My good friend Jeff told me he had purchased the Jawbone Jambox and I asked him to write a review for the SMR users. Jeff has an amazing home audio system and compared to him I am a novice when it comes to home audio. Then again maybe my pockets are just not as deep. Regardless, here is his review of the Jawbone Jambox.
All my good friends know that I am sucker for cutting edge technology, and especially for Audio/Visual equipment. I really appreciate great audio quality, from a whole house audio system that extends to my back yard, all the way down to my Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones for travel. I just cannot get enough of it. So when I was alerted to the new speaker system from Jawbone called the “Jambox”, I knew I had to have it. Just like any other man, I have a struggle between pure want and actual need. The person in my house who believes she is the ‘boss’ keeps this personal tug-of-war top of mind with all my technology purchases. In this battle, the Jambox was eventually classified as a ‘want’, to become a new edition to my audio/video collection.
I am an audiophile, but to hear such full robust sound coming from the Jambox was an incredible initial experience. However, I have a love for really loud music and the Jambox could only be considered loud if you listened to it in a monastery or library. I tried to listen to the Jambox while washing dishes, a task usually performed by the ‘boss’ (just kidding, honey), but it was difficult to hear. I tried to listen while playing basketball on the sports court and while playing fetch with the dog, but in each case the volume level was insufficient for the task, especially considering the $199 price tag.
Where the Jambox really astounded me was when used as a speakerphone. When I was just trying things out, I called Rod using the Jambox as a speakerphone. Seconds into our conversation, my neighbor appeared outside my window (5 ft. away), with a leaf blower operating at full capacity. Rod never commented about the leaf blower, so I had to ask if he could hear it. To my astonishment, he could not hear anything except my voice. Not believing the result, I performed the same test with my home stereo and got the same result. Of course, everything has its breaking point. I did find that breaking point at which the quality started to go downhill, but that point was way beyond just listening to my favorite band – Metallica loud.
The design of the device is interesting and modern. It is a rectangle, measuring in at 6” long by 1.75” wide by 2.25” high. It comes in black, blue, red, and grey colors. Both the top and bottom have a rubber matte finish. The volume and call controls are on the top of the unit. The Power button, a 3.5mm auxiliary stereo mini-jack and the micro-USB port for charging and software updates are located on the right-hand side. The material used for the structure is glass-infused polycarbonate, with a stainless steel grille. The unit weighs in at just 12oz. The battery life is more than acceptable. With all of my testing for a few weeks, I averaged around 10 hours per charge. In light of this fact, the battery life was awesome.
I was able to easily pair Jambox to many devices (Smartphones, MacBooks, Windows 7 computers). All sounded the same, with no differences at all.
The pro’s of the device are:
- Sound quality is very rich.
- Wireless capable (connect via BT)
- The overall design and materials
- Conferencing capability
The con’s of the device are:
- Music/Movie maximum sound volume is too low unless you are in a totally quiet place
- The product cost is too high. I can spend 70 dollars more and get a Bose SoundDock Portable, which kicks butt. The only problem with the Bose SoundDock is it is not very portable. There are three different types of Bose SoundDocks: Bose® SoundDock® Series II, Bose® SoundDock® Portable, and Bose® SoundDock® 10 digital music system
Overall, I like the product but I am very disappointed in the maximum sound volume available for media. If you decide to try the Jawbone Jambox, let us know what you think.
