K8 Bluetooth Speaker – The self charging speaker

K8 Bluetooth Speaker may just be my favourite Bluetooth speaker. With support for FM radio, handsfree calling, MP3 song playback on TF card or a flash drive, and the ability to recharge itself, there are a lot of things to love about it.

If we take a look at the design, you can clearly see that they went for a boxy chassis with a bit of rounded corners. Although the speaker looks huge and heavy, it is actually fairly light weight. It has some weird alien look which I love. It kind of reminds me of gaming PCs. The device is all plastic though so be sure not to drop it too often. If it doesn’t scratch, it’ll break.

The speaker comes with 5 buttons in all. And they’re all situated at the front of the device. 4 buttons would have been OK, but they decided to add 1 more as the power for a torch. I guess that will be useful at some point. The power button doubles as the mode button as well. Then the rest are for pause/play, volume up or down or for skipping tracks.

On the right of the device all the ports you’ll need. The AUX out port, a USB-type A for flash drives, a micro-SD card slot and a micro-USB port for charging. Oh yeah, there’s also a mini-LED indicator, right within this tiny whole here.

Up top is the radio antenna and unique solar panel, which I’ll talk about later in this video.

Yes, I must agree that it is big. Like, it’s not something you can just toss in your pocket and move around with, that easily. That’s why they included to handle for easy carry.

Noticed these raised parts on the left and right sides here? Well, they are not there for aesthetics or anything like that, they have a purpose. And with the help of the radio antenna, you can prop your phone against it and watch contents whiles connected to the device. The antenna is quite strong so you can mostly orient your phone to different angles. The problem here is if you have a bigger, much heavier device, say, a tablet for instance, this idea won’t work.

For the specifications, it has support for FM radio, handsfree calling, MP3 song playback on either TF card or a flash drive. Supports recycled charging.  We get a 1200mAh battery. On the subject of the batteries, they last quite longer than I expected. The first time I purchased this, I had not yet charged it, so the battery was right around the 50% mark. I connected it to my phone via Bluetooth and kept it playing music throughout the night. I check the battery percentage the next morning and it was at 40%. That’s just insane. Even though I didn’t have the speaker at max volume, I still think that is impressive. And with the inclusion of these solar panels up top, using this outdoors on a sunny day, you should expect a longer battery life. I haven’t opened this up yet, to figure out if the solar panel is real or even connected to anything at all, but I did notice a significant delay in battery drop when using it outside. So, I guess, I’ll take their word for it.

As always, I’ll have it compared with the TG-163 Bluetooth Speaker cos it’s still my favourite.

This is how long they both take to turn on and connect to a device via Bluetooth. I used the Boya BY-MM1 shotgun microphone, directly plugged in the camera to record both audios. The K8 is noticeably louder and clearer at max volume, so it’s a win for it here.

One feature I love besides the long-lasting battery is the ability to play using a 3.5mm cable. I don’t get that on the TG 163. It does mean you’ll need to carry the cable along, but for some extra hours or minutes of music playback, I’ll take it.



So, for GHc 50, would I recommend? Unfortunately for the TG 163, my answer is YES. This is now my favourite Bluetooth speaker. I don’t like the looks that much but for the kind of performance I’m getting, I’ll definitely choose this.

It is bulky and not as portable like the Soundcore Icon mini, but if you’re someone who mostly moves around with a backpack, you’ll have no issues with that. And unlike the Soundcore, it doesn’t have any form of IP rating. So, when it starts raining outside, quickly hide this device.