Ultimate Ears (UE) last night hosted the launch of its UE Megaboom portable Bluetooth speaker at Sydney’s iconic Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool. The Megaboom is the big brother to the company’s popular UE Boom.
For your money, you’re getting a blown-up UE Boom, with a few new additions. It’s a little over 21cm tall with a diameter of just under 9cm. It weighs just 800 grams, making it an easy to carry addition for your next outdoor excursion, and a compact yet powerful speaker for your house. UE uses the term “grab and go”, and that certainly seems apt.
Rory Dooley, GM of Ultimate Ears told us that the larger form factor has afforded UE better airflow within the speaker, leading to better – and louder – sound quality. The Megaboom can certainly fill a large space with sound, blasting it out in 360 degrees with serious bass, and it can do it from further away thanks to an increased 30-metre Bluetooth range. With a 20-hour battery life, it’ll keep the party going for longer and it can charge from a standard Micro USB cable.
UE’s kept the award-wining design of the Boom, but made it a little more rugged – it’s now IPX7-rated, making it waterproof instead of water resistant. There’s no better demonstration of this than seeing the speaker playing music while floating in a bowl of water and that’s exactly what Rory did:
To go beyond basic Bluetooth audio playback, you’ll need the Megaboom app, available from Google Play. With the app, you can remote power-on the Megaboom, control volume, set an alarm, adjust the 5-band graphic equalizer and update the speaker’s firmware over the air. There were hints dropped that there’s more to come on the firmware and app front.
The OTA firmware update is a big change from the older Boom, which needed to be connected to a PC to perform updates – and this is a feature that’ll come to the Boom with the next firmware version.
You can also use “Double Up” mode with the app to pair two Megabooms (or pair a Megaboom with a standard Boom) into a stereo pair or just use the speakers together to spread the sound around your house better.
The UE Megaboom will be on Australian shelves in mid-February from JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and Dick Smith. While we’ve seen other colours overseas, it looks like we’ll be getting the Charcoal Black and Electric Blue colours in Australia, priced at $349.95. Check the Ultimate Ears website for more information.
Are you looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker? Does the UE Megaboom take your fancy? Tell us in the comments!
