There are a lot of Bluetooth speakers on the market. Most of them are pretty nice, but also have the price tag and size to match. What if you just want to listen to your music anywhere, without using headphones or having to use the phone’s built-in speakers?
The Tadpole portable speaker from Ifrogz is tiny, comes with its own carabiner so you can attach it to anything you like, and does the job. Just charge the device with the included short USB cable (it takes about an hour), pair via Bluetooth with your phone, and you’re ready to go for two or three hours of sound. The pairing is extremely easy, with no codes to enter and no struggle to discover the device. It’s also extremely small, at 2.67 inches tall, so it can be carried anywhere.
To use it, just turn it on and it takes over the volume from your phone. The Tadpole has no volume control of its own; you control it on your phone. You can control music tracks on the Tadpole device, though: play, pause, restart the current track, and jump to the next track. It’s a little hard to be precise with the button at first, and you might end up skipping a song when you meant to pause, but you quickly get the hang of it.
How is the sound? Well, for the size and the price of the Tadpole, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t think that something that small would make the room sound like a performance hall. I was right. It’s not meant to replace a powerful set of speakers. But it does work quite well as a personal speaker, for you and anyone close by. It’s also a very good option if you want to play some music, but you want to keep your phone safely tucked away in a pocket or under your desk. You’ll likely want to keep the volume in the lower half or 3/5ths of the range, as the quality suffers at high volume.
If you’re looking to fill a room with music, the Tadpole won’t do it very well. But if you’re looking for a personal speaker that fits in the smallest of pockets, it does the trick. Audiophiles likely won’t be satisfied, but for the rest of us, it fills a need. Price runs about $15-20 depending on source.
GeekMom received a promotional item for review purposes.
