So much to love here. One of the best sounding bluetooth speakers we have tried. Great battery life and it can charge your devices. The Beats Pill+ was a beast.
Design:
First off, its heavy. BUT, that says more good than bad. This thing has great battery life. About 12 hours in our testing. Plus, it is very durable. That weight is sturdiness more than anything. It speaks to quality in design.
Simple button and I/O design helps makes this thing easy to use as well.
There are four buttons on top. Power button, the Beats logo is a play/pause/track skipping/pairing button and then two volume buttons. The five white lights next to the power button are for monitoring battery life.
On the back, you will see a USB out, Apple Lightning in and a 3.5 mm headphone jack output. The USB output allows the Pill+ to charge your devices. This is an amazing addition that will keep the party going or just give your phone more juice on the run.
The Pill+ charges quickly with a Lightning cable. So glad its Lighting and not USB micro, which the Studio 3 Wireless uses for some reason.
Sound:
Powerful and bassy. That sums up Beats. We like that, especially when we are using the Pill+ outside or around the pool. The highs and mids could shine through a little more, but this thing can create some sound.
Hip-hop, rock and house music sound great because of the reliance on bass, something the Pill+ reproduces really well. Spoken word, classical, acoustic and other vocal based music sound a little muddy. The bluetooth is also very stable. We could travel up multiple levels of the house (basement to top floor) with no connection loss. If you feel compelled to rock out to two Bluetooth speakers, Beats does let you pair up two Pills+ speakers for stereo playback or to amplify sound, however you'll need to download the Beats Pill+ app for Android or iOS in order to take advantage of the feature. Besides dual playback, the app also lets you and a friend "DJ" together by controlling a playlist and playback from two separate devices.
Price was an issue early in the Pill+'s lifecycle. Now, the value is really there as you can find these for just over $100 around the web. Score one at that price for a great bluetooth speaker for someone on the go, or just in the kitchen and around the house.
