournament.
The speaker has a six-hour battery life, which was about accurate when I spent an afternoon at the park playing from Spotify at medium to high-medium volume. There are also some neat LED lights built into the speaker grill that go in time with the music if you're into that kind of thing.
Methodology
This product guide was compiled following an intensive survey of the most popular portable Bluetooth speakers on the market. Niche products that cannot be easily purchased by the average consumer were not considered. All products on this list were tested for at least one consecutive hour.