Divoom Onbeat-200 Bluetooth Review

• Brand: Divoom
• Model: Onbeat-200
  
• Price: £50-70 (at time of review)

With music being one of those universal entities that can not only bring people together, but separate them also.  With many different companies on the market offering a multitude of different products, my main focus today is from a company called Divoom.  Divoom, who opened their HQ in Germany in 2012, they are a relatively new company and with an ethos on providing not just substance, but style, how far can this company go?

Today I will be taking a look at their latest Bluetooth wireless speaker, the Onbeat-200.  This particular speaker allows you use your tablet, mobile and other Bluetooth device wirelessly.  Also included is a 3.5mm jack which allows you to go wired which gives people the best of both worlds.  How will it perform and does it fall in line with what Divoom are all about?  Let’s find out, starting with some specifications and a bit about Divoom themselves.

Specifications

About Divoom:

We say, 9%Love,17%beauty,13%fashion, 5%madness,17%power, 8%goal in the last minute, 6%adrenaline,with heart and soul service, it is your 100%divoom.Building brand Divoom inspiration comes from love of Music. Divoom has focused on developing innovative audio products which excels in aesthetic design and audio performance for music lovers. Your enjoyment in Music always and everywhere, anytime will fuel our consistent growth.

Packaging

The Divoom Onbeat-200 comes in a hard clear plastic box with the top half having the Onbeat-200 in clear view which would be very ideal in a retail environment.  The bottom half of the packaging is black, made from card and has information regarding the brand, the model and that it supports Bluetooth.

On the rear, it follows the same uniform and design as the front of the packaging, but on the rear it has a more detailed list of the features of the Onbeat-200 in the following languages: English, French, Italian, Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.  I would have thought Chinese would have been included, especially as Divoom included Japanese but I can’t speak for the company themselves, as weird and strange as it seems.

Bundled with the Divoom Onbeat-200 are the following accessories:

1 x USB cable to connect charge the speaker

1 x 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable

1 x Wrist strap

1 x User guide

As the speaker itself is wireless, Divoom states it has a battery life of around 8 hours which is pretty good considering the size of the speaker; it is pretty dinky!

Closer Look

Taking a head on look at the Divoom Onbeat-200, as you can tell, this particular model is red, which is very vibrant and colourful.  It is however available in different colours which also include blue, black and silver.  The red casing of the speaker is made from a very hard rubber which is very good for absorbing shocks for all those clumsy people and has a really nice solid feel to it.  I have no issues about the build quality and feel it’s been made very well indeed.  The front honeycomb effect grill is made out of metal and is neatly designed; notice the groove in the front which adds a little contrast to the design and I actually really like it, albeit pointless for performance etc.

On the top of the Onbeat-200, there are 3 buttons which given that your device is compatible, has a play/pause button which is the square one in the middle and the plus/minus allow you to flick between the different songs on your device.  The volume is determined by the volume controls on your device which I feel is a really great way to do it; if you have a wireless speaker, do you really want to go over to it to turn the volume up or down?

The base of the speaker has details including the brand, model, safety/power information and that the speaker was designed in Singapore and built in China.  Common with a lot of products these days as it’s cheaper to outsource the work to the far-east.  The entire speaker has the same hard rubber block typed design and I really do think a lot of it; it looks good to me!

On the left side of the Divoom Onbeat-200, there is an on/off switch, USB connection to charge (you can charge via PC/Laptop or even via a wall charger which would have to be purchased separately) and an auxiliary connection for the included 3.5mm cable.  Just above this, is the latch for the wrist strap to be attached, I find this kind of pointless as I can’t really see anyone carrying it around when walking about, unless you are hiking and it would be much easier just using headphones via an MP3 player etc.

Performance

To test the capability and overall sound quality of the Divoom Onbeat-200 Bluetooth Wireless speaker, I decided to test the audio with music as the device itself is designed for it.  I will also test the hands-free capability of the speaker as it is one of the main selling points in my opinion.  I feel this will give a better range of results as not everyone is one dimensional when selecting a speaker as everyone has different tastes/sound requirements.

Music

To test the music reproduction qualities of Onbeat-200, I picked 3 songs from 3 different genres.

Rock: INME – Crushed like a fruit

Going in order, the first test of the musical capabilities of the Onbeat-200 speaker is one of my favourite tracks of all time, Crushed like a fruit by InMe.  The opening lick is a good indication whether I am going to enjoy listening to the song or not as it has that defining sound.

Wired – The sound wired was pretty good actually and the speaker is pretty potent.  The sound doesn’t seem too muddy although the mid-range can sometimes hide the crash of symbols etc.  The bass isn’t overpowering but for a small portable Bluetooth capable speaker, would you really expect it?  It is good for what it is and I was able to enjoy the song without lacking quality etc.

Wireless – The sound over Bluetooth was certainly a little different compared to wired, although the difference in tone was roughly the same, I couldn’t help but notice a slight drop in quality.  This brings back an age old debate between what is better, wired or wireless but judging it on its sound quality, I wasn’t too worried and expected this.  Overall I was rather happy with the quality displayed by the Onbeat-200 with Crushed Like Fruit and it’s time to move onto the next song/genre.

Dance: Tony De Vit – The Dawn (Dark by Design remix)

Next up was the legendary track, the Dawn by Tony De Vit and in my opinion this is a fantastic song for testing as it has powerful bass, mid-range and highs.

Wired – The sound throughout the song was pleasantly decent for what it is and felt the strong point of the Onbeat-200 was the treble.  One disappointing thing was the lack of bass and obviously due to its size etc., I wasn’t expecting a lot but I certainly expected more; the bass lacks a lot of definition although the rest of the sound was pretty decent.

Wireless – As with the previous song, I did notice a slight drop in performance but this time, I felt a bigger reduction in the bass than I was expecting but the song was still crisp and clear.  Definitely better wired though that is for sure!

RnB: Rihanna – SOS

SOS by Rihanna is an R+B classic in my opinions and demonstrates a pumping bass line, lots of different mid-range and impressive multi-tone vocals.

Wired – I have to be honest here, I sat looking at my computer screen staring while listening to this song and for a moment I actually forgot I was listening to the song through a small Bluetooth speaker, the sound was fantastic and everything seemed to sound right.  The bass actually sounded good and the lack of definition didn’t really make it sound bad, which was surprising.  Vocals in my opinion are the strong point of the Onbeat-200 and given that it has support for hands-free via your mobile phone, I hope the sound of speaking is as good as it is here.

Wireless – The pattern has been emerging since the start of testing and here it is no different, although the song still sounds good, again there is a small difference in quality which is clearly due to it being sent over a Bluetooth signal.  Bass sounded a little muddy and the treble a little distorted compared to wired, but still a good sound given the cons associated with wireless audio etc.

Hands-Free Calling

After having my fiancée ring me to test the speaker out, I was expecting good things given the nature of the product and I wasn’t disappointed.  The Onbeat-200 really excels with clear, crisp and clean vocal audio and I could hear everything that was being said.  Although the voice was a little tinny, it isn’t what I would class as a high end piece of audio equipment and it serves its purpose very very well.

Overall, wired was definitely than better quality than wireless but do you want to lose quality for the ease and convenience of wireless?  I will leave that up to you but now it’s time for my final thoughts…

Now that the Divoom Onbeat-200 Bluetooth wireless speaker has had a test and been listened to for numerous hours, it’s time for my final verdict and my opinion, is it any good or is the quality relative to its size?

Starting with the performance, it was apparent after the first song, let alone the third that the wired performance was better than the wireless which was no surprise, although the main focus of the speaker itself is its Bluetooth functionality, the quality was somewhat satisfactory given its size and price.  Its strong point is anything with plenty of vocals and as I tested, it has fantastic hands-free phone calling quality which is another main feature of the Onbeat-200.  The bass wasn’t too bad but certainly not as defined as it should have been, the treble was overpowering at times and the mid-range was at times underpowered giving it a varied balance depending on the type of music.  With all that being said, I would still say the performance is decent for what you get.  Anyone expecting audiophile quality from one of these are looking for the wrong type of product.

The aesthetics are absolutely brilliant and although I have the red version, I would have loved to have seen the blue version (it’s a football thing!)  Without going too much into that, I really do like the feel, build quality and the contrast shown between the front grill and the rest of the speaker.  Divoom clearly know what they have to do to make a great looking product.  With an 8hr battery life, it is pretty decent and with the ability to charge via most USB devices or even a wall charger with an USB connection, it is versatile and is a much better idea than some companies who require a DC charger.  Overall I was impressed with the look, size, weight and pretty much everything about it, it is stunning little speaker and clearly deserves the design award.

If I was to nit-pick and make a change, I would leave the buttons out, some people would find them useful but I actually didn’t use them other than to make sure they worked.  The idea of a wireless speaker in my eyes, is to have it sitting and not have to touch it, I found it much more convenient changing tracks with my Samsung Galaxy S4.

With everything out of the way, the Divoom Onbeat-200 is a fantastic little speaker at what I would say was a reasonable price point, obviously at around £40, there are better audio options and a decent set of headphones would be better quality but this is the price you pay for convenience etc.  To sum the Onbeat-200 up, for around £60, it is a great little product with different uses and allows you to answer phone calls, listen to music and even use it as a portable PC speaker.  Great little product and I look forward to seeing more in the near future.

Big thanks to Divoom for the sample!