REVIEW – In April 2022, Michael Strange reviewed the Tronsmart Bang Portable Party Speaker. It was a good speaker back then, and now Tronsmart has decided to update it this year. Read on to see the updates and if they make a noticeable difference.
What is it?
The Tronsmart Bang Portable Party Speaker is marketed as a portable outdoor/indoor party speaker. It has color-changing LED lights, a smart app, and the ability to connect up to 100 speakers for the ultimate sound party.
What’s in the box?
Nothing changed from the previous version as to what comes in the box.
- 1 Bang speaker
- 1 x Aux cable
- 1 x User manual
- 1 x Warranty card
- 1 x USB-A to USB-C charging cable
Hardware specs
- Power: 60W
- Input: 5V/2A via Type-C Port
- Bluetooth version: 5.3
- Bluetooth compatibility: A2DP/AVRCP/HFP/HSP
- Audio codec: SBC
- Transmission Distance: 18m/59ft
- Water resistance: IPX6
- Battery Capacity: 10800mAh
- Play time: LED On: Up to 8 Hours(on a 50% Volume) LED Off: Up to 15 Hours(on a 50% Volume)
- Charging time: 4.5 hours
- Frequency range: 20Hz-20KHz
- Dimensions: 361*183.4*150.3 mm/ 14.2*7.2*5.9inch
- Net weight: 3.08kg/108.6oz
Design and features
Some of the upgrades to the speaker are very noticeable, while others not so much. The first thing I noticed was the highlighting of the user buttons on the top of the speaker. They are now lined in white on top of the black rubber. It certainly does make it easier to see which button is which versus when they were black on black. The number and type of buttons are exactly the same as before.
Another noticeable upgrade was in the app itself. I want to mention that you do not need to create any user account to use their app, which I love! You open the app and connect to the speaker via Bluetooth. Notice that the icon for the speaker still has a picture of the old speaker without the white coloring on the user buttons.
Once you select the speaker, you are presented with a screen that gives you the music presets. You no longer have the 3D, Hi-Fi, or Vocal presets. They kept the default, SoundPulse, Deep Bass, Classical, and Rock options. What they did give you was the ability to customize your equalizer settings.
Once you click Customize, you are presented with the graph at the top of the screen. You can adjust the bass, mid-range, and treble settings. The app will remember your custom settings the next time it connects to the speaker and will use them if that was what you had last selected.
The app’s second page is like before, where you can choose your input modes, light settings, broadcast blaster, and power off the speaker. The app now remembers the light settings you had before, so you don’t have to change the settings every time you power on the speaker.
The one change that is not visually seen but is nice to have is the upgrade from Bluetooth 5.0 to 5.3. Below you can see the differences offered between the versions. This information came from Techevidence.
- Bluetooth 5.0: In mid-2016 came the great revolution, a new step forward that doubled the transfer rate, quadrupled the range, continued with low consumption designed for the IoT, and allowed a greater amount of data in each transferred message. In terms of numbers, the transfer rate was up to 50 Mb/s, and the range was up to 240 meters.
- Bluetooth 5.1: The new version that arrived in 2019 revolved around location, allowing devices to know the location of other devices to which they are connected within centimeters. It will also be able to identify the direction from which a signal it is searching for is coming.
- Bluetooth 5.2, also known as Bluetooth LE Audio: This is a standard released in the early 2020s that improves sound quality and energy efficiency in all devices that connect for audio functions. It uses a new codec, the Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3), which can more efficiently compress and decompress the data being transmitted, and allows audio to be transferred to multiple devices at the same time.
- Bluetooth 5.3: Announced in July 2021, although it has not become available until May 2022. This version offers lower consumption when used, less interference in connections, better security in connections, and better quality at all times, depending on the bandwidth required. Small details for further refinement.
Tronsmart mentions that the battery is upgraded to optimize the performance of the battery and playtime. Some of that optimization could have come from the Bluetooth upgrade. However, when you look at the spec sheet, the playtime and recharge time are the same as before the upgrade.
The last upgrade mentioned is “As driver units upgrade, the sound quality is optimized with richer bass much better than before.” I don’t have the previous version of the speaker to compare the sound to, but I can state that the base is very rich and does not get distorted the louder you play the speaker.
What I like
- The user buttons at the speaker’s top are much easier to read now.
- The speaker uses Bluetooth 5.3 instead of 5.0.
- I can now set my own equalizer settings, and the app remembers all the settings for the sound and lights between reboots.
What I’d change
- As Micheal mentioned before, I wish the charging cable was longer.
Final thoughts
The upgrades they made to the speaker make the user experience a bit nicer. If you don’t own the Bang speaker yet, I highly recommend getting this speaker. I don’t think the upgrades are worth replacing your existing Bang speaker. You might even be able to take advantage of the app updates with the old speaker. I checked on the Tronsmart website, and it still points to what looks like the old version of the Bang speaker on the Amazon website.
Price: $109.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Tronsmart.
