If you're looking for one of the very best Bluetooth speakers but don't want to spend too much money, get yourself to Walmart: it's currently offering over $50 off the JBL Charge 5 speaker, which is down from the usual $179.95 to just $128.04. That's a decent saving of $51.01. Amazon is close with a price of $135.
If you like the sound of that but live in the UK, Amazon is currently doing the same speaker for 28% off, taking the price down from £179 to £129. The discounting doesn't apply to all variants – some aren't in stock and others, such as the pink and grey ones, are slightly more expensive at £141 to £144 – but you can get that price on the black, blue and camo versions.
Is the JBL Charge 5 worth buying?
Yes. We really like the JBL Charge, and in our JBL Charge 5 review we said that it's a speaker based on a winning formula of balanced sound, high volume and long battery life. And while those strengths haven't changed in this fifth version, it does improve on its predecessors in several ways. At its normal selling price we gave it four and a half stars out of five; with over $50 off the usual price, you could easily argue it's a five-star speaker.
We think that the JBL Charge 5 is one of the best Bluetooth speakers on the market. It's evolved from being a bit of a bass monster to become something a bit more mature; provided you don't overcook the volume – we found that 50% to 60% is the sweet spot, delivering more than enough oomph without becoming overly harsh – it delivers clear mids, plenty of low-end thump and warm high frequencies. That level is the sweet spot for battery life too: in our tests, continuous playback at 50% easily achieved the quoted battery life of 20 hours.
The Charge 5's name is a big hint about its other key feature: you can use it as a power bank too. That of course has an impact on your overall listening time, especially if you use it to recharge demanding devices such as big-batteried smartphones. But it means that the Charge is a great travel speaker: it sounds great, it's not too big or too heavy and it means one less charger to pack.
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