The Jawbone Jambox Speaker Is Your iPhone's New Best Friend [REVIEW]

jambox in hand
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

The Jawbone Jambox has been around for about a year now, but we finally got our hands on one.

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It's a pleasure to use, and is a near perfect ultra-portable Bluetooth speaker system for your smartphone or computer.

The Jambox is pricey at $199.99, but is it worth it? Read on to find out.

Want to skip the review? Check out huge pictures of the Jambox here >

Setting Up The Jambox Is Dead Simple

If you use a Bluetooth-enabled device like an iPhone, hooking up the Jambox is simple.

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All you do is hold the Jambox's power button in the "up" position for a couple seconds, and the unit beeps to let you know it's ready for pairing.

Find the Jambox in your iPhone's Bluetooth pairing menu, select it, and you're ready to go. You only need to do this once for each device you use. When you turn on the Jambox after a couple hours of not using it, the Jambox won't play the first second of a song you're listening to, but it's not a huge annoyance.

If you've plugged in your iPhone or laptop using the supplied auxiliary cable, this doesn't happen.

jambox and iphone
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

Once your Jambox is banging tunes, it's easy to get lost in how good looking the device is. It's a mere 2.5 inches tall and has two soft-touch rubbery plates on its top and bottom. The Jambox comes in a few colors (black, blue, and red), and we loved the way our red unit looked. Be sure to check out our huge pictures of the the device.

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The Jambox Isn't Loud, But It Sounds Great 

The Jawbone Jambox isn't loud by any means, but it's plenty powerful enough to fill a dorm room, office, living room, or even a bigger room if it's reasonably quiet.

Jawbone packed an 85 decibel output capacity to the Jambox, which is impressive given its size, as well as a reasonably good subwoofer (technically, the Jambox has a "bass radiator." If you put the Jambox on a piece on a wood table or something solid, the bass seems to reverberate and sound even better.

jambox top buttons
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

I used the Jambox to watch movies on my computer, play games on my iPhone, and most of all just to listen to music. I rarely had any issues with distortion, even when I pumped up the volume. Anything from dialogue in films to classical music sounded excellent.

A Few Very Nice Bells And Whistles

The Jambox is the first speaker system I've used that really feels like a modern gadget device.

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It comes in an Apple-esque box packed with a stylish flat auxiliary cord, a svelte carrying case, and a nice looking charger that has a USB cable attached to it.

jambox inside of box
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

Using the USB cable, you can charge the Jambox's internal battery, and you can also connect it to your computer to download "apps," firmware updates to improve sound quality (incredibly rare for a set of speakers), and other "voices" in which the Jambox can speak things like "pairing mode enabled" to you.

Another important feature is that the Jambox works great as a speakerphone for your smartphone. Plop it on the table, place a call using your smartphone, and yap away. Voices sound crystal clear.

Should You Buy It?

If you need ultra-portable speakers for your iPhone or computer, the Jambox is just about perfect.

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The battery lasts for 10 hours, the sound quality is big enough to fill a room, and the audio fidelity is top notch despite the fact that you're probably using it over Bluetooth.

A few gripes:

1. The Jambox tends to rock itself off of tables pretty frequently, even though it doesn't move when you look at it. It's like how a watched pot of water never boils.

If you leave the Jambox alone in the other room, it's going to fall off your wood table. When it hits the floor, the speaker grill will ding up a bit.

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2. Gripe number two is the Jambox's price. While Amazon currently has the Jambox on sale for $179.99 instead of the $199.99 MSRP, it's still expensive.

Several other small-ish speaker systems sound much bigger and cost half the price, but they're also two to three times the size of the Jambox (and much heavier). The sound/size ratio is the real draw of the Jambox.

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The Jambox isn't quite a boom box...

jambox box top
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

...but it's pretty darn powerful for its size.

jambox this is now box
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
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Pop out the Jambox and you expose a finely manicured compartment of cords and a svelte case.

jambox inside of box
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

The Jambox is incredibly light and has a soft touch rubber finish.

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Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
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It comes in a few colors like black and red.

jambox front angle
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

The side of the Jambox has a power switch, 3.5mm jack, and a micro-USB port for charging.

jambox power button side
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
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The top has a speakerphone button as well as volume buttons.

jambox top buttons
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

This thing is built to be friends with your iPhone.

jambox and iphone
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
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It's very easy to set up once you turn on Bluetooth-pairing mode.

jambox and iphone bluetooth settings
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

Jambox comes up inside your AirPlay menu.

jambox and iphone airplay
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
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