Black Friday deal alert: Right now, the black model of the Anker Soundcore Boom 3i is $80, which is $60 off its list price during Amazon's Black Friday sale (other colors are $5 more). That's the lowest price we've seen on this portable Bluetooth speaker. If you've been thinking about upgrading your mobile sound situation before the holidays, this is one of those deals that's easy to miss if you wait too long. I've compared it to other top Bluetooth speakers like the JBL Flip 6 and Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen), and the Boom 3i holds its own without stretching your budget.
In some ways, Anker's new Soundcore Boom 3i is the spiritual successor to the Soundcore Motion Plus. It's similarly shaped but has more of an outdoor adventure slant, with Anker touting it as "built for the wild" and billing it as the first Bluetooth speaker with playback in water, as it floats and "auto-corrects" to keep the speaker drivers facing upward just above the surface. All that adds to a perfect speaker for backyard hangouts or hot tubbing, so you might want to snag one on the cheap while Black Friday deals are still around.
I've used the Soundcore Boom 3i for several months and have mainly been impressed with it, though the speaker is a lot easier to recommend to CNET readers at $60 off the black model, dropping the price to $80. Meanwhile, the blue, brown and green models are currently $85.
As you'd expect from a speaker that promotional photos show strapped onto a kayak (it does have a detachable carrying strap), the Soundcore Boom 3i is fully waterproof and dust-resistant, with an IP68 rating. Anker takes things a step further, touting the Boom 3i as "5x" saltwater-resistant. "While typical speakers may rust in under five months, Boom 3i stays corrosion-free for up to two years of beach, boat and seaside use."
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You shouldn't expect audiophile sound from a mono Bluetooth speaker of this ilk. But for the most part, the Soundcore Boom 3i gives you what you want from a portable Bluetooth speaker from a sound perspective. By that I mean it plays loud for its size -- it weighs about 1.8 pounds and measures 8.3 by 3.1 by 3.3 inches -- plus it puts out a reasonable amount of bass and has fairly respectable clarity. You can find speakers that sound a little more natural, but these types of rugged portable speakers aren't designed for critical listening.
The speaker has some colorful LED lighting on each side. David Carnoy/CNET
I used it outdoors and inside in a few rooms, including a bathroom (it does make for a good bathroom speaker), and it was able to fill smaller rooms with sound. You can tweak the sound with the equalizer settings in the Soundcore companion app for iOS and Android and play around with the settings for the built-in beat-synched LED light show, which I kept turned off most of the time. You can also pair two of these speakers up in stereo mode and get significantly better sound.
I tested the speaker's playback in water by dropping it in a pool. It indeed flipped over, so the speaker drivers were facing up, and the music kept playing, though the audio got a little garbled when a little wave passed over the speaker, and the drivers started spitting water out. In other words, it certainly sounds better out of the water than in it.
One of the problems with Bluetooth devices is that Bluetooth doesn't transmit through water, which is why you have to load MP3s into memory when using wireless headphones while swimming (you can't stream music to the headphones if your head is underwater). I don't know where the Bluetooth antenna is on this speaker, but presumably it's on the side that stays above the surface when the speaker is floating.
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