Betron KBS08 Bluetooth Speaker, Wireless, Portable, Mini, Black

Handy small speaker that we used on holiday. Great sound, connected easily via Bluetooth and you’ve got the option to turn the lights off too. Charges quickly and lasts for a good length of time. Definitely worth buying for your holidays for the hotel room when you’re getting ready to go out.

Why did I choose the Betron KBS08?I wanted a bluetooth speaker so I can listen to internet radio while I'm in the kitchen without having to take the laptop with me, and also for a better sound than my laptop speakers for watching movies/TV. Also, I wanted one with some decent bass that can fill the room when I feel like dancing, but not pay an arm and a leg.Did I get what I wanted?It works perfectly on Bluetooth with my phone and AUX with my laptop. The bass is incredible, when you put it on a wooden surface like a table you can actually feel the floor vibrate. The sound quality is really nice and decently loud to fill the room. I carried it to every corner of our small flat and it didn't cut out even when I closed the heavy bathroom door.The light strips also make it look really cool and will be a really stylish eye catcher at any house party.Ease of use & charging:It was simple to pair (immediately connected with both my Lenovo laptop and Samsung smartphone without issues), quick to charge and worked for about 4 hours on full charge before a loud beep alerted me to its need to be fed some electricity. It comes with a 3-way cable that allows you to charge the speaker via USB. Charging was fast, I didn't time it exactly but I think it was fully charged again within 1-1.5 hours via a USB mains plug.There are only a few buttons so you can't do much wrong. You get the usual Play/Pause/Answer Phone, Forward/Louder, Backward/Quieter and Off/On, and also a Mode button that will cycle through the Bluetooth, FM and AUX functions when pressed. A nice lady tells you which mode you've gone into when the button is pressed and notifies you when the Bluetooth is connected.It has 3 cable slots for AUX, Mini-USB and MicroSDTF. In order to use the AUX function of the speaker, set the Mode to AUX, connect the Mini-USB to your speaker and plug the AUX cable into the device you want to get the sound from. I have no device that uses MicroSDTF so could not test that.The speaker starts up in the volume that you left it on when last using it, so if that was full volume don't hold your ears close to it during startup.Negative points:Overamplification:At very high volumes the low price of the speaker starts to show as it overamplifies during certain frequencies at a high volume.Bass in speech:For watching movies/TV, the bass is a bit TOO good. It's quite unnerving to have the basses in people's voice and sound effects emphasised that much.Permanent light show:While the lights are great for a party atmosphere, they do get a bit annoying when you just want some quiet background music and I have not found a way to switch them off completely.The above would make me reduce the rating to 4.5*, but it's not annoying enough to give it only 4* given the overall quality.The following oddity also happened to me that is NOT the fault of the speaker:Laptop Bluetooth Pitch Shifting:My laptop's Bluetooth settings make the speaker pitch shift and put out sound about a half tone higher than the source, resulting in everthing sounding like on helium. I managed to fix it briefly, but whenever a new song started, it would revert to pitch shifted sound again. I currently circumvent this by simply using it via the AUX cable or listening to internet radio via my phone, with which it works perfectly fine.Some research showed that this is actually a common problem, due to software drivers cutting corners on sound quality in order to produce a consistent signal. If this happens to you, it's not the speaker that's at fault but your driver and you may need to do some poking around (my fix on Windows 7: Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > Manage Audio Devices > Properties > Tick "Remove All Enhancements").Verdict:The sound that the KBS08 produces is incredible for such a tiny thing and it's easy to use, a brilliant value for price ratio here! It weighs next to nothing and fits in a coat pocket, so it's ideal for travel as well - no more putting my phone in a water glass!I can't currently do all the things that I want with the speaker due to the pitch shifting, but as that is not the fault of the speaker I really can't blame it for that - the workaround with the AUX function or just using the phone works well enough for the time being. I just need an excuse to buy a laptop that has better bluetooth drivers on offer and I'll be set!

►𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗼𝗳: Betron KBS08 Wireless Portable Speaker (White)◄Received a slightly broken one, seller was awesome and instantly sent out a replacement and let me keep the first one which still worked but had a crack in the base. Great customer service.Sound Quality: ⭐⭐⭐⭐- It's not great but for the money, it's pretty good. Decent enough for listening to music while in the bath or shower which is what we use one for, and the other when DIYing and working outside.Build Quality: ⭐⭐⭐ - Reasonable for the cheap price but again, not great. You wouldn't want to drop it from more than knee height as I don't think it would survive.Battery Life: ⭐⭐ - It was good at the start we was getting a few hours of loud music between charges but after just 4-months the battery now lasts maybe 45-60 minutes and when being charged even if it's not on, completely powered off it never fully changes, the light always stays red so the battery is pretty dead already.Connection / Bluetooth: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Perfect, connects instantly every time, no issues at all. 7-8m maximum is more realistic, or 4-5m if there's a wall in between the device and speaker.⭐⭐⭐⭐ 𝗧𝗟;𝗗𝗥 - Poor battery, decent enough sound, OK build quality, and really cheap. It's pretty good, not amazing but a good solid little speaker and for just £15 you can't go wrong.

Excellent quality. Easy to use Bluetooth. I charged battery once and sat outside for about 4 hours. It still hasn’t run out of charge. Great value. Would definitely recommend.

Solid little speaker, well made good music sound. Easy ro set upas well.

I bought this back in 2020, something I could chuck in the bathroom on a shelf and have music safely playing whilst I was in the shower. The sound it produces is pretty good for such a low wattage, I did find I had to charge it more often than I would like but that wasn’t a big problem. The Bluetooth connection was flaky at times but mostly reliable.However after a couple of years the connection started becoming more flaky, randomly disconnecting even when my phone was next to it. Almost like it cuts power. The longer I have it the worse it has gotten, to the point now I find it constantly disconnects for around 5 minutes and then it usually stays connected for a while after that almost like the components have warmed up and expanded enough to make proper contact with each other and work again.So tldr; it’s cheap and cheerful but expect to only get a good 2/3 pain free years out of it