Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
The Beats Pill has returned, as Apple and Beats welcome a familiar speaker to the fold. Is the latest revamp just as cool as it ever was?
Devices typically see regular update cycles, but with Beats’ latest speaker, time has not been kind. Officially it’s been nine years since Beats last released the “Pill”, the company’s antidote to portable sound with a speaker that resembles exactly what it says on the name.
Shaped like a proper pill you’d take, the Beats Pill is a speaker in a cylinder with a style all to its own. No one else makes a pill, even if plenty of speaker makers build a cylindrical speaker, making Beats different.
Nine years ago, the Pill that came out was the Pill+, a sort of oversized equivalent following on from the original’s 2012 launch.
But nine years is a long time between releases, particularly in sound gear. New headphones releases are often two to four years, while speakers range between every year or up to five, maybe a little more. Nine is quite long, and yet here we are, as Beats revives the Pill.
The shape is the same, the idea is the same, but the speaker is all new. Is the Beats Pill a speaker made for today?
Design and features
With a look more like that of something medicinal, there’s no confusing Beats’ latest speaker for any other speaker out there, except maybe one Beats made years ago.
Yes, the Beats Pill is back, giving people one more form-factor and another choice in the vast assortment of Bluetooth speakers. Gosh, there are just so many of them.
It seems as though every manufacturer and their collection of dogs has a Bluetooth speaker, and so many just echo the same look: a cylinder or a box. That is largely what they are 95 percent of the time: a similar shape that emits sound. Some are definitely better than others, that is definitely clear, but Bluetooth speakers are often consistent.
The Beats Pill is definitely a shape that emits sound, so sticks with that concept, but it’s also a shape no one else really copies: a medicinal pill, albeit one sized way too big to attempt swallow (do not attempt to swallow the Beats Pill).
With a flat bottom and cylindrical body, the Beats Pill is like a cylinder speaker if it was lying down and offered a flat edge, which is basically what it is. Rated for IP67 water resistance and semi-ruggedised, it lacks the heavy durability and drop-proofing of other speakers, but it will definitely handle some water, spray, and even the odd speck of dust and sand, all while looking good.
Our red Beats Pill was definitely easy on the eyes, the one-colour paint job looking great and offering up a direct style that’s difficult to ignore. A USB-C port can be found on the back, the one port on the device.
Overall, it’s similar to the sense of simplicity Apple imparts on its gadgets, but it feels cooler for some reason. We’re not entirely sure why.
In-use
Controlling this Bluetooth speaker is very much like any other out there: grab your phone, tablet, or computer (or even an overpriced media player, if you have one), and stream your music from one to the other. That’s it.
Beats makes an app for Android users, so you can name the speaker and check battery life, but over on iOS, the controls are baked into Apple’s settings thanks in part to Apple owning Beats in the first place.
Outside of the obvious phone media controls found in your music or podcasting app, the Beats Pill offers physical buttons, too, all found along the top. They’re more like indents on the rubbery silicone exterior, but they offer flex and you can press them down, covering two for volume, one for pause and play controls, and the final next to a light to let you know the Pill is powered on. Clearly, this is the power button. This is the way.
Performance
Tested with the Pickr Sound Test, we grabbed both an Android and an iPhone to do the testing, largely because this speaker handles both. Most speakers do, mind you — nothing new there — but the Beats Pill is one of the few Apple-owned gadgets that will play nicely with Android, and that isn’t something Apple provides for its own gadgets.
It means that regardless of the device you’re using to transmit audio, you should find the same sound, which in our tests delivered relatively balanced audio with bright punchy highs and mids, followed by a slightly softer and more rounded bass.
In Ariana Grande’s “Into You”, the soundstage delivered a surprisingly spacious delivery with solid mids and highs, but a slightly reduced approach for bass. The bottom end is there, but the impact is less a punch and more just a delivery, and the same is true with Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, where the low-end lacks the impetus you might expect associated with the Beats name.
The bass is here, but it’s not driving hard enough to annoy you, and that’s not a bad thing.
In rock, the sound is solid more or less across the board: while some tracks could sound muddled, most delivered a somewhat detailed soundstage, enough to certainly keep the listener happy as opposed to squabbling and complaining.
Older tracks were particularly great: recent remasters of The Beatles sound balanced and easy on the ears, as did Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al”, even if that iconic bass-line didn’t slap as hard as it should have.
In short, the sound is good and the delivery is fun with it. There are better speakers, but the Beats Pill ain’t bad, either.
Battery
You’ll be able to play the speaker for up to 24 hours, and in our testing, that wasn’t far off the mark. We didn’t even need to plug the USB-C charger in over several weekends worth of testing, with easily 20 to 22 hours worth of use for that time.
In short, there’s plenty of battery life on offer in the Beats Pill. If you need a little more, a short charge of around 10 minutes can provide an hour or two of playback time.
Beats has also provided a way to top up your phone’s battery life using the battery of the Beats Pill, too. In a way, the Pill isn’t just your speaker, but a sizeable power bank for recharging a phone. Handy.
Value
Priced at a little under $250 in Australia, the Beats Pill isn’t terribly overpriced or for what you get. It’s priced comparatively well, actually.
There’s a lot of sound, a lot of compatibility, and great design complete with a strap you can easily hold onto. Never underestimate the importance of a strap.
The $200 to $300 part of the market for speakers offers plenty of choice, and we’d argue that at $250, this is decent value overall.
What needs work?
The few places where Beats could improve are with the volume, the buttons, and what is potentially missing, all of which seem like minor issues in the grand scheme of things.
The volume issue is very much this: don’t push it past 80 percent, otherwise it’ll start to distort and fuzz out. The Beats Pill can get loud, but once it does, the sound isn’t spectacular. At 50 percent, you should have more than enough sound, and the volume is quite loud at 60 to 70 percent, too.
Push it higher, though, and you’ll hear distortion and fuzz. It’s not a great look, and suggests the headroom isn’t quite there for the volume.
That probably explains why Beats has skipped over spatial audio for this release, which is something you won’t see here. You can find spatial in other Beats products — mainly headphones such as the Beats Studio Pro — and you can find spatial speakers, such as the Soundcore Motion X500.
The lack of spatial in the Beats Pill may not matter in a single speaker, but it does mean the expansive audio soundtracks of Dolby Atmos can’t be found for this speaker. Tiny issue, clearly.
Our other quibble is one with the buttons, which can be frustrating at times. Ignoring the aesthetics in the decision to make the buttons coloured exactly like the silicone of the body — basically just making each button a flexible indent at the top — the power button doesn’t always turn the speaker off.
Sometimes pressing that power button will actually send the Beats Pill into pairing mode, and so powering down can sometimes take a little longer as you struggle to make the button do what you want it to do: switch the speaker off.
Beats Pill vs the competition
Minor quibbles aside, Beats is on pretty good footing for the other Bluetooth speakers it competes against.
The $250 price point in Australia is an interesting place for what is an otherwise premium brand like Beats, particularly given that it competes with the likes of the $279 Sonos Roam SL and the $299 Sonos Roam 2, two speakers that offer a similar shape, albeit in one that stands up, with support for multi-room bundled in thanks to the currently-buggy Sonos app and network.
More directly, Beats is taking on the tried and trusty Ultimate Ears Boom 4, a speaker that offers a similar approach for around the $230 mark locally, while also taking on the excellent Bose Soundlink Flex, another $250 speaker these days.
Most of the similar speakers cost more, hitting closer to the $300 price point, so Beats is actually surprising value for what you get. The sound could be a little better, particularly in the volume department, but the overall value isn’t bad at all.
Final thoughts (TLDR)
There are better speakers technically, but the Beats delivers the fun, the sense of style, and a decent sound, to match. You even get support for a Type C cable to deliver higher resolution audio if you so choose. It’s an option we doubt many will take, but it’s there should you want to check it out.
It is a welcome revival for anyone keen to take their audio with them, and an obvious speaker to pack. Hell, it’s so easy to carry, your kids can grab it and go.
The Beats Pill is an easy choice if you’re grabbing a speaker to go. It has the sound, the power, and a design to make life just that little bit easier.
