The Pocket Boom Portable Vibration Speaker is something of an enigma. It's not a portable speaker in the traditional sense (like the excellent X-mini). Instead of the speaker vibrations creating the sound alone, it vibrates in such a way that it needs to be attached to a surface of some description for you to hear your music clearly. The beauty is that you can use practically any surface from tables to windows to cups and even juice cartons! The positioning possibilites are certainly plentiful, but ultimately as with any speaker it comes down to the sound quality. So is the Pocket Boom just what you've been looking for or does it leave something to be desired?

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Design

For a portable speaker, design is everything. When you carry something as delicate as a speaker around, you need to know it can survive the rough and tumble of your bag without becoming damaged. Thankfully it does deliver in this area. The plastic is pleasing to the touch yet feels firm and unlikely to be cracked by a knock or two. It also protects the vibration head for transit.

There are two exposed wires, one that leads to the 3.5mm headphone connector, the other that connects the main unit to the vibration head. The audio connector wire tucks away neatly into a recess and once positioned is reasonably well protected. The wire is more likely to sustain damage from repeated pulling out and setting back in than from transit. The wire to the vibration head is reasonably recessed, however due to the winding mechanism that retracts the cable it may not be fully flush much of the time you put the speaker away. While this shouldn't pose a problem for the most part, you may need to be a little wary of throwing a set of keys next to it.

Besides that, the product has a battery bay that you can put two AAA batteries in for portable playback. There's also a power socket that you can put the supplied USB power cable in so that you can power the device from your computer's USB port. The on / off switch is recessed and sturdy. The lack of a built in rechargeable battery is an irritation but by no means a deal breaker, especially if you invest in rechargeable AAA batteries. That said however, if you are looking at going down this route, you may wish to first consider alternative products.

Supplied with the speaker itself is a USB power cable, 3.5mm audio extension cable and replacement sticky pads for mounting the vibration head.

Sound Quality

What it all boils down to ultimately is the quality of the sound output. To an extent sound quality is subjective, what one person likes may not be what someone else likes sound wise. That said I firmly believe there are certain boxes any audio product must tick for it to be up to a certain standard. As someone who used to work with professional audio equipment, my highly trained ears are used to picking up where a speaker is going wrong.

While I have played many different tunes through this speaker, the six specific tracks I made sure I played on every surface were:

• Queen - Under Pressure
• Rank 1 - Airwave
• Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
• Usher - More (Red One Jimmy Joker Remix)
• Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Woman
• David Guetta - Titanium

These tracks cover a wide variety of sounds and genres which ultimately push the speaker to show off its' strengths and weaknesses.

Thankfully the sound quality can be pretty good. I say can be as it ultimately depends what surface you attach the speaker to. Reasonably thin tables (say 10 - 15mm max) result in a pleasing sound, some thinner surfaces sound awful such as a plastic cup whereas thicker surfaces seem to eat the sound. At its best, there's a bright, lively and punchy mid range sound. This provides crisp playback of music without sounding flat. Clarity certainly isn't an issue for this speaker. There's sufficient bass available for such a small product, but again this is more punchy than anything else. You won't find deep, rich and fulfilling bass here, so if you like a warm dynamic sound you may need to look to other products.

For the average person though, if you get the right surface the sound is good quality while providing a fun element while you experiment to find your favourite surface.

Final thoughts

It's hard not to like the Pocket Boom, it is just one example of a growing number of vibration based speakers. When you have the right surfaces available it doesn't disappoint, however if you don't have such surfaces available then it borders on useless. Unfortunately such reliance on a surface does throw up the biggest issue with the product. Acoustics of the environment affect all speakers, but throwing in another variable inevitably leads to the conclusion that the novelty factor is the Pocket Boom's strongest selling point.

When you consider the mentioned issues along with having to supply your own batteries, it starts to look less tempting as a product. It's price does help its cause, but for audiophiles or anyone looking for true convenience, there are better products out there.

Final Score: 6.5 / 10

This item was supplied by the kind people at GearZap. They sell a wide range of accessories for all manner of tech products, so if you are looking for a Galaxy Tab 10.1 case or an iPad 2 case then it is well worth taking a look.