Ultimate Ears Wonderboom

So originally Ultimate Ears was going to send the Blast and the Megablast but after spending some time on their website this small little portable speaker called the Wonderboom really caught my eye. The big thing for me was that it floats and given that we were looking at speakers to use out by the pool that isn’t a bad feature to have.

The box for the Wonderboom is fitting to its smaller size. This is an older model and it has an older look and logo. The background is white with the branding over on the left, then a close to a full-size photo of the speaker takes up the rest of the space. The picture has the “fireball” color of our speaker on it as well, given that they currently have 11 different colors available, having the packaging reflect each color is a lot of work. The back of the box is really simple and right to the point with mentions of the 360 audio, it being waterproof, 100ft range, and a 10-hour battery life. They also note that you can pair up two for louder music.

The box opens up like a watch or jewelry box and features the speaker in the middle. Then inside, along with the speaker, you get the charging cable and a safety and warranty paper. I was surprised to see the USB cable be bright yellow, it doesn’t really go with the orange model, but it is very bright and you aren’t going to lose it. It is a USB to Micro-USB cable and they didn’t include an AC adapter so you will have to use your own or plug into your computer.

So the speaker itself is 102mm tall and 93.5mm wide. It is a round tube shape as well like the Megablast but the top and bottom are a lot more rounded off, making it a lot closer to a ball shape. So the Fireball color scheme is just one of many options available. I like my orange so I went this direction but you should check out the options on their website. They have a lot of girly colors and I don’t think any of the color combos look bad. There are also options with designs, they brought a few new designs out earlier this year. Now the smaller size doesn’t mean that you don’t’ still get that cross looking volume control on the front, but the Wonderboom doesn’t have the rubber strip down the front so you get a full 360-degree mesh grill.

The mesh covers up two 40mm drivers and then two 46.1mmx65.2mm passive radiators so this time around there aren’t tweeters. The overall range is rated at 80 Hz to 20 kHz with a max sound level of 86 dB.

Up top, you have a rubber area with the Ultimate Ears branding in it. There are two buttons up here as well. The bottom one with the slot is the power button, this is similar to the Megablast only smaller so it doesn’t look like a coin slot. Then the other is a connect button when held to pair up two speakers or it does the play/pause/skip thing when playing music. Also unique here is the hanging rope loop at the back. It is color matched to the front controls and it can allow you to hook it on a nail on a pier, hang it up in the shower, or anywhere else you can think of.

The bottom of the Wonderboom doesn’t have as much going on. All of the certifications and required info is cut into the bottom and the entire bottom is rubber like the top. This helps keep it in place when not using the hanging loop. Then at the back, there is a plug that covers up the charging port to keep things waterproof. This fits the included USB cable perfectly, you can also use any standard micro-USB cable as well. Just make sure this is plugged back up before getting it in the water.

This picture of the Megablast and the Wonderboom together really helps with the scale of both of them. It is more the Wonderboom being nice and portable more than anything though. This is really the only speaker that I’m testing that you could toss in a normal size purse or maybe even in a large cargo pocket.