Everyone knows music is the universal language for all cultures. Being able to hear your favorite tunes with the best quality equipment is necessary, if you can afford it. Unfortunately, high quality usually comes with a high price. However, in this case, id America’s TouchTone wireless portable speaker bucks that trend. Name brands like JBL or Jawbone demand a higher price tag for its portable speakers than what id America has delivered with this incredible offering.
The TouchTone’s beautiful industrial design with thunderous sound, is truly sophistication in a box. Once you open the packaging you’ll notice how nicely built the small speaker is, as it measures 4.9-inch wide by 2.4-inch tall and 2.9-inch deep. TouchTone is shaped like an oval or the way you would write out the number zero — it has soft edges all around. Pursuing the hardware further, id America did an excellent job in choosing the right kind of materials to build this thing; it carries sturdy wrap around metal for the speaker along with a mix of solid matte-finished plastic and rubber for the top and bottom.
Now let’s get to some of the TouchTone’s cool features, shall we? For starters, I thought is was fitting that such a chic looking device would have a personal assistant or voice operator to complement its pizzazz. When you turn on the box the small track, play/pause/call, and mode buttons show white and the circle in the middle flickers with a blue light, then a guy with what sounds like a British accent says “Bluetooth mode has been on”. And once you pair your smartphone, the same voice resurfaces saying the words “paired” — the blue light stops flickering and goes steady. The lights are bright and visible on a sunny day or in the darkest of night.
That same circle in the middle that carries the company’s logo and turn blue when connected by way of Bluetooth, can also light up red when the 3.5mm cord is hooked up to your handset. Unplugging the cable automatically switches the unit back to Bluetooth mode, at which point the top light will flash blue until it pairs, becoming solid again. Yes, simple but effective stuff nevertheless.
Perhaps the most interesting feature is the speaker’s touch interface. You can control the volume by simply sweeping your finger counterclockwise across the circle in the middle as this turns the volume down, while clockwise turns it up. The Bluetooth 3.0 held true from distances as far as 30+ feet. As far as quality of streaming is concerned, the TouchTone passed with flying colors — Yeezus playing through the speaker sounded great.
In the end, I enjoyed this speaker a lot. Is it the best on the market? Probably not. But can it hold its own against some of its more expensive competitors? Yes. id America did its job in creating a small, highly affordable wireless portable speaker with excellent sound and industrial design quality for the cheap price of $80.
This product gets a salute from me.