Anker Soundcore Icon Mini

The Soundcore Icon Mini from Anker is an ultra-portable pocket-size speaker which packs impressive specs regardless of its size. But is it any good?

Design

If you buy one of these, this is what you’ll get. Solid, plastic packaging.

On the box are some few specifications and some other texts that are so small that I could hardly read.

As stated, this is produced by Anker, and if you used Bluetooth speakers and power banks a lot, then you may have heard of them.

The unboxing experience is about as basic, with the speaker on top. The user manual, which you should definitely read and the micro USB for charging are all neatly packed in this box behind the speaker. Yeah, unfortunately, in a day and age that most devices besides Apple are switching to USB type C, it would have been nice to see one here too.



Now there are a bunch of colours, but the one I got my hands on is this orange colour which definitely catches the eye. It weighs 0.4lb or 6.4 oz which added to the oval and smallness design makes it easier to grab in the hands. Just for comparison in case you don’t already know that I have small hands, this is how it looks right next to a normal size Rubik’s cube. And the rubbery feel of the body is a great idea too. I feel they really too their time with the design of this one. This same rubber coating prevents it from slipping or sliding off the desk whiles playing. But not all is rubber and plastic, the front part with the soundcore name is a metal with some antirust coating.

It’s rated to have an 8 hours playback time, IP67 water resistant and wireless stereo pairing, in case you purchase 2 of these. They’re so confident enough to say, you can fully submerge this is water and it’ll still work. I don’t have the heart and money to try that yet.

So, there are 5 buttons on this. Bluetooth, volume up and down, mode and then the power button. Although the button feels cushy and soft to presses, I don’t like the colouring. And since they don’t protrude as much, you constantly have to look before you press, unlike others that you can identify the buttons by touch alone.

To connect the device, you press the power button just once, and then press and hold the Bluetooth button for about 2 secs. Once, you see this blinking blue light, you know it’s ready to pair. Then on your phone or pc, you search for new devices. Once connected, the light stays on.

Here’s a test on how it sounds, comparing it to my old dell N5050 laptop. While still at it, why not throw in my favourite Bluetooth yet, the TG-163 in there, for comparison. Obviously, the TG-163 is a lot louder cos it has a bigger speaker, but it still produces distorted audio at max volume unlike the soundcore.

On the right side is the aux output and the charging port. Now to use the aux output port, you’ll need a 3.5 to 3.5mm audio cable to connect, and this does not come with it in the box. Luckily, I had one from the Generic STN-474 Bluetooth Headset review to test it out with. Just connect both devices via cable and you’re good to go. Even if this way means you’ll have to connect via cable, I feel this will be much convenient for me, cos I realize that these devices lose power much faster when connected via Bluetooth.

Again, with my experiments, I got carried away this time round too, and try to connect a normal 3.5mm headphones to see if it’ll work. It didn’t. but if it did, I wonder if it’ll be wise connecting the speaker by Bluetooth and then by cable, whiles I could connect to whichever device directly, via the same cable.

Everything feels premium, as it should, cos this thing cost roughly GHc 230 if you include shipping.

That’s one major thing, I dislike about this, the price. Cos for that price tag, I was expecting USB and micro SD card support as well, which is not included. Regardless, the build quality is solid and the amazing sound justifies its price tag.