SoundPeats P4 Bluetooth Speaker Review

Can the Soundpeats P4 hold its own in the massively competitive Bluetooth Speaker Arena?

If you haven’t already added a portable Bluetooth speaker to your tech arsenal yet? then you’re really missing out! I use mine almost everyday taking my music, audiobooks & podcasts from room-to-room as the day progresses. From picnics, walks and adventures to relaxing baths, cooking and parties a decent Bluetooth speaker will become your new best friend.

The most recent Bluetooth Speaker I’ve had in for testing here at Review Hub is the Soundpeats P4 Vertical Speaker. Priced at just over £30, I put this in the low-mid range bracket and I expect it to deliver on audio quality.

In this Soundpeats P4 review, I’ll look at the Sound Quality, Design & Build Quality, Connectivity & Battery Life. Scroll down for the full review or check out the quick Pro’s & Cons and the latest prices below.

Soundpeats P4 available from… £35 | $38 | €40

The Pro’s

• Stylish Vertical Design
• Good battery life
• Tactile volume spinner

The Cons

• Awkward power button placement
• Unimpressive sound quality
• Lacks Bass

Sound Quality

I was looking forward to testing out the Soundpeats P4 as a little research showed the online reviews to be full of praise & enthusiasm. I turned on the Bluetooth speaker expecting to be impressed but after cranking out a few high-quality FLAC music tracks on YouTube I was left feeling very underwhelmed.

Whilst the bass is there it lacks ‘umphhh’ sounding hollow with the mids & highs also lacking clarity. Playing around with the EQ on my phone didn’t improve things either. From my personal experience with Bluetooth speakers, the P4 doesn’t match up to competition when it comes to music quality.

On a plus point. Thanks to the lack of bass and heavy treble, the P4 makes a pretty good portable podcast speaker… although… I doubt this will be high on most people’s buying agenda. It’s a shame really as the rest of this review is mostly positive.

To put this into perspective, I was more impressed with the HDMX Jam Classic which costs less than half the price.

Design & Build Quality

I like the design & form factor of the P4 speaker which would easily complement most homes without looking out of place. The lower section of the speaker is made from a soft touch plastic with the base having a rubber ring grip designed to improve the bass.

The upper section has been wrapped in a weaved black fabric and the top of the speaker features a ridged volume ring that rotates. To change between tracks there’s also a plastic touch area that responds to horizontal swipes.

Bizarrely, this touchscreen doesn’t offer any other functionality with the power / play / pause button being hidden underneath. This is a pretty awkward design flaw that could have been avoided easily.

Overall, it’s a well built speaker that looks the part and feels premium just with a very strange location for the power / pause button.

Features

The Soundpeats P4 uses Bluetooth to connect to Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops and more. Connecting to the P4 is as easy as pressing the power button on the speaker and then selecting P4 from the Bluetooth options on your device.

The Blue LED on the top of the device will flash to let you know it’s in pairing mode. Once paired, the P4 will remember the last device it connected to and pair automatically next time.

When connected to my laptop via Bluetooth I did have some connectivity issues where the sound would distort. When playing music through my Android phone & Tablet this problem didn’t replicate this so I’m not going to rule out that it could have been my laptops fault.

The Volume Dial

One of the unique features on the Soundpeats P4 is the volume dial or ring. To turn up the volume you have to rotate the dial clockwise and vice versa. Unfortunately, this cool feature soon becomes an irritating feature as the rotation needs a lot of force to turn forcing you to use two hands or risk knocking the speaker over.

Power / Pause Button

I don’t know who was in charge of designing the Soundpeats P4 but not putting the pause button unreachable on the bottom of the device is crazy. Who wants to have to lift the speaker up just to hit the pause button?

1.5mm Audio Jack & Micro-USB

The P4 comes with an included male-to-male 1.5mm cable that plugs into the 1.5mm female audio jack. Next to this is the Micro-USB connection which is used for charging the speaker.

Battery Life

Battery life on the P4 speaker is okay but not amazing. I managed 7 hours of continuous playback on a medium volume before it needed charging again.

Inside you’ll find a 2000mAh battery powering the 10w speakers but I can’t help thinking they should have added a bit more juice. Bumping the size up to 4000mAh wouldn’t have added much extra weight and could have doubled the battery life.

 

The bottom line…

Whilst it certainly looks the part, the Soundpeats P4 speaker just doesn’t make the grade. You can get better sound quality for less money on a Bluetooth speaker with the same features.

If Soundpeats were to upgrade the internal speakers, add touchscreen functionality for play/pause to the top of the device then I think the P4 would sell well. As it stands, it feels like a job half finished.

Reading all the other overly positive reviews online I can’t help thinking maybe my speaker was a dud? Or maybe I’m just honest about the products we review here at Review Hub.

Do I recommend the Soundpeats P4 Bluetooth Speaker? Simply put, no.

Don’t care and want one anyway? yours from… £35 | $38 | €40