Main review
Sound quality
The m350 speaker sounds great in most regards but it noticeably lacks bass to the point that even bosting the bass through my phones EQ settings and playing bass heavy songs still didn’t provide any sort of thump or feeling of bass, sure you can “hear” the bass if you really listen for bass lines and such but I never “felt” any bass even at higher volumes which did disappoint me a bit since I’m a huge fan of powerful bass.
The lack of bass is also shown in the frequency range of 62hz-16000hz that I recorded after going through a few different frequency range test the normal low-end range from other speakers I’ve tested is closer to the 20hz range but the high end of the range is in line with other speakers around this price range.
The good news is the lack of bass is pretty much the only negative thing I’ve found with this speaker so let’s get to some of its strengths!
Mids and highs sound really great on this speaker and overall sound sounds really “clean” by that I mean there’s no noticeable distortion at any volume and it’s super easy to hear each individual part of a song so sounds never sound muddled together.
Where this speaker really shines is more acoustic songs or other non bass heavy genres where it’s ability to play crisp clean mids and highs can really shine.
The m350 is also good for listening to things with speaking like YouTube videos, Podcast or ebooks since bass is also not nearly as important here as clear sound, and this speaker does a great job here too.
It also gets impressively loud over Bluetooth considering its small size, While it certainly won’t outdo a huge stereo system it gets plenty loud enough for a small party or background music during an outdoor get-together.
Overall for sound quality on the m350 is a mostly positive experience with one fairly major flaw for me due to its almost complete lack of bass, but for people who don’t care about bass as much, you will be pleased with its sound performance with everything else.
I rate the sound quality 4/5 For sounding solid in general and getting impressively loud. But the lack of bass makes me want to say its closer to a 3.5 if bass is more important to you than a clear overall sound.
Phone call quality
The m350 includes a built-in mic meaning you can use it as a speakerphone. One thing worth noting is I couldn’t find a way to activate any sort of google assistance with the speakers buttons (holding the play button puts the speaker into pairing mode) so in order to make phone calls you will still need to use a phone but you can still use the speaker inside of a phone call.
And phone calls sound about how you would expect them to. According to my wife on the other end I sounded “normal” and like a phone call should sound and her voice on my end sounded acceptable but a little grainy but this could be due to other factors since I had 2 bars of service during the call and I was still able to understand her perfectly fine.
Overall phone call quality gets a 4.5/5.
Build quality
The build quality of the m350 ended up being way above my expectations. While I didn’t plan on doing much to test build quality outside of a couple of drop test my 75lb dog decided he wanted to help with my review and found the speaker while I was out of the house. And the speaker didn’t get a single scratch on it even after it unwittingly turned into a dog toy, even the cloth on the outside looked totally untouched so Sbode definitely knows how to make a speaker that will last through some abuse! I also was able to press down and pull up on the speaker covers without any noticeable damage!
Along with the solid build quality, the m350 has been IPX6 rated meaning it is rated to withstand “water projected in powerful jets (12.5 mm nozzle) against the enclosure from any direction without harmful effects.”
Since I don’t have any water jets lying around I tested its water resistance by submitting the speaker in water even though it isn’t technically rated against water submersion.
And it survived perfectly fine which Impressed me a lot! The m350 managed to survive against a water rating that it isn’t even certified against so this is a win in the build quality department!
Overall I have blown away with the build quality of the m350 since it was able to put up with a pretty unreasonable amount of abuse like a champ as well as being able to survive water submersion even though it wasn’t rated for it.
The build quality of the m350 gets a solid 5/5. This speaker should be able to withstand a lot of abuse and outdoor use as well as any wet environments you may find yourself in.
Controls
You can control your music using the on speaker controls including being able to change the volume, Go forward or back through your music and play/pausing music. All of this is pretty standard but one thing worth mentioning is that you scroll through music by single pressing the volume buttons and change volume by holding down the buttons instead of the usual single click changing volume and holding changing songs. This isn’t necessarily a con but it was a bit annoying at first when I kept changing songs instead of changing the volume so keep this in mind if you pick up the speaker.
Battery life and charge time
Battery life on the m350 is pretty astounding, the speaker is rated at “6hrs of playtime at 70% volume” but when I do battery test I do 50% volume on the speaker and 50% volume on my phone while this was a bit quieter than most people would use it was a good middle ground for testing.
And it blew the rated time out of the water clocking in around 16-17hrs of play time before shutting down! I was seriously blown away by how long it lasted. Even at a higher volume, you shouldn’t have any issues with the battery running out on you.
Even more impressive was that it charged from dead to full in a little over 3.5hrs almost 30 minutes less than the spec sheet says!
Overall I rate the battery 5/5 for being impressively long-lasting and charging pretty quick too.
Other features
Along with Bluetooth the m350 lets you connect using a standard AUX cable (included in the package). Sound quality was identical using the cable as it was with Bluetooth except the max volume was noticeably lower, It still gets sort of loud using a wired connection but you won’t be filling a room with sound unless you go wireless. My only guess is when the speaker is plugged in through a wired connection it is powered off your phone instead of the battery causing it to be quieter due to a lower power draw. While this isn’t specifically stated it makes sense.
This speaker also has a few unusual and rarely seen extras like a built-in FM Radio receiver and Micro SD card slot.
The built-in radio works pretty well, you change over to it by single pressing the top button and you cycle radio stations by single pressing the volume up or volume down buttons until you find the station you want. The signal seemed to be strong but I did notice sometimes signals would cut out if I moved the speaker around but it does seem to pick up almost every radio station my car can.
The only thing I’d add here would be some sort of audio readout of what station is playing since the only way to tell is if the radio host tells you.
I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to test playing music directly from the micro SD card due to not having an extra card available but after reading a few different reviews it seems to work perfectly and support pretty much any music file type you’d need.
Overall I do appreciate the extra features that aren’t commonly found on most speakers especially ones this priced but I also feel like they don’t add anything to the overall package since 99% of people are never going to use them but they are nice to have just in case.
MISC
One last thing worth mentioning is that I noticed a delay between audio and video while watching Youtube and using this speaker wirelessly. I only noticed this delay if I was using Bluetooth, If I had my phone plugged in with an AUX cord there was not there anymore.
I won’t count this as a con since it could be software related on my end but if you notice any delay when viewing videos try using the AUX jack instead.
Now that the review is done let’s wrap it up with a final score and conclusion!
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