Product Review And Giveaway: Sound Blaster Free

The Sound Blaster Free occupies a crowded market of bluetooth speakers.  They come in many shapes and sizes.  Most importantly, they come in many different price points.  eBags gave me one of these to test out and give away to a lucky reader.  Let’s start with the review.

Size And Form Factor

The Sound Blaster Free is about the same circumference as a can of soda.  It’s as tall as a 16 oz bottle of soda.  It weighs about a pound and a half, so it won’t weigh down your backpack/purse/briefcase.

The product also stands up on end, which is a feature I’ll cover later.

Controls And Inputs

I own a Bose SoundLink II, which is what I would consider one of the high-end entries in this category.  The Sound Blaster Free has a lot more options for control from the device.  For starters, the Sound Blaster Free has play, pause, forward and rewind commands buttons.  It also has a shuffle/repeat button and a “Loud” button to pump up the volume.  I tested these controls when hooked up to my iPhone and was able to play and pause from the speaker as well as advance to the next song.

It took me a minute to figure out why this was valuable.  What if you have your phone plugged in somewhere and you’re walking around with the speaker (I was easily 20 or 30 feet from my phone with the device without any signal drop)?  You can control what you’re listening to more easily by using the Sound Blaster Free’s controls.

The unit has a USB and auxiliary input for music sources.  Interestingly, the unit will also take a micro SD card.  I’ve never loaded a playlist on an SD card so this doesn’t have a ton of value for me.  But, it might for folks who are more into music than me.

But, How Does It Sound?

I’d put the sound quality in the “very good” category.  I wouldn’t go all the way to great.  The Sound Blaster Free does okay in the bass category but I wouldn’t call it awesome on the very high or very low ends.  The sound I get from my Bose SoundLink II is better, but it’s also priced 3 times higher.  I think the sound is comparable to my Amazon Echo, if that gives folks a good frame of reference.

It’s plenty loud, especially with the “Loud” button.  It filled up our living room quite well, I couldn’t turn it up all the way.  Outside, the sound would have been plenty for a nice backyard party.

The Final Verdict

Battery life on the Sound Blaster Free was over 6 hours in my tests.  Plenty of time for a long party or a day at the beach.  The Sound Blaster Free is priced at approximately $99 on eBags, but was just on sale for about $70, with an additional 5% rebate in eBags bucks.  So, keep an eye on the Black Friday sale.  I definitely see where this is worth that price.  It’s not a Bose, but it is better than a lot of comparably priced units I’ve seen/heard.  If you’re looking for a solid, mid-priced bluetooth speaker, I think the Sound Blaster Free is the right choice.

If you are thinking about buying it, I hope you’ll consider my referral link.  It won’t cost you any extra and it helps me earn some free stuff from eBags myself!

ETA: The winner for the Reinforced iPhone Lightning Cable I reviewed is Anita Francis, who said:

Netherlands is on my bucket list!

Anita, drop me a line at ed -at- pizzainmotion dot com and I’ll get that cable shipped to you.

Okay, Okay, The Giveaway!

I’ve added a couple of extra ways people can enter.  You should see an entry form below.  By entering your e-mail address you’ll be entered into the contest and added to my mailing list.  Don’t worry, if you’re already on there you won’t be subscribed twice.  And, if you’re not, you’ll receive one e-mail a day from me with a summary of my posts.  You can unsubscribe if you don’t like what you read.  🙂

You can earn two extra entries by:

• Following eBagsonline on Twitter
• Liking my Facebook page

The entry form below will walk you through how to do both.  You’ll have until 11:59pm on Sunday, November 27th to enter.  Good luck!

 

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