Review: Jawbone Jambox Wireless Speaker

Feb 25, 2012 (Tulsa World - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Anyone shopping for cellphone accessories in the past few years has probably run across the name Jawbone.

If you haven't heard, they make Bluetooth headsets that use military technology to cancel background noise with a microphone that measures sound vibrations in your jaw -- hence the name Jawbone.

But Aliph, the parent company behind Jawbone, isn't stopping there. Recently it came out with the Jawbone Jambox, a small, Bluetooth-enabled speaker that, fortunately, doesn't have to be pressed against a body part to work.

Of course, Aliph is hoping the Jawbone name lends the Jambox some prestige. And the $199 price tag nudges it toward the luxury end.

I took a look at it to see if it really is a top-of-the-line wireless speaker.

The Jambox makes a striking first impression. All Jamboxes are about the length of a pen, sturdily built and encircled by a metal mesh. The black model I tried had an interesting triangular pattern in the mesh, while models in other colors have indented circles or a chicken-wire pattern.

Jawbone is aiming the Jambox at smartphones, though it could also be used with tablets or anything that outputs audio via Bluetooth. I used it with an iPhone 4, which should be a good example of a typical experience.

Pairing the speakers with a device is a snap; just move the on/off slider to the very top and it's ready to go.

While small, the Jambox has a big sound. When cranked up, the device easily reached the advertised 85 decibels, and for the most part, the sound quality is good and full.

Unfortunately, the bass can't match the strong treble. Even at its full volume, the bass wasn't enough to do The Beatles justice, never mind thumping hip-hop. It's not bad, but there are plenty of less expensive smartphone docks with better sound.

More impressive was its Bluetooth range. Jawbone advertises 33 feet, but in an experiment, I put my iPhone more than 40 feet away and in a different room than the Jambox, and the audio barely hitched two or three times in the half-hour I had the music running.

The Jambox can also be used as a speakerphone, though I'm not sure it's up to the Jawbone's headset standards.

Audio on my end was fine, and it filtered out an impressive amount of background noise for my caller, but my voice was a little quiet on the other end, and it briefly cut out a time or two.

All in all, the Jambox isn't bad as far as speakerphones go and stretches Bluetooth nicely.

But $199 should buy you better sound quality -- and often does with other devices.

Robert Evatt 918-581-8447 robert.evatt@tulsaworld.com ___ (c)2012 Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) Visit Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) at www.tulsaworld.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

[ Back To Contact Center Solutions Homepage's Homepage ]

Related Contact Center Solutions Articles

MetricNet Publishes 4 New Australian Benchmarks for IT Support, Contact Centres
[ Read More ]
05/21/2013

Liverpool Bosch Contact Center Hopes for Threefold Expansion by Year End
[ Read More ]
05/03/2013

Bunchball Unveils Augmented Gamification Tools for Jive Platform
[ Read More ]
04/08/2013

Teleperformance Earns the Multimedia Contact Center Award
[ Read More ]
03/19/2013

Shangri-La Unveils Customer Contact Center in China
[ Read More ]
03/13/2013

B. Braun Uses NextiraOne for UC and Contact Center Support
[ Read More ]
03/12/2013

Contact Centre Australia Generates Job Growth in Wellington, New Zealand
[ Read More ]
03/04/2013

[ View all Contact Center Solutions Articles ]

Contact Center Solutions Glossary of Terms

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

Featured Whitepaper

Microsoft® Lync® in the Contact Center: Integrating with Customer Interaction Center™ to Provide a Barrierâ€free Customer Experience To implement contact center functionality, organizations using Microsoft Lync Server 2010 can follow the unified communications blueprint of open standards interoperability and integrate to a contact center solution of their choice. Customer Interaction Center (CIC) from Interactive Intelligence is a proven best of breed contact center solution that merits consideration ...

Featured Success Story

Interactive Intelligence all-in-one IP communications software suite integrated with Microsoft Lync helps Bentley save $200,000 annually.

Featured Product Demo

Contact Center Solutions Interaction Analyzer™

Interaction Analyzer™
Real-time word and phrase spotting. Alerting. Analytics. Scoring. Coaching. Watch how Interaction Analyzer turns every moment, of every past and present call, into data that lets you deliver an exceptional customer experience.