Gadgetory

I'm David Connolly executive editor for cnet.com and I'm here with the Geneva sound system excess that excess stands for extra small this company is a Swiss company it usually makes actually really big speakers but this is a small bluetooth speaker and it looks a lot like those old school travel alarm clocks it folds up into its own case and it's really kind of a nifty design you can take this with you put it in your bag it's protected it also has a built-in FM radio and a telescoping antenna it's a little weird that it sticks out the side but it is cool that it does have an antenna and you can get better reception with that antenna a couple of other features there is an audio input so you can use devices that don't have a Bluetooth with it that cable isn't included however like other portable Bluetooth speakers this one has a built-in rechargeable battery it is a lithium-ion rechargeable battery give you about five hours worth of battery life that's not great but it's not bad either and you can always leave the speaker plugged in as well one of things it doesn't have is speaker phone capabilities there's no built-in mic here like the Jawbone Jambox has this is slightly bigger than the Jawbone Jambox it weighs 1.1 pounds but it's very portable and it does sound better than the jam box this one has a little bit more detail too it's a little warmer sounding and it handles bass better it also plays very loud for its size take all that with a grain of salt of course these smaller speakers don't have a lot in the way of stereo separation and they don't sound fantastic but the idea here is that they do sound big for their size you can stream audio from your iPad your iPhone your Android smartphone and it sounds a lot lot better than those internal speakers on those devices one of the small drawbacks worth pointing out is that it doesn't charge via USB comes with its own AC adapter be nice if it had a USB charger so you could carry only one cable with your cell phone charger but it does come with that AC adapter the other bigger downside is its it is a $250 device this is from a Swiss company it is a high quality well-made product but that $250 price will scare off some people but if you don't mind paying that much for a cool small bluetooth speaker of this one is definitely worth checking out and David Conroy and that's the Geneva sound system XS