LAS VEGAS - There are plenty of portable Bluetooth speakers, but how many of them can you actually stuff into your pocket? That's the idea behind Lenovo's 700 Ultraportable Bluetooth Speaker, a slim and impressively loud music-maker that Lenovo says will be the world's thinnest when it launches in March for $149.
I was immediately struck by just how slim Lenovo's new speaker is -- at just 11 millimeters thin and just a few inches wide, it has the same general footprint as a modern smartphone, and is just as easily to slip into your pocket.
I'm a fan of the speaker's understated, all-aluminum design, which sports a large speaker grille and touch-capacitive controls on the front, a rubber base on the bottom for laying the speaker flat, and a USB-C port on the edge that Lenovo says supports 2-hour fast-charging.
Despite its small frame, this thing gets loud. The 700 Ultraportable filled a small room with the pop-rock sounds of Breaker's "All My Life," and while I would have liked to hear the bass a little better, I was impressed by the overall clarity and volume.
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But according to Lenovo, this speaker is optimized just as much for voice as it is for music. It features full Siri and Google Assistant support for your iOS and Android devices, as well as a dedicated button for taking calls. When using the speaker to playback Skype's voice test, the spoken audio sounded very crisp -- though I'm looking forward to seeing how the speaker holds up during real-world phone calls.
Other key specs include Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC, so you can expect the 700 to pair seamlessly with just about any device in your home.
The Lenovo 700 Ultraportable Bluetooth Speaker could prove to be the ultimate travel companion due to its pocket-friendly size and impressive volume and clarity. We look forward to putting it through its paces when it hits later this year.
Credit: Tom's Guide
