Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Review: Amazingly Powerful

The Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth speaker is an impressive package. Packing two deceptively powerful stereo speakers into a tiny box, Xiaomi’s new bluetooth speaker sounds fantastic whilst sipping power thanks to its use of Bluetooth 4.0.

Thanks to GearBest for providing a sample to review.

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What is it?

The Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth speaker is a portable speaker that can play music from your phone or other Bluetooth device wirelessly. It supports true stereo sound and features a built-in 1200mAh battery that should be good for around 10 hours of playback.

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Box-Front

Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Technical Specifications

  • Speaker Power: 2 x 2.5W,S/N 80dB
  • Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0+EDR (A2DP, AVRCP)
  • Range: Approx. 10m
  • Battery: 1200mAh
  • Power: USB 2.0 port for charging
  • Size: 154.5 x 62 x 25.3mm
  • Weight: 415g

What’s in the box?

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Box-Front

It almost feels pointless writing this section. Xiaomi have given the bare minimum here, clearly to keep costs down. You get the speaker itself and the packaging doubles as its instruction manual.

No charger or cables are provided, but as the device charges via micro USB, most should have a spare charger lying around.

Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Design

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Front-03

The Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker is incredibly attractive. Utilising a minimalistic retro-inspired design, the speaker is white with a brushed metal band which loops around the outside. This band houses the speakers only port and button, with a power button, dual-color Power LED and micro USB port for charging.

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Ports

Rubber feet underneath the device prevent the speaker from vibrating the surface it’s on to keep audio clean and minimize distortion.

It’s also compact. Weighing in at around 400g and just 25cm deep, the Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth speaker is perfect for portability.

Keeping up with Xiaomi’s excellent reputation for build quality, everything on the device is precisely finished. The company has an eye for detail, with each speaker grill hole precisely cut. It rivals the precision and quality of products five times the price.

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Front-02

Using It

Though the manual is entirely in Chinese, using the Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker is incredibly easy.

Just turn it on by holding down the power button down and select “Mi Bluetooth Speaker” in the Bluetooth menu on your smartphone or other Bluetooth-compatible audio source to pair. I didn’t have any issues pairing it to an iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy S4.

The device can only be paired to one device at a time. Attempting to pair another device times out, so you’ll need to unpair which automatically puts the device back into pairing mode.

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Front-04

Volume and playback control is handled entirely by your phone or tablet. It would have been great to see basic multimedia controls such as forward/next on the device to make controlling music easier when your phone’s in your pocket. It’s not a big issue but it’s also noticeably absent.

To Xiaomi’s credit, they have tucked away one hidden control, with a press of the power button acting as play/pause.

XiaoMi-Stereo-Bluetooth-Speaker-Back

Xiaomi claims the in-built 1200mAh should be good for up to 10 hours of playback and I must be approaching that figure without any loss in performance.

Range also wasn’t an issue during testing. Despite being 10m apart with a couple of walls inbetween, music kept playing with only the occasional dropout.

Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Sound Quality

Given its tiny 2.5W speakers, I expected the device to be quiet and hollow-sounding. However, I was impressed with both the sound quality and volume.

Each speaker is independent, meaning you’re getting true stereo rather than being downmixed mono. This is a massive improvement over many of the Bluetooth speakers in the market and makes listening to tracks who rely on stereo effects sound like they should.

The speaker is also reasonably loud. Its powerful enough to fill a medium-sized room and still offer a pleasant listening experience.

The high and mid ranges sound good and bass has plenty of punch. Interestingly, I found it was a little bass-heavy for my liking but that’s more a personal taste and can be readily tweaked using an equalizer in your favorite music app. It’s strange to complain about excess bass when most Bluetooth speakers sound tinny thanks to their tiny drivers.

Cranking the speaker up to its maximum volume, there wasn’t any sign of distortion. Impressive.

I was admittedly worried that its loudness plus its tiny frame would cause the speaker to move. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded, with the speaker not budging at all during my testing.

Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Excellent Build Quality
  • Impressive Audio Quality
  • Stereo Audio
  • Bluetooth 4.0 support
  • Respectable Battery life

Cons

  • No 3.5mm input
  • No playback controls/microphone on device
  • Lack of international manual

Getting One

I got my Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth speaker from GearBest.

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Alternatively, it’s also available from Amazon, Banggood and GeekBuying.

Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker
The Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker is impressive . Not only does it manage to cram respectable battery life, stereo audio and a stylish design into a budget package, but it also manages to have excellent audio quality. It's just a shame that volume controls or 3.5mm input weren't part of the package. Overall, if you need a top-quality Bluetooth speaker, you can't go wrong with this one.
Pros
Cons
8.6

Michael

Michael is a technology expert with over 15 years of experience in IT, Home Theatre and Automation. Feel free to send Michael a message here.

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14 thoughts on “Xiaomi Stereo Bluetooth Speaker Review: Amazingly Powerful”

  1. My experience with this speaker has been pretty bad, frankly. The sound quality is a little sub-par with the speaker resonating terribly at volumes >60% using the Xiaomi Mi4 smartphone. I expected this speaker to perform better and the build quality is not the best either. The plastic part squeaks a bit when i push on it

    Reply
  2. This is a wonderful piece of audio equipment you can buy without hurting your wallet. I bought it about a year back and still keep using it. It has such a wonderful bassy warm sound for a small bluetooth speaker. I keep carrying it around during my long business tours and never failed to surprise me. Main thing i love about this is the warm mellow bassy analogue kind of sound which is not harsh at all. Great for listening music to relax. This review is awesome too… thanks

    Reply
  3. Was happy with this unit at first, BUT then it wouldn’t charge. Then I started searching for a fix. Turns out so were a lot of others and that this is a real issue with them. And the company has not addressed this. Have been unable to find a fix to this problem. I think there is a problem with the charging port itself. When I first went to charge it I noticed a problem with the fit of the charging port. I have used it maybe 6 times and it’s now a paper weight. Not impressed.

    Reply
    • Hi Wen,

      I didn’t experience any distortion on mine when playing music from an iPhone 6 at max volume. Genres tested included rap, death metal, EDM and rock so I hit the bass pretty hard in some of the tracks.

      That said, I wasn’t using an equalizer so it’s possible that adding bass has caused distortion.

      Reply

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