KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
If you want the hard facts about the frequencies this speaker can hit, or its weight to multiple decimal places, that is what the official specifications are for. When it comes to peripherals and subjective accessories here at KitGuru, we like to put them through their paces with the patent-pending “use it, test“, which involves me doing just that every day for over a week.
Damn it feels good to be a gangster
There was quite a lot to test – as the GroovyW is feature packed. In terms of the audio quality though we found it to be decent, if unremarkable. It is certainly a lot better than the average smartphone, with high frequencies produced with a fair amount of clarity – but the bass is weak, until you crank the volume up. Sadly, with the volume increased significantly more issues raise their head.
The clarity takes a hit overall when it gets loud which is a real shame, as that is likely to be the default setting unless you just use of this as a small desk top speaker at work or similar. Talk radio or podcasts were much better, though I suppose they lack the complex nuances of music, so are easier to reproduce.
However, while I might not be giving the GroovyW a gold star for its audio quality, other areas deserve praise. For example, connecting to it is a doddle if you have an NFC enabled smartphone. It is as simple as touching your phone to the speaker and within five seconds it will be connected. There is no messing around at all.
You can also connect them together using traditional Bluetooth pairing. On the screen of your phone, it will let you know it is connected and the speaker itself will output a robotic, accented voice saying “paired.”
If you do not want to connect your phone to the speaker in either of those ways though, you can also use the app, which is available for free through the Google Play and iOS stores (though the latter does not offer much functionality at the moment).
.
The app gives you the ability to connect through Bluetooth, as well as some basic EQ functions. unfortunately they do not seem to do a lot, apart from quietening the frequencies you are not boosting.
Also built into the app, is a large number of internet and on demand radio stations, with the ability to listen in to them with a simple tap of the finger. If you have any music downloaded to your device, you can also play that through the LUXA2 app, which keeps everything in one place – not forcing you to exit and go to the generic music playing app.
Perhaps the best feature is that it lists all tracks in a variety of categories, from genre, to title, artist and album, but most importantly a file browser, which is great if it doesn't happen to automatically pick up on specific songs you have added manually to the phone.
This is obviously all achievable wirelessly too, thanks to the fact that the GroovyW has a decent size battery inside it, giving you many hours of playback without issue. If you carry around the bundled charge plate with it too, that will give you even more. I have yet to burn through it after 10 hours + of testing and GroovyW suggests that it can offer as much as 20 hours extra.
It is nice that the charge plate is wireless too, as to charge the speaker all you do is place it on top of the charge pad and you are good to go. Sometimes I found it hard to get the placement right, even with the ring on the base of the speaker lining up easily with the one of the charge plate. If you do not get it right it continually beeps at you as it connects and then disconnects repeatedly. This can get quite annoying but with a bit of fiddling you can figure it out.
The QI charge plate can also work with compatible smartphones, though unfortunately my current handset does not support it without a specialised accessory which I do not have.
One feature that I did not find particularly useful however was the speakerphone, which was incredibly quiet. Not the person on the other end mind you, we have clarified that this speaker has plenty of volume, but the microphone itself. I found that when on a call you either had to lean really close to it, or practically shout to be heard clearly.
It is a nice idea and I suppose it is good that it is there, but if my handset is nearby I would much rather it just switched over to that and let me take the call there.
Better yet, let me turn up the microphone sensitivity.
It is also worth noting that the range for the speaker is particularly good. Unless your home is unspeakably large, then you shouldn't have much problem wandering in and out of rooms with your phone still wirelessly connected.
When it comes to battery life, the LUXA 2 does a good job of maintaining charge over long periods. Over six hours of continuous play at a relatively low volume, it was had more than two bars of battery left out of four. Perhaps more importantly, it charges up pretty quickly too. While playing live music, it filled up the battery from the charge plate in three hours. This is great as it means you can have uninterrupted wireless music for a long time. Incidentally, this left the charge plate with one bar of power left to give over to the speaker if needed.
