In today’s modern world we are filled with an array of home gadgets to make home living better and more simplified and one of these products comes in the form of smart speakers. You can dot around your home and move to various rooms etc there are 3 main players on the market now that consists of Alexa, Google and now into the market up steps Apple.
For the last 2 years, I have been using the Google Nest Mini second Generation at home in my kitchen and bedroom paying a monthly premium of £15.00 as well as paying a monthly premium to Apple music for music on my iPhone. I decided that it would make more sense to me to get the Apple HomePod Mini speaker and cancel my subscription to Google Music as I was paying for both.
So in this review, we will be talking about Apple and their latest venture into the home smart speaker arena.
Apple HomePod Mini Vs Google Nest Mini
The Design
I decided to order the Apple HomePod Mini in white and when it arrived the following day and I pulled this out of the box I was firstly surprised at the weight of the speaker and also the design.
The design of the speaker is almost that of a round egg shape covered in a nice cloth mesh surrounding the whole speaker almost like it encased in a soft net. Apple says that this design is for better all-around sound, unlike the ever-popular Google Nest where the sound just comes out the top of the speaker. With the Apple HomePod Mini, you get all-around sound from the circular circumferences of the speaker thus giving off more room filing and better acoustics.
The speaker sits on a soft rubber mat that is built into the speaker with colourful controls on the top of the speaker for volume up and down and also lights up in a rainbow type fashion when you ask Siri to do something for you.
Set-up
Set up was really easy and literally, plug it into the wall and follow the instructions on your phone and set up takes literally 5 minutes all set up from your iPhone home screen, you can add additional phones for apple music by setting up the family sharing plan priced out at £14.99 and can connect up to 6 devices if you wanted to cast music from your phone to speaker but to be honest, you don’t need to because anyone in the house can ask Siri to play something directly. That is only good if you want to make calls or text directly from your speaker.
Controls
The controls are really simple and the same as any other speaker such as Tap Play/Pause music or Siri, Double-tap Skip, Triple-tap Skip back, Touch and hold Siri and Tap or hold + or – Volume up/down so this speaker is very easy to use.
The Sound/Performance
The sound from this little speaker is room-filling and has little distortion with excellent Bass, mid’s, and trebles, I have a varied taste in music so from listening to hard-hitting beats from Chemical Brothers and The Streets to soft tones from Sade and Anita Baker even at high volume it performs very well from its drivers and will fill the whole room with exquisite sound no matter what you’re listening too. The speaker is a self-Full-range driver and dual passive radiators for deep bass and crisp high frequencies, a custom acoustic waveguide for a 360-sound field acoustically transparent fabric Computational audio for real-time tuning, Four-microphone design for far-field Siri Multi-room audio with AirPlay and stereo pair capable.
One thing I do like about this speaker is that just like Siri you can ask it to perform multiple tasks and ask it many questions, I really like that fact I can be nowhere near my phone and I can ask it to call someone or text someone and it will do it from the speaker as opposed to using your phone, so this simplifies my busy life where I spend a lot of time cooking and if I need to call my wife to ask her a question or send her a quick text.
This speaker will work on any iPhone from the SE first-gen upwards, any iPad from the Mini 4 upwards and the iPod 7th Gen.
Verdict
Overall would I go out and buy this speaker again?
The answer is yes I would I would happily buy more for the home for the style and sound you get from this device, however, I do think the price of this speaker won’t come down for some time as it’s a premium brand but is it worth £99 the answer is yes all day long.
The only downside to this speaker is I like listening to the radio and at the moment this is limited to only a handful of radio stations that you can stream unlike the Amazon and the Google speaker’s where you have any radio station in the world, Apple at the moment is very limited and only a few UK radio stations are available, But pushing that aside this is a great speaker and works very well and looks very good in the home setting.
Product Rating:
- Design: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0
- Features: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0
- Performance: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0
- Value for Money : 4.0 out of 5.0 stars4.0
Overall Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars4.7 – 4.75 Stars
The Apple HomePod Mini Available for £99 via Currys.co.uk
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