Laptop Speakers - USB, Portable, Compact, Travel Speaker for PC and Mac - B-Flex 2 Hi-Fi Stereo USB Speaker (White) by JLab Audio
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Digital camera reviews of Laptop Speakers - USB, Portable, Compact, Travel Speaker for PC and Mac - B-Flex 2 Hi-Fi Stereo USB Speaker (White)
Digital camera Review: Cost-effective and portable.
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this when my Dell laptop's built-in speakers died after 4 years of relentless use. It was very cost-effective and produces the same quality as the factory built-in speakers, while being eminently portable and easy to use. I highly recommend it!Digital camera Review: World Class Service
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought one of these b-flex speakers based to some degree on reviews I saw here on Amazon. I liked it so much I bought 2 more for my wife and son. One of the 3 had some static. With no hesitation whatsoever the company sent me a replacement at no cost. The replacement came today and it works like a charm . I cannot recall a company with a better attitude and more consideration for the customer. You should buy this and any other product they sell because Jlab most definitely backs up their truly exceptional products. Digital camera Review: Better, Not Great, Sound
Summary: 3 Stars
These speakers do a good job of boosting the volume and improve sound quality, but the sound quality is still not great. These speakers are okay if you need something totally portable to improve sound quality and boost the volume. If you want your laptop PC to double as a serious entertainment center, however, you still need to get some desk or tabletop speakers. Worth buying if you really need the portability and don't expect great things, otherwise just buy a set of desktop speakers.Digital camera Review: Not a bad boost for laptop sound
Summary: 4 Stars
JLabs has produced an unusual sturdy and compact speaker addition for laptops. The sound is reasonably good, likely better than the built in speakers of most laptops. As an added bonus, the volume is louder than the laptop speakers alone.
Design - ET would be perfectly happy with these speakers. They do look a little like a cross between, ET, Wall-E, and Short Circuit heads. Either you find these cute, or you hate them; I'm not sure there is a middle ground. The USB connector is standard issue. The silver flexible connector is like that in a goose neck lamp - shiny silver, and pretty much stays where you bend it. The speaker grill is silver with a chrome surround, and the rounded off body is tough white plastic.
Sound - They're not bad. A bit tinny or over emphasized treble. Not much bass. And midrange is good, dialog sounds decent on these. But there is a problem - for music, these are actually very nice little speakers; running Pandora or Last.FM all day, these are just ideal while you work. But ouch, if you try to watch a movie or video, be prepared for a very strange feeling. The stereo pair are right next to eachother and off to the right or left of your screen. So all the sound appears to be coming from either off to the left or right of your screen. Nothing sounds like it is coming from the screen. There's just nothing that can be done about that. Either get used to the strange effect, or only listen to music.
Construction - solidly built. These speakers have a very nice heft to them. They look like they will last a very long time travelling. The speaker head looks indestructable. The only worry I have is the weight on the USB plugs inside the laptop. Over time, this might ruin one of the USB ports, especially if you were to mash into the speaker while plugged in.
These are amplified speakers - that's important to note. There is a small amplifier insde the speaker that is powered by the USB port. When plugged in, this speaker bypasses the output circuitry of your laptop - control is still through software, but no internal amplification to speaker level is used inside your laptop.
Operation - tried this on several laptops. A standard sized Acer Travelmate; an Acer Aspire One; and a Dell Lattitude D630. All worked flawlessly running Windows XP. First time plugging into a computer, the computer does a little driver dance, everything required is generic windows drivers, and the speakers work immediately. Absolutely no fuss whatsoever. Control the volume with the sound control panel (the little speaker icon at the bottom of your computer screen), or with the application (like the volume slider in windows media player). Any physical volume roller you may have on the computer body will no longer function. Volume buttons on the keyboard still work like normal. The laptop speakers are muted and sound comes out of the JLabs.
There is one quirk that I think may be what other reviewers have discovered but not understood. To stop using these speakers, just unplug them. If you are in the middle of watching video of some kind, that video will freeze and stop working. Simply close the video window and restart it, you will now hear audio from the internal laptop speakers. I did this many times and it never crashed my computer system.
Nice, neat, well built, decent sounding portable speaker package.
By the way - if your laptop is one that has say, Harman Kardon speakers, or some other brand name speaker, or is a multimedia laptop; these speakers will not be an upgrade. They are designed for the laptop with really cheap generic internal speakers. And they will be louder than those cheap built in speakers.
Digital camera Review: BOSE-like. FANTASTIC. Really.
Summary: 5 Stars
Tiny. Cute. Comes in several colors. Kind of reminds me of Wall-E. Super volumn, clarity, everything. BUY ONE for any laptop and/or netbook.