Review on Beolit 17 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker by Bang & Olufsen - Stone Grey - BO1280373 by Tom Lantz

Quick review: The Beolit 17 is comfortable to use and at $499 it's also $100 cheaper than the old Beolit 12 and 15. In Combined with great sound, portability features, a well known brand name, USB-C charging and good app support, I give it 5 stars. Detailed review: Beolit 17 appears to be a good upgrade over previous iterations (12 and 15), both in terms of sound quality and feature set. I didn't have either, but I showed them both in the physical B&O store before it closed in Tysons Corner, Virginia. My experience: I also currently have the original green Beoplay A2 portable speakers and the gray A6 B&O Play "lifestyle" series speakers. I also had the S3 (unimpressive sound for the original MSRP) and the A2 Active (poor battery life and worse sound than the original A2) and returned them. As for other portable and/or small Bluetooth or streaming speakers, I have experience with Mass Fidelity Core, multiple Sonos speakers, small Bose SoundLink Mini I/II, UE Boom/MegaBoom. In terms of real listening, I'm also a hi-fi enthusiast with systems like the Dynaudio Confidence C1 and Focal Micro Utopia Be speakers, if that means anything to you. Sound: The sound is full, clear, crisp, subjectively good for a portable Bluetooth speaker, and the Beolit 17 is capable of high volume given its small size. As I understand it, the bass with the A2 Active I returned seems to be a bit more punchy than the previous A2 I had on hand or the Beolit models I've demoed at the B&O store. Bass emphasis is present compared to previous Beolit models, but less noticeable than in the A2/A2 Active setting, where the bass and treble EQ felt heavily boosted at both ends of the spectrum compared to the old model. The Beoplay app for iPhone lets you tweak the settings a bit using the Tonetouch controls (a block of four quadrants including Warm, Excited, Relaxed and Vibrant). I've always been impressed with the A2's sound reproduction given its size, but an A/B comparison between the A2 and the 17 shows how much better the 17's range and richness is - for its size. Battery/Charging: The stated battery life is 24 hours. There is also a fancy statement like this on an A2 I own. Neither the A2 nor the 17 live up to B&O's claims for real-world battery life unless, I assume, you're listening at very low volumes. In my non-scientific testing over the past few days, I've gotten around 7-8 hours of battery life on a single charge while listening to the device at at least 50% volume, which is acceptable to me. Worst case, I plug in a spare 20,000mAh USB battery and run for a LONG time. Which brings me to another great feature of this device: USB-C charging. Yes, a USB-C fast charger is included, unlike the A2 Active which only comes with a USB-AC cable! The cable that comes with the Beolit 17 is a USB-CC cable and there is a USB-C connector on the fast charger. Charging is fast and I've tested it with the charger that came with it as well as the Anker 5-port charger I have and they both work well. I suspect the included charger works better since it's a true USB-C charger, but I haven't spotted it. Portability: It's not light, but I didn't expect it to be so. The leather handle is good but I can see that it wears down with prolonged use. USB-C charging improves portability as it can really be used with any charger or power bank as long as you have a Type-C cable. Other: Bluetooth 4.2: Works great with my iPhone 7 Plus, which also has BT 4.2. . The range has increased significantly, and I can walk around my entire three-story townhouse without losing connection. The other day I even took out the garbage on the side of the road and forgot that the phone was in my pocket - the connection did not drop. - Color: I bought a dark gray color "Stone Grey", very nice. It's not entirely black, and the contrast of the polycarbonate against the aluminum grille is very smooth and pleasing. Customizable "Connect Feature" button: A nice addition over previous models that allows you to choose what to do with the additional button. Thing. You can choose from 1) a remote control option that plays/pauses, skips to the next or previous track based on how many times you press it, 2) alarm, 3) custom tonetouch setting, 4) last played song, 5) nothing . I left my remote control option which makes the most sense to me. Pair with another Beolit 17: Nice to have if you want to spend another $500 on another of these things. I'm skipping this now. Beoplay App: Just a quick note: I received what I believe to be the first device. My device arrived on Monday 6/3/2017 much earlier than I expected. I already had the Beoplay app for the A2 and H7 headphones. First thing that happened after I paired the Beolit 17 with my phone and added it to the app as a firmware update to version 5.2.4 (170210) which included custom button support as described in the update notes . I don't know what version it came with or how it sounded because I updated the firmware before even using it. The app works great, always connects to the device and offers all expected features. Compare: - Mass Fidelity Core: Compared to Mass Fidelity Core at the same price (now $499), 17 is a clear winner. At a comparable (normal) listening volume, the Core has lower volume, less fullness and an apparently distorted bass. Sure, the Beolit 17 doesn't have a remote and optical input, but it does have a 3.5-inch mini-jack input and USB-C fast charging instead of an external proprietary charger. It also has a cool leather handle for real portability. Compared to the other BT speakers I've listed above (Bose, UE, Sonos), the Beolit 17 knocks them out of the water. It's not fair competition with other models given the price of the Beolit. I've always loved the ease of using Sonos, but the sound has always been unassuming and flat, not to mention they don't run on batteries. I'm sure there's a better comparison out there, but honestly I haven't seen many other options that offer the size and portability of the Beolit series Overview: Overall I'm happy with my purchase The Beolit 17 is a delight easy to use and at $499, it's also $100 cheaper than the old Beolit 12 and 15 models. Great sound, portability, brand name, USB-C charging, and good app support. I give 5 stars.