Another tiny speaker is on the way, but this time, Sony is making it like what Meghan Trainor says: all about that bass.
You don’t need to look too far to find a huge selection of wireless speakers, because everyone makes them. From cheap to expensive, small wireless speakers meant to take with you are a dime a dozen these days, and cater for nearly every size, be it super small to mid-sized loud and proud, all the way to large and in charge.
But in that smaller category, there’s a new baby-sized speaker in the way, as Sony dishes up a diminutive take on the squished can of sound that is the tiny speaker.
This year, it’s in the SRS-XB13, which is a tiny speaker made to be water resistant and easy to carry, complete with a strap to let you carry it or keep it tied up to a bag or something else, like an outdoor umbrella. The XB13 also includes support for Sony’s “Extra Bass” and a processor to punch up the bass, basically focusing on the bottom end, an area that is almost always the last part of a small speaker. That’s not exactly out of kilter for Sony, which has offered a similar focus on “Extra Bass” in its headphones in the past.
There’s also support for hands-free calling with a microphone built in, though it doesn’t seem like there’s direct access to an assistant here, meaning no calling up either the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa from the speaker. You can still do it from your phone, of course, but you’ll need to be near the handset to make it happen.
However if your aim is to get a small speaker with a decent amount of battery life, Sony may well be catering for that, with up to 16 hours of playback and charging over the standard and quite normal USB Type C port.
You’ll find the Sony XB13 in stores across Australia in April 2021, where it will retail for $89 in three colours.
