Introduction
The Archeer A225 bluetooth speaker arrived in a stylish brick shape box with the speaker inside. The speaker comes covered in a nice grey fabric and the body is of a soft cream color plastic. The entire device looks stylish and feels like a premium product.
Bluetooth
I immediately connected the speaker to my iPhone 7. It pairs easily. The bluetooth range is amazing. First, using my standard line of sight test, the connect stays solidly connected from 40 feet away. Then I started walking around the ground floor of my 800 square foot house and the connection remains solid. I went upstairs and the connection held. This device by far has the best bluetooth connection from everything else I own.
Controls
The power button is on the bottom of the speaker unit. This made sense at first, since it is used for turning the speaker on and off, and pairing. Then I realized that play and pause control is also done by the power button. Short pressing the power button will toggle between play and pause. This seems counter intuitive — the fact that I have to pick up the speaker and press the button. This is a two handed operation. If you choose to use the speaker, which has a built in mic, to take phone calls, the answer/hangup/reject call is also controlled by the power button on the bottom.
The A225 advertised that it has touch control on the top. Swiping left and right will skip track forward and backward. It works flawlessly. Looking at the top of the unit (see photo), I also try to swipe circularly to change the volume. I must have tried doing it for a whole minute without success. Finally I realized that the darker grey ring on the outer edge of the top of the unit is the volume control. You turn it to change the volume. This is a electronically controlled volume control. There is a total of 16 steps of volume as you turn the ring.
The volume control works nicely once I figured it out, but it sure was confusing at first. One suggestion to Archeer is to change the graphic on the top of the unit to not suggest that I can swipe to change volume.
Sound Quality
According to the specification on the user guide, the unit has dual 45mm speaker with a 5W output. Without any special porting, I did not expect the unit to sound anything other than two 45mm drivers. It would be unfair to compare this unit with other more advanced portable speakers. Instead I compare it to the Anker SoundCore. The SoundCore has a base port, and indeed it’s base is more prominent than the A225. However I find that the A225 is not driven hard even at maximum volume. So there are no overt distortion at maximum volume. The Anker SoundCore cannot be played at maximum volume without it sounding terribly distorted.
Overall, as a portable speaker that I can take outside on the patio, or play music or podcast from my phone around the office, the sound is completely usable. I would never call the sound high fidelity, but I do not expect that from a portable speaker at this price range. I am actually glad that it is not boosted in anyway — which many other systems do, because a boosted bass will make the listening think that it sounds “better”.
Battery Performance
The charging time is around 4 hours, matching the specification. Over a few days of testing, I have yet to run down the battery enough to test the claimed 6-7 hours of play time. My guess is that it will match the factory specification.
Conclusion
For the price point, I think this is a very attractive portable bluetooth speaker. It does fulfill the need for a small, reasonably sounding portable speaker for used around the house, the office, or bring it outside during a cookout. It looks good and sounds fair. I recommend it.
Specification
Bluetooth 4.1 class II, A2DP V1.2, AVRCP V1.4
Speakers 45mm 4Ohm 5Wx2
Battery: 3.7V 2000mAh Lithium
