Gadgetory

I'm David Conroy executive editor cnet.com I'm going to give you a quick video tour of another wireless Bluetooth speaker the deck by Sol Republic and Motorola which has a list price of $199 for the office speaker phone the idea behind that design is that since it's so slim it'll slip easily into a bag so you can take it with you wherever you go I liked how it looked and it's pretty lightweight weighing only eleven point five ounces if yellow isn't your color it does come in a few other color options including simple black it does have volume controls on the top of the speaker as well as this multifunction button with the Motorola logo on it that pauses and plays your music answers and ends calls in speakerphone mode yes there is an integrated microphone and it also skips tracks forward and back the deck does have a few notable extra features like the Jawbone Jambox there are voice prompts on board to let you know your device is paired and how full the battery is battery home it does get around 10 hours of battery life according to Sol Republic and for those who have NFC enabled devices such as the Samsung Galaxy s4 and the Moto X that the speaker is launching with you can tap the speaker with your device to pair it more interesting as the hice mode after you flip a little switch on the side of the speaker shifting from single user mode to multi-user mode you and your friends can pair up to five devices to the deck each of which is assigned a different color LED you can only stream music from one device at a time but if you hit play on a second device that's connected the SOL logo on the top of the speaker changes color and that device takes over music playback thus the name heist the other feature worth mentioning is the speaker has both an audio input and audio output so you can connect a non Bluetooth enabled audio device or daisy chain multiple decks together to get bigger sound now about that sound it's pretty good but it's not $200 good since the speaker is designed first and foremost to sit on a flat surface and fire upward it's not surprising that it's being billed as delivering 360 degrees sound the so-called surround effect does have its limitations and you do have to experiment a little with placement to optimize the sound quality for a small speaker it does play loud and can fill a small room with sound it also has an outdoor mode that boosts the sound and changes the soundstage a bit to make the speaker better suited for outdoor listening but other $200 competitors such as the UE boom and Bo's sound dog mini deliver bigger fuller sound with more bass both of those speakers do way more however don't get me wrong though after using the speaker for a few days I came away liking it is a very appealing design it's easy to carry around and has some cool extra features the only issue I had with it is the price tag performance wise it just doesn't measure up to the to another competition but other than that has a decent little Bluetooth speaker I'm David Carr noise and thats the deck by Sol Republican motorola thanks for watching