Xiaomi Mi Bluetooth Speaker 4.0

The Xiaomi or Mi make has been gaining prominence in Asia for providing functional, quality and elegant products at very reasonable prices. Initially focusing mainly on smartphones, they have diversified into power banks, tablets, audio and mobile phone related accessories. In previous reviews and teardowns of Mi power banks, they accept fabricated an excellent impression, showing that Chinese products tin deliver slap-up value and quality.

Lets run across if Mi can continue to uphold their reputation with i of their latest products – the Mi Mini Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker (NDZ-03-GA), generously provided for Gough'south Review Challenge by Gearbest.

The Product

The Mi Mini Bluetooth iv.0 Speaker is a adequately new item. You won't find it on the English language website, simply on the Chinese site. This is a minor, third-of-a-tin can-of-potable sized mono speaker which is uniform with devices supporting A2DP high quality stereo audio, or easily-free profile (HFP) speaker and mic connections, with connection up to Bluetooth 4.0. It has an integrated rechargeable battery with a rated 12 hours playback fourth dimension. This unit of measurement features AVRCP for remote control of the source, and a 10m Class 2 range, which is common amongst most Bluetooth products. The speaker claims a power output of 3W, which might not sound similar much numerically, but is plenty for enjoying some music at reasonable volumes in a room.

These products have become relatively popular lately, and are an cheap way to "share" music with your friends for a party temper, and fill a room with sound without breaking the bank on defended phone docks, or pushing mobile phone or tablet speakers to their extreme edge of tinniness. While they won't commonly offer you true hi-fi or even stereo sound, they should offer a marked improvement over that of just using telephone speakers in terms of audio quality and volume without existence too beefy to travel with.

As a bonus, it is also convenient for terminate users who want to play music with their phone, while using the phone, equally it ways they tin move the phone around without worrying virtually getting tied in cables.

Unboxing

As is traditional with Mi products, the product came packaged in box with a clean and uncomplicated design. The wood-coloured paper-thin box is sturdy, and has its two nested halves taped together at the rear to prevent it coming autonomously in transit. The rear of the box features a label which advertises its main specifications in Chinese.

Most of the box is blank, aside from this characterization which may have been for inventory command.

Cut the tape and lifting the chapeau up, nosotros are greeted by the acme confront of the speaker, which shows a very elegant and neatly fine-cut metallic grille, along with the main metal body with a shiny border.

Looking at the unit, we can already come across the driver occupies nearly half the diameter of the body of the speaker. The exterior of the unit is finished in an elegant matte black metal stop, except for the base which is a matte blackness plastic, and the "clear" plastic ring in-between which is used for the indicator LEDs. In use, the only visible marker is the Mi logo on the front end of the unit of measurement.

Removing everything from the box, we can accept an inventory of what is included – the speaker, a charge-only USB A to micro USB B cable, a Chinese only user transmission, and a Chinese warranty statement.

Unfortunately, for English language speakers, at that place are no English instructions included. However, it is uncomplicated enough to use that you should be able to go by with experimentation (or reading the residuum of this review).

The rear of the unit houses a single microUSB B female connector for charging the unit of measurement.

The underside features the performance buttons and the model and regulatory markings.

Initially, it might seem strange that the unit has the operation buttons every bit rubber buttons on the underside of the unit – merely every bit it turns out, it's a keen design characteristic. Provided you sit the speaker on a clean flat surface, this allows yous to "bear on" the summit of the speaker to activate the buttons. For instance, to activate the power/play/interruption button, y'all printing down on the part of the speaker nearest the Mi logo, and likewise, for volume down/previous track, you press on the rear left of the speaker, and for volume upward/side by side rail, you press on the rear right of the speaker. This avoids having any visible buttons and keeps the pattern elegant. How nifty!

The unit itself is 8cm in bore, and 5.5cm tall. It weighs 194 grams, which isn't particularly heavy or calorie-free. It feels solid, and doesn't have whatever give or creaking in the example when "squeezed". I am impressed by the build quality and the cease – it really has a high quality elementary motif.

Teardown

I suppose this is the most interesting role – since now we get to find out what it is made out of. How practise you get i of these open? Well afterward a bit of prodding, I discovered in that location are four screws under the label with the regulatory markings.

Removing the label, and then removing the screws, the unit didn't desire to come apart easily. This seems to be because information technology was built with some adhesive and "sealing" inside to make the unit partially air-tight. After some gentle prying, we can get the unit open.

On the left, nosotros have the bulk of the speaker assembly. Don't be fooled – what yous're looking at is non a commuter unit – it is but a passive diaphragm for the speaker sleeping accommodation which is held together by four more than screws and is sealed at the edges to be air tight. You will encounter inside this later in the teardown. A sealed sleeping accommodation provides the back-pressure on the speaker that makes information technology more efficient, merely also leads to "resonance" at a particular frequency which results in boominess, muddiness, and a lack of clarity. By having the diaphragm, I believe they can increase the bass response and meliorate the clarity past non having one resonant frequency only a "band" of resonant frequencies.

On the right, we take the "translucent" plastic disc, which acts as a light piping for the indicator LED on the PCB to shine out of the edge of the unit. The disc has a hole for the speaker wires to exist fed through.

Hither, we tin can see the master PCB which seems pretty bare. Starting from the bottom, we can meet the charging connector, and U3 which is a dedicated charge controller for the bombardment, continued on the other side of the PCB. The Bluetooth is handled by a module which uses the CSR 8615 chipset. A wire is soldered to the antenna on the module and extends to the base to improve the sensitivity of the module. SPI from the module is broken out to iv pads but to the bottom of the module. In the middle is a bi-color high-intensity surface mount LED to provide status feedback to the user. At the top, involving U4, is the speaker amplifier circuitry, which drives the speaker, and to the left, involving U2, seems to be the microphone pre-amp circuitry for the microphone connected at the height left (and glued into the base of the unit of measurement).

There are cut-outs on the correct side, where two no-brand capacitors are fitted – these are likely for some power conversion circuitry at the rear. I try to flip the board over, only there's some resistance – information technology turns out the battery is wedged underneath along with double-sided tape.

From this image, nosotros tin can see that the Bluetooth module is a Boomtech BT1213. More detailed specifications are available in the datasheet here. Despite using a CSR chipset, it doesn't seem this product offers the higher quality apt-Ten codec. The surface mounted switches are visible, which class the "button-feet" of the unit.

The unit'south PCB is dated Week 52 of 2014, making this a pretty fresh unit. The battery is a lithium polymer cell from Kanyo, rated at 1300mAh 3.7V, for a total free energy of four.81Wh. Having thoroughly explored the base of operations of the unit, lets accept a await at the speaker sleeping room itself.

Mi accept taken peachy care to ensure the rear of the speaker chamber is sealed, thus opening this up took quite a bit of careful prying. The sealing is necessary to ensure the speaker performs as designed.

Despite the unit claiming a power output of 3W, the speaker itself is marked 40-12A 3 ohm 5W. This is some other bully sign equally the speaker itself is beingness operated underneath its maximum ability rating, ensuring baloney is kept in control. A not bad decision past Mi. The speaker itself is somewhat pocket-size for the power rating, and that is because information technology uses a "high displacement" design, where the diaphragm moves pregnant distances and the cone is held by a foam surround suspension. While these units are generally smaller, they also can suffer from issues reproducing college frequencies.

I suppose one question more than seasoned electronics-minded people would be asking is, why a 3 ohm speaker? Speakers commonly come in two, four, vi or eight ohm designations, so a three ohm speaker is actually pretty uncommon. Well, in that location's a good reason for this – every bit the supply voltage is from a battery, with no stride-up circuitry, the maximum ability that can be dissipated across a resistive load is given by P=V^2/R.

With a Li-Poly prison cell, the voltage tin exist anywhere from iv.2v (fully charged) downwardly to well-nigh 3v (discharged). Every bit a result, if we had an platonic rail to rail op-amp driving the speaker, the power output at the discharged land is exactly 3W. Consequently, when fully charged, it theoretically might be able to put out 5.88W.

If they went for a 4-ohm speaker, as they're very common, at the discharged country, the maximum power the speaker tin put out is two.25W – a whole 0.75W (25%) less power.

Anyway, enough with the diversion – the only way to know how well it works is to examination information technology out!

In employ and Testing

How Do I Apply It?

Given that the unit of measurement doesn't accept an English user's transmission, newcomers may feel a little fleck lost. As a result, I might also requite you a few pointers as to how to use the unit:

• Charging: Attach the USB cable to the rear port, and plug the other finish into a PC or charger. The ring will accept a blood-red glow as long as information technology is charging, which will turn off equally soon as charging has finished.
• Turning On/Off: Press the front power/play/break push button and hold for a few seconds until you hear an ascending chime (power on), descending chime (power off).
• Pairing: The unit is ready for pairing when it flashes alternating red-blue very rapidly. On first start, the unit will get into pairing mode. You just need to search for and connect with the device from your Bluetooth device. If an already paired device is available, it will automatically connect (and make a pip sound).
• Connected: The unit volition flash a bluish flash every iii seconds.
• Disconnect: You can do information technology from your device, or you tin can printing and concur the front ability/play/interruption button until you hear a quick two-beeps and a render to red-blue flashing. Then yous can pair a new device.
• Irresolute Volume: The volume tin exist changed smoothly past pressing and holding either the + or – button until the desired volume is reached, or it reaches a limit (and bug soft beeping to indicate information technology has reached a limit).
• Remote Command: Brusque pressing the forepart push issues a play/pause control, and short pressing the – performs a previous track command, whereas short pressing + performs the next rails command if supported by your device. Unfortunately, this may occur when changing the volume as well, every bit the device doesn't distinguish very well between volume changes and previous/side by side.
• Depression Bombardment: During playback, the speaker will play a 5 note (low-loftier-low-high-depression) warning signal, and close-downwardly soon after.

That'southward almost all you lot need to know to get information technology going and utilize information technology effectively.

Pairing

I had no issues pairing the unit with a CSR-based USB Bluetooth dongle connected to a PC running Windows 7 using the Harmony stack.

I also tested it on an Android phone, and an iOS device. Because it seems the device supports the newer secure-simple-pairing scheme, yous don't fifty-fifty take to enter a passcode. Easy as pie!

Audio Quality and Functioning

From a lot of listening to different sorts of music, from radio to CD-quality audio, I was quite impressed with the quality of the speaker. For the price, and for the size, I would take expected some tinnyness, a lack of bass, some mid-range resonance. What I got was mostly none of that. The speaker itself provides a counterbalanced amount of bass, not an overwhelming amount, but enough to vibrate the tabular array it is attached to and use it every bit a audio board (and in extremes, cause the speaker to first dancing). The mid-range is generally quite present, and clear, with a piddling dip and muddiness nigh the upper-midrange which isn't particularly bad fifty-fifty compared to low-terminate estimator speakers. The treble, however, is much crisper than I expected for a high displacement driver and easily gives even more than expensive computer speakers a run for their money.

In fact, it sounded much better than some portable digital radios I've tried. Another bonus is that the speaker does play quite loudly. The 3W output is very conceivable, equally it gets loud enough to get heard two rooms away when on full volume. Turning the book up isn't a big trouble either, as the unit doesn't sound similar it's straining and the distortion levels are well under control. This cannot exist said for many of the low-cost compact units out there.

The chipset is too very much up to the task, when playing silence, only a very faint "blipping" tin can be heard from the speaker when held directly to the ear. When really using the speaker, these chipset-induced noises are completely inaudible. Despite not having apt-X codec support, I didn't find whatsoever particular harshness or artifacts in the audio from coincidental listening. There were no issues with pairing with a variety of A2DP-capable devices (PC, Android and iOS).

The small-size driver seems to take been well integrated in the pattern, but the pocket-size size does mean that it doesn't quite "fill" the room with audio as "evenly" every bit a larger speaker might. Instead, depending on placement, you might have some areas with louder audio than others, and you get the sense of directionality of the source. Of course, you don't go stereo imaging either with the mono speaker. However, these are all expected issues with modest compact portable speakers.

1 of the key functioning parameters owners will be looking for is to know just how long they can go along the tunes going. Mi claims an approximate battery life of 12 hours, then I put this to the test over several days, listening to streaming radio and my music collection while running experiments and going most my daily work.

When it comes to bombardment life, I think Mi have gone extremely conservative in their estimate – while I kept my music playing at comfortable volumes to fill up a small 3x4m room at all times, I well exceeded their estimates over several listening sessions throughout the week, with the battery only giving out after an amazing 53 hours and half dozen minutes on a full charge! Remainder assured, I thought I was losing my heed when information technologyjust wouldn't terminate playing only my time logs don't lie. As a issue, information technology lasted me a whole week of (reasonable) listening without being charged.

Unfortunately, there is no mode to tell the bombardment status during usage, and the low-battery warning chime (a 5-tone chinkle of alternating depression-high-low-high-depression) simply comes on ane infinitesimal prior to the unit of measurement shutting down. As a issue, it'due south best to charge the unit anyway, even if you don't think information technology needs to exist charged.

Recharging the unit via USB is best washed with a 1A or higher power adapter, as it is rated for 1A. A quick bank check of this, using a blue USB Charger Md unit of measurement shows the Mi speaker taking a stable 630mA in the majority stage of the charge, and thus a total charge is expected to take between two.five to 3 hours. Dandy at all, particularly when the play time is considered.

This seems to suggest the pattern has been very carefully washed to use a very efficient speaker design and the newest CSR Bluetooth chipsets which are very efficient especially when receiving from Bluetooth 2.0 or newer radios.

If that's nevertheless not enough for you, it seems the Mi has another fob up its sleeve. Because it uses an external Li-Poly charger chip, it is i of the few units that I've encountered that is happy to charge AND play at the same time. This means that you might not need to end at all! That being said, I have to say that the internal battery is more than than sufficient for most users.

I did test the range past taking the speaker outside the house, and the range seems to be quite plausibly x meters when used with a CSR Class 1 "50m" Bluetooth dongle. Compared to other "in ear" Bluetooth hands costless sets and A2DP clip-on receivers, the range is slightly better, equally the Mi is able to work outdoors, and most others have dropped out a few meters before I reach the door. This indicates that its range is good for use beyond a room, and is more often than not better than other products of the same class.

In my testing, I did let the speaker sit outside in direct sun for several hours, despite its negative impacts on battery lifetime, and despite the unit getting hot, information technology did not malfunction. I even sabbatum it in a bathroom as it fogged up from condensation, and it did not faulter at all. I tortured it by turning the volume up to the maximum and playing fairly loud music, and despite "dancing" across the table because of the moving diaphragm mass, it didn't sound noticeably distorted and it did non fail. It seems the blueprint is very good.

As the unit supports HFP also, it should be possible to use the unit every bit a easily-gratuitous device. I tested this in the firm with the CSR based Bluetooth dongle, and the microphone was very sensitive, picking upwardly my voice easily from a altitude of 2m, with 3 computer fans in the background. The quality is as expected from the "telephone quality" Bluetooth link, and the vox was easily intelligible, meaning you lot can probably accept a good telephone conversation with it.. Again, the attention to design in this unit shows.

Conclusion

A portable Bluetooth speaker isn't a very hard piece of equipment to get right, but it seems that Mi has once more shown us how it should be done. The Mi Mini Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker sounds bang-up for its size and price, and plays very loudly with a generally balanced sound signature. It uses a new chipset from a quality manufacturer, along with a sophisticated speaker rear sleeping accommodation design with diaphragm. Because of careful component selection, the unit of measurement doesn't misconstrue fifty-fifty at high volumes and is pleasant to heed to. Information technology far exceeds its battery life claims, which is a big surprise, and meets its expected manual range. The microphone on lath is also very sensitive and produces very articulate speech, which makes information technology useful even every bit a easily-free speakerphone device.

It is very hard to criticise, because information technology delivers on pretty much everything that matters, while as well featuring an elegant and simple design that has a premium texture finish. The only real niggles are the issues that the volume up and downwardly buttons also send next/previous commands over AVRCP, causing you lot to change songs when you wanted to alter book. I would take to recommend it for your consideration if y'all're in the marketplace for a speaker to costless yourself from the tinny sound from your phone/tablet.

Of course, if yous would like to buy one for yourself, information technology's currently bachelor at AU$32.36 from Gearbest here. Thanks to Gearbest for supplying the unit of measurement for review.

News Flash!

I've just been told past Gearbest that if you use the coupon code XMBS, you can become it at United states$21.09 or AU$27.67 which is handy if information technology'south non on special. Then why not give it a endeavor?

Source: https://goughlui.com/2015/05/01/review-teardown-xiaomi-mi-mini-bluetooth-4-0-speaker-ndz-03-ga/

Posted by: smithsichim.blogspot.com

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