The SoundLink Color Portable Bluetooth speaker II was engineered to deliver bold sound wherever life takes you. From the pool to the park to the patio, its rugged, water-resistant design lets you enjoy the music you love in more places. Voice prompts make Bluetooth pairing easy. And up to 8 hours of listening per battery charge lets you keep your playlists playing.
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For general listening indoors, on the driveway while shooting hoops with friends, or even in your car if your in-dash system doesn't have native Bluetooth, the SLCII easily met and exceeded my overall expectations for everyday use.
One of the most obvious improvements in this updated edition is that it includes the much-requested speakerphone option! I used it in my car for several days and people could hear and understand me, and I could understand them as well. The only issue is that it wasn't possible to get quite as loud as I would have liked or expected. And though the other end could hear me, they frequently reported they could hear road noise. That probably isn't the SLCII's target speakerphone environment anyway -- but I had to try -- and in a quieter environment neither was an issue.
For music, volume and balance were good but for most music I had to stay just a notch or two down from full volume to avoid distortion and/or to keep the balance. At low volumes I found the bass to be satisfyingly present if even just slightly overbearing, and some people will like that. At mid to upper volumes the overall balance was excellent. Finally, at full volume, it was my impression that the bass would finally get a bit lost as the SLCII stretched for max volume.
To facilitate rapid and easy pairing, say for a group of friends who want to take turns being the DJ, it supports NFC. If your phone supports NFC just hold it next to the speaker and you will be automatically prompted to pair with the SLCII without having to fish around for your Bluetooth pairing menu -- something which isn't complicated but which you (or your friends who want to use the SLCII) may or not do very often, so the convenience of NFC is a nice touch that speaks of forethought and attention to detail.
One of the nicest aspects of the SLCII is the "Bose Connect" app. Since the SLCII can connect to multiple simultaneous Bluetooth devices -- but only stream audio from one at a time -- the Bose Connect app gives you a handy view into exactly which devices it knows about, currently sees in range, and gives you the option to temporarily or permanent disconnect any of those devices,
The Bose Connect app also gives you exact % on the battery, the ability to rename the device, and a visual interface to change the voice prompt language or even disable the voice prompts altogether.
Finally, don't forget that it also supports direct-connect via a 3.5mm standard stereo audio patch cable to round it out for use with audio devices that either don't have Bluetooth or with which you just would rather not pair.