Best Portable speakers for Smart Phone and standalone use?

longtimelurker54

Hi,

I would like to buy some portable speakers to use with my new Samsung Galaxy S. If possible, I'd like something I can use as a standalone device to play music.

I've seen some which are kind of like tennis balls and they have an SD card slot so I think this means you can use them to play either from the phone or from an SD card directly (even when not attached to the phone).

Pls does anyone know if this is correct and if so what the quality is like? Ideally I'd like to get rid of all my outdated stereo equipment and replace with one small device.

Has anyone any recommendations please? Also are there any that come with radio built in?

Many thx in advance.

jayme1

something like this, this, this or this there are loads to choose from those are all battery powered but you can get ones that can be both battery and mains powered and the X-Mi X Mini II charge via USB so good to charge in the car, wall or via a laptop.

as for radio the galaxy s has a built in radio function so just connect the phone up to the speakers and turn on the radio on the phone and the speakers will act as the antenna.

the X-mini happy which you mention above are the same as the X-Mi X Mini IIs but have the built in mp3 player from the memory card function.

longtimelurker54

Hello Jayme1

Just a quick reply to say many thx for your helpful comprehensive reply and the links - much appreciated. I'm off now to deliberate and buy! I just wanted to get an idea of how powerful these little things were and managed to get one demonstrated in a shop yesterday and they are really loud and the sound not too tinny so can't wait to get rid of some more bits of redundant stereo equipment!

longtimelurker54

Hi,

Just an afterthought I wondered if anyone could help with. If you use one of these portable speakers with the SD card input, how do you select which album/track you want to play? Is there an LCD screen and menu selection? I would envisage using an SD card with around 30GB of music stored on it so would like something that's easy/user friendly to be able to select files/folders. Am fairly clueless about this, so grateful for any help.

Thx again.

jayme1

the X-mini happy with the SD card slot doesn't have a screen so I imagine it will just randomly shuffle all the songs on the SD card.

you would need a basic mp3 player to be able to actually select the music you want to listen to (if you weren't goign to use your phone for the music)

if you search on youtube for any product you are looking at there should be plenty of demonstrations on there, sometimes offering useful insights into the product (ie I've just watched one saying that the x-mini happy cannot charge and play music at the same time)