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Review of Azatom Droid Bluetooth portable speaker

donka

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I have occasional travel with my work and so I am a big fan of portable music speakers. They are easy to pack and usually offer far better sound than the standard hotel options or the anaemic sound you get from a phone speaker.


Azatom are a UK brand that are quickly making a name for themselves for speaker systems and after recently buying one of their other models, I can see why. Offering great sound in a quality package for a relatively low price, Azatom truly are delivering value for money.


The Droid is one of their more portable offerings and very practical too. Weighing in at 230g, it feels sturdy and well built while still remaining quite small with its round tapered design being 9cm across the base and 7.5cm across the speaker grill on top. The unit sits 6.5cm high and houses both an active speaker driver as well as a passive subwoofer for extra low end presence. Given a 1,200mAh battery is inside as well as physical buttons for play/pause and volume, two small bass ports and a line in jack, this is quite the feat for design. I actually appreciated the relatively unassuming and clean looks; it isn't just a box with a miss mash of holes and buttons. This design does point out something obvious though - this is a mono speaker. Some people may think of this as a short coming but I actually see it as a positive. The issue with such small speakers is that they don't offer any real stereo separation as such. Too many portable speakers on the market try to fit two small drivers into the unit with very little benefit. By sticking with one larger speaker driver, the Droid offers a much fuller sound in a similar size of speaker.


Connecting to the Azatom is done over Bluetooth 4.0 or using the supplied 3.5mm line in cable. While both options work well, the Bluetooth option offers up more convenience and by going with the newer version 4.0 revision, allows for good battery life; around 10 hours on a full charge. To keep things topped up, the supplied micro USB cable can be used with any powered USB port.


Thanks to the design Azatom followed with the Droid, audio performance is quite strong. Output power is rated at 5 watts which is perfectly adequate for a small portable speaker; it gets loud enough for most environments while remaining composed at all times. That single, larger driver offers up a much richer sound than you expect from this size of speaker and you get none of the tininess that often accompanies such small performers. While the Droid won't have you shaking the floor boards, the bass comes along with a surprising punch and sounds meatier than any of the other portable speakers around this size that I have tried. The passive subwoofer and airflow that the bass ports allow, all contribute to this bigger sound. Naturally though, this is still a single, small speaker unit and compromises in the audio quality are there but given this will for the most part be paired with compressed digital music over a Bluetooth connection, it is a very capable performer indeed. If you are looking for some kind of true HiFi experience, no speaker unit this size is going to deliver it but there are many similar units out there that can only aspire to the Droid's abilities.


The Azatom comes in a variety of colours and is packaged up with a user guide as well as the afore mentioned cables. There are cheaper options out there and there are more portable speakers too but this is probably the best all-round package for price, size and importantly, audio quality I have tried.

Video review:

Azatom Droid1.jpgAzatom Droid2.jpgAzatom Droid3.jpg
 
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leelai

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Great review Donka!

Looks like a great little speaker.........I like that you included the iPhone for a size comparison

And if I ever see one here I just may grab it!

Thank you!!
 

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