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First Look: Logitech's UE Air Speaker

2012-05-04
if you're looking to fill a room with sounds from your iOS devices and have a little extra cash to burn this speaker should be your next big purchase I'm just a new editor here at C net and this is a video review of the Logitech UE air speaker this speaker does have a dock on the bottom that you can plug in your iPhone or iPad into but the big seller of this speaker and what makes it 399 bucks is the airplay feature airplay is Apple's streaming media platform that captures wireless music from iOS devices and iTunes and you might be asking okay how is this different from Bluetooth well Apple AirPlay actually allows uncompressed music to stream wirelessly so you don't get any sacrificed in sound for the wireless connection the connection process is foolproof as well just start by seating your iPod iPhone or iPad into the dock down below here and it'll prompt you to download the UE air app that will guide you through the rest of the Wi-Fi pairing process obviously your iPhone and the UE air speaker need to be on the same wireless network but there's an Ethernet connection on the back if you do find that your Wi-Fi connection is dropping once you have the app downloaded and paired up you'll be able to scroll through all your music and fine tune them using simple equalizer functions like bass and treble if you do decide to just put your device in the dock and play music you'll find that the hardware is a little complicated the connector sits on a spring that rocks back and forth ostensibly to fit a bunch of different case sizes and thickness but the rotating hinge actually makes it a little hard to properly seat and it definitely requires some finessing to get it to work so what if you don't have an iOS device well the instruction booklet also details a slightly more complicated method to connect a non airplay device that involves navigating your computer to an IP config page selecting your network and entering the password it's definitely a little more tedious than just downloading the app on your phone but once the UE air reboots you should be then hooked up within 10 minutes or so like I said earlier the lower price of Bluetooth speakers reflects their diminished sound quality compared to this one those are maybe a little better for individual listening experiences while this UE air is really the speaker you want at a house party or a dinner gathering the unit is capable of playing at really loud volumes and the dual tweeters in front as well as the dual subwoofers out back really do well to blast music at a good distance with impressive audio performance the logitech ue air is a viable bookshelf speaker if you have 400 bucks to spend on this relatively new technology on the other hand though if you really can't swallow that price tag a Bluetooth speaker like this super toothed disco for example may fall better within your reach you can read more details in my full review on CNET but that's gonna do it for me I'm Justin you this is the Logitech UE err speaker and that sounds good to me
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