Just last year, Apple opened its first official retail stores in India, and very recently, the Cupertino major has announced more stores can be expected soon. Apple fans never had it better in the country, since for the very first time, Beats audio devices are now available officially. Apple subsidiary Beats launched three products — the Solo Buds (review), the Solo 4 headphones (review), and the Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker recently. Positioned at the cusp of tech and lifestyle, these devices bring interesting designs and fun features. Here’s a closer look at how the Beats Pill fares in real life.
Table of Contents
Design and build
It’s called Pill for a reason. The speaker uses an oval, pill-shaped design, with my unit looking quite attractive in a bright red hue. The body sports a rubberised finish, with a mesh up front bearing the Beats logo. The bottom is flat, so the speaker doesn’t roll off, with the mesh angled upwards for an optimum listening experience. On top is a status indicator LED, a mic, a few dimples that contain dedicated controls for volume and power, and a multi-function key in the middle that controls music playback and calls. The multi-function key does have quite a few functions, and remembering them all can be a bit of a pain though. A single press plays / pauses music, double press skips forward, and triple press skips back. During an incoming call, a single press accepts it, and double press rejects it.
A sturdy lanyard is attached to the side, allowing you to not only lug around your speaker easily, but also hang it from somewhere as needed. A USB Type-C port is tucked away on the rear, and there’s no sign of an aux-in port. The device weighs 680 grams and thanks to its compact dimensions and oval shape, can easily be slipped inside a backpack. The rubberised exterior feels smooth and premium, while the IP67 rating helps add peace of mind and allows you to use the speaker without worry.
Features and connectivity
For a small Bluetooth speaker, the Beats Pill is loaded with a bunch of interesting and useful features. For one, the Type-C port on the back can be used not just to juice up the speaker, but to charge other devices connected to it as well. And if you connect a compatible device like an iPhone or iPad to the Beats Pill with a cable, it can output lossless audio as well. If you have two Beats Pill speakers, you can also connect the two together to amplify the sound or get better separation using stereo mode. Rounding off the Pill’s impressive set of features is speakerphone capability. The device has a built-in mic and can be used to handle calls in speakerphone mode, useful in small meeting rooms or while working from home. That said, multipoint connectivity is MIA, which seems to be a noticeable miss.
The Beats Pill supports Bluetooth 5.3, and in terms of audio codecs, can handle AAC and SBC but not aptX. Fast pairing is available on both Android and iOS, as is Find My functionality, which indicates the last known location of where the speaker was used. Android users can utilise a separate Beats Pill app for firmware updates, while iPhone users can get those directly. On iPhones, a connected Beats Pill speaker just shows up in the settings, letting you see the current battery level, and change a couple of call controls.
Sound quality and battery
Rich, boomy and packing a punch — that’s how I’d describe the sound quality delivered by the Beats Pill… despite the fact that the single tweeter and woofer inside produce mono sound. The speaker defies its compact size and manages to put out detailed audio that’s able to do justice to most genres. I won’t say it can power a party, but the sound is certainly room-filling. The sound is rich even at lower volumes and doesn’t distort when the levels are bumped up to over 50 percent, with the bass remaining punchy without muddying up the vocals. The bass-heavy signature does tend to muddy up the audio at really high volumes, indicating this device is designed to be a crowd pleaser and not really offer audiophile-grade sound. There’s nothing really wrong with that, and I quite enjoyed listening to newer hits like APT. and favourites like Unstoppable and Bye Bye Bye. There are no EQ presets available — which is potentially something that could have helped tweak the sound quality specific to the listener’s preferences.
The features do help make up for that, and the excellent battery life helps quite a bit too. The battery life is rated at 24 hours of continuous playback time at 50 percent volume, with a 10-minute charge promising up to 2 hours of usage. In my usage, I’d say the promises do look reasonably accurate, with the Beats Pill easily delivering about 22 hours or so, give or take.
Verdict
The Beats Pill is priced at Rs 16,900, which is a fair bit to shell out for a portable speaker. Audiophiles and those who really want to customise the sound as per their individual preferences won’t be impressed by the lack of EQ options, while multipoint connectivity would have been great to have too. That said, the Beats Pill delivers on a few crucial aspects – offering grid sound quality, size-defying punch, good battery life, and useful features like reverse charging. And all of this is encased in a form factor that’s solidly built, is IP67 rated and looks super cool. That’s a win in my books.
Editor’s rating: 8 / 10
Pros:
- Good design, portability & IP67 rating
- Rich, size-defying sound
- Good battery life
- Charge-out & USB-C audio
Cons:
- No EQ
- Lacks aux-in port
- Multipoint support missing
- Centre button has many tasks
