JBL Flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker Review
JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker is a great Speaker with great sound quality and price.
The JBL Company has created a revolution in the world of portable Bluetooth speakers. Now, from the small party at home to the office party, Bluetooth speakers are playing today. Among the Bluetooth speakers, JBL flip 5 is very popular.
People are buying more of this wireless speaker than home theater today. The popularity of this Bluetooth speaker is high for people with good battery backup, great sound, extraordinary design, and carrying facilities.
Today I had the brand new JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker, Let’s check it out the box here on the back says it has 12 hours of playtime which is less than the JBL for heads it is ipx7 waterproof.
This means you can submerge it up to 3 feet for about a half hour and it’ll be perfectly fine. Then it says right here you have JBL party Boost, not JBL connect not JBL connect plus but JBL party boost.
JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker Full Review
Build and Specification:
Let’s find out what’s up with that, so when you take a portable JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker out of the box they had this little kind of plastic key foam container.
I went with the red one this time so as you can see right off the bat it looks very very similar to the portable Bluetooth speaker JBL flip 4 with some minor changes.
If I flip Jbl flip 5 this way we have the play/pause button. If you press it once if you press it twice it skips forward plus/minus volume.
Right here is where the JBL connect button used to be an ALICE 2 JBL party boost and it does have a different icon.
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Then flip it once more this way. Let’s do that right here you have a power button which is OneTouch, on and off. I’m not the biggest fan of the Bluetooth connect button.
The power light indicator and right here is a new upgraded. which is a USB type-c take that Sony but getting to the build quality of the JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker, I really really like it. The build quality of this, we have this wire mesh that wraps around the entire body.
We have this JBL flip 5 very durable rubber that runs across the length of the speaker onto the sides. It feels like this thing can really take a beating and then as I flip it to the side we had the very very familiar radiators.
On the flip and on the charge and then of course we have the very familiar lanyard that you saw on other Bluetooth speaker flipped models. But JBL flip 5 looks like just the shoelace tied together.
If you look at this you can see a couple of things that aren’t on here. First of all like I mentioned before no JBL connects so what does that mean?? that means that all your previous portable Bluetooth JBL speakers will not connect to this.
If it has connectors, connect plus the reason why JBL did that. I’m not sure they’re thinking about the future.
But what about all the old speakers that they added connect to? You can’t use this speaker and have other ones connect to it and have that nice stereo sound.
The only way you can get that stereo sound with this speaker is to have multiple JBL flip 5. Because nothing else has that features.
This is the first one which I’m a little confused about also the positive on this is they finally went with USB type-c as opposed to the micro USB charger.
You see on every other JBL portable speaker, also you’re gonna notice it doesn’t have a flap to expose. This USB type-c is like the flip forehead and under that flap on the floor.
You would see a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack?? which this does not have. So once again JBL is kind of going backward by saying a 3.5-millimeter jack is important.
USB type-c is important because it is doing the party boost instead of the Kinect. I’m not sure what they were thinking about this. This thing better sound great to kind of makeup for what it’s lacking.
Oh, also it doesn’t have a voice assistant so if you connected this to your phone and you’re streaming music. You get a telephone call you can’t just push the button and take a call through this.
Because JBL flip 5 doesn’t have a microphone doesn’t have a voice assistant. So once again they omitted a very cool feature that you had on the flip 4 and I’m just a little bit confused at what they were doing with this speaker.
I know it but it kind of blows my mind that they’re going backward with features and we’re supposed to be moving forward. So I’ll do a sound test and a waterproof test with the Bluetooth speaker in just a few minutes.
But in this fancy cardboard box here we have some wordage, some quick guide here, some boring stuff here’s, our USB type-c to charge it.
Sound Testing:
So I just want to make sure this wireless Bluetooth speaker has enough juice to do the sound test and of course when you plug it in.
You have that LED glow that shows you that it is charging but according to the JBL website it says JBL flip 5 takes two and a half hours to charge this fully.
But that portable Bluetooth speaker JBL flip 4 I believe it was three and a half hours. You do get 12 hours of playtime out of this that’s about average usually.
You also see about 10 to 12 hours of playtime with these small portable speakers.
But one last thing I want to mention before the sound test is JBL is still using USB 4.2 as opposed to USB 5.0. I don’t know alright so how does this sound JBL flip 4 sounded fantastic.
So I want to see if this even compares I’m gonna start this out at 50% volume.
Let’s see what kind of quality we’re talking about. I understand that you’re not gonna get the full effect through the microphone here. But this is just for my purposes if you guys can get anything out of it that’s great.
All right let’s start at 50% power and bought right there so let’s check it. Alright, let’s go to 100 that’s about a quarter right there okay?
So my first impressions are the bass sounds absolutely fantastic for such a small speaker. We got these little radiators on the side just like previous flip models and these things really kick out.
You will see them vibrate as the bass is kicking out but one thing a note they went with a single driver in. This does it make any difference from the flip four.
I can’t hear it, it sounds absolutely fantastic the low sound great. Every Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever reviewed has great minds the highs at high volume tend to sound a little tinny to me.
I’m not saying that as bad just sounds a little bit tinny at the max volume. I did just review a Sony XV 2 which is a little bit bigger of a speaker than this. It’s more in the charge category and this JBL flip 5 actually does sound better than that speaker.
Waterproof Testing:
Alright and that brings me to the water test. JBL says this is ipx7 which means I could submerge this underwater up to 3 feet and it should still be able to work perfectly. So let’s try that now so I’m just going to drop it in. Alright, it does float that’s a positive, and let’s give it to go.
Let’s run it back up man stuff happening Jesus okay it’s cut it’s cutting in and out under the water. I wonder if it’s because of the signal to the Bluetooth – that’s weird though.
But obviously, the base is so much it starts splattering everywhere got everywhere. Wow, as soon as I put the driver forward it splatters everywhere. So I’m gonna try to hold it down that was interesting.
So I think it was just losing Bluetooth signals but it was like right next to it. So it was cutting out I’m not sure if you guys pick that up or not. I’ll find out but it was definitely kicking out.
As I put the JBL flip 5 Bluetooth Speaker in the water but it still seems like it’s fine. So let me give it another water everywhere. But let’s go to another side here but you will guys notice the USB type-c is wide open, there’s nothing covering it.
Yet a wireless JBL flip 5 speaker can still go in the water and be perfectly okay. The micro USB not waterproof had to have a little flap thing a little rubber flap on the slip floor and they took that away.
The USB type-c can handle that type of water submersion but after this very very short test. Only a couple inches of water I would say this is waterproof, maybe the metal had something to do with the Bluetooth signal and that’s why it cut out but it seems to be perfectly fine.
Verdict:
Alright so, what’s my final verdict on the new portable Bluetooth speaker JBL flip 5? is it worth buying a brand new hundred dollar speaker?
If the JBL for exists at a lower price I’m not really sure with the omission of JBL connect plus, two JBL power boost, a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary jack, voice assistant, and without the ability to take calls.
While you’re streaming music. It’s just hard to recommend a portable Bluetooth speaker with so many feature omissions from the previous model USB type yes.
But is it worth the hundred-dollar price tag, I mean that’s up to you I don’t know, I think I’d rather have all the features back and live with the micro USB.
I mean it’s a tough call but if you absolutely have to have every single JBL Bluetooth speaker released, obviously you’re gonna pick this up. I’m not saying it’s a bad Bluetooth speaker. It absolutely sounds fantastic.
It’s probably one of the better-sounding portable speakers that I own. So this thing is absolutely great sounding and the best portable Bluetooth speaker for you.
