Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker Review: Back from the dead and improved in a few major ways

A few years ago, Beats was owned by Apple stopped taking his Pill Plus Bluetooth speaker, which hit the market in 2015 for $200 and was quite popular until the market was flooded with more competitively priced compact Bluetooth speakers. Honestly, I never thought we’d see another Beats Pill. But here we are in 2024 with a new, improved pill with better sound, battery life, durability, USB-C charging and audio, along with a lower price tag ($150) to match that of Bose’s top-rated SoundLink Flex.

Which is the better portable wireless speaker? Read on to get my thoughts on that and more.

read more: Best Bluetooth Speakers of 2024

Beats Pill (2024) design

The last time I saw the Beats Pill Plus was when I loaded it into a moving box in March 2020, as CNET closed its New York offices as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. That box was eventually moved to a new office and sat unopened for a few years.

When I heard that a new pill was on the way (Beats teased it back in April, courtesy of a social media post from Lebron James), I looked for the box and found the Pill Plus at the bottom. It was the white version and it only charged to 50%, but it did work, allowing me to compare it to the new pill.

The two speakers have the same shape, but the new Pill is even more cylindrical. It also only has a speaker grille on one side, while the Pill Plus had grilles on both sides. Available in red, champagne and black, the new pill weighs 24 ounces (680 grams) or about 2 ounces less than the Pill Plus (26.4 ounces or 748 grams). The new pill seems a tad bigger than the old pill, but not by much.

The Pill Plus had a Lightning port, while the new Pill is equipped with USB-C like all of Apple’s latest products. The new Pill also comes with a detachable cord, making it easier to carry the speaker and hang it somewhere if necessary. In addition to a power button and a universal control knob, there are volume controls and the speaker itself (at least two-thirds of the way around the back) has a nice, soft-touch rubber finish. Overall, the design is a definite upgrade over that of the Pill Plus, which you’d expect considering we got the Pill Plus almost 10 years ago.

Another important difference is the water resistance and dust resistance. The previous Pill had no IP rating, while the new Pill has an IP67 rating, making it completely waterproof and dustproof. The Pill Plus had a rubber gasket covering the lighting, USB out, and auxiliary input ports. This model only has one USB-C port that allows for both charging and charging and has no cover. The Beats “b” logo is smaller and has been moved from the top of the speaker (it was a “b” button on the Pill Plus) to a more prominent spot on the grille. It seems like a good brand choice.

Note that you can hang the speaker vertically using the cord, but the speaker is designed to rest horizontally and has small rubber feet on the bottom. I haven’t dropped it, but the speaker should survive short drops quite well as long as you don’t drop it directly on the grill, which sits on the front third of the speaker (the edges of the speaker are rubber and provide probably some shock resistance).

Beats Pill (2024) features

The speaker is equipped with Bluetooth 5.3 and is compatible with Apple and Android/Chrome devices, as well as other devices with Bluetooth audio connectivity. The features are very similar for Apple and Android users, including one-touch pairing, although Android users will need to use the Beats app for Android for firmware updates and access to the limited settings options.

As with the Beats Studio Pro And Solo 4 headphones, there is multipoint Bluetooth pairing for Android users with automatic switching between devices linked to your Google account. If you’re an Apple user, the speaker will link to your iCloud account, but you’ll have to manually switch between devices, which some people prefer because automatic switching can be a bit wonky and annoying.

You can pair multiple Pills together in Amplifier mode or create a stereo pair with two Pills (you’ll need to pair them in Amplifier mode and then press the universal control button and volume up button on one of the speakers to use that speaker as the left one). “reference” speaker). Needless to say, you get true stereo separation when you have them in a stereo pair.

Both Apple and Android users get the Find My feature (Google calls it Find My Device). It shows the last place the device was used, but you don’t have the Precision Find My feature that the AirPods Pro 2 have and which is much more advanced.

As noted, there’s no auxiliary input, but you can plug your USB-C-equipped smartphone or computer into the USB-C port to get a wired digital connection (you hold down the power button while you connect the USB-C cable to enter wired mode). Beats says the Pill can deliver lossless audio over USB-C at a maximum sampling rate of 48 kHz/24-bit. I noticed a very small difference when connecting in wired mode – there’s a little more detail and clarity – but it’s not a night and day improvement in sound quality.

Finally, the Pill can be used as a speakerphone, and in this capacity it works well. Callers said they could hear me clearly even when there was some background noise in my house. Speakerphone functionality is not available with the Bose SoundLink Flex.

Beats Pill (2024) sound quality

Beats says the Pill features a newly designed woofer system to “enhance improved bass response and sound performance.” The Pill has a single racetrack neodymium woofer that Beats notes has 53% more “piston area” than the dual round woofers on the Pill Plus. Additionally, the improved magnet quality (N50H) “enables 28% stronger motor force and is capable of 90% more air volume displacement compared to the dual woofer system in Pill Plus.”

All that translates into a clearly better sounding speaker than the Pill Plus. The new Pill sounds louder and also has better bass definition and overall clarity. It’s a big difference.

I compared the pill to both the Bose SoundLink Flex ($150) and Sonos Roam2 ($180). The Pill is a slightly more dynamic sounding speaker than the SoundLink Flex and seems slightly brighter, with slightly more forward midrange (where the vocals live). I wouldn’t necessarily say it sounds better than the Bose, but it plays a little louder and has a slightly more sculpted sound.

While all three of these speakers are essentially mono speakers, both the Pill and the SoundLink Flex have fairly wide soundstages – the sound seems to extend from the sides, slightly more than what you get with the Sonos Roam 2. I listened to the Pill and Roam 2 with Ty Pendelbury, CNET’s home audio editor, and we both agreed that the Roam 2, which is slightly smaller and also sounds very good for its size, is a bit more even and balanced with its sound . although both the Pill and SoundLink Flex produce slightly more bass.

It’s always a bit difficult to compare these speakers on sound as there is some variation from song to song due to the tonal balance of the speakers. On certain songs I thought the Pill sounded better than the Bose, but sometimes the opposite was true. I should also note that while the bass response is more impressive than you might think for such compact speakers, there is a limit to the amount of bass these speakers will produce, especially if you’re playing more complicated songs with many instruments playing at once. time.

All three of these speakers sound better than the JBL Flip5which costs about $100. And I would choose the Pill and SoundLink Flex over JBL’s likeable Charge 5 speaker simply because you get comparable sound quality in a more compact speaker.

As for the stereo pairing of two Pills, as I said, you get true stereo separation and a significant jump in sound quality. You won’t get the same sound quality as what you get with a compact set of bookshelf speakers that cost around $300, but you will get decent sound that will fill a small to medium sized room with sound.

Beats Pill (2024) battery life

The Pill Plus had a battery life of 12 hours. Beats says the new Pill can deliver up to 24 hours of battery life at 50% volume levels, or double what the Pill Plus offered. During my testing, I listened at various volume levels (I tend to have the volume at about 70% and sometimes turn it all the way up to see how well the sound holds up without distortion), so I didn’t fully evaluate the battery. to live. That said, I didn’t need to charge the speaker for four days of testing, and I left the speaker on for several hours each day while playing background music at low to medium volume levels. It’s also worth noting that a 10-minute charge will give you 2 hours of battery life.

Beats Pill (2024) final thoughts

The Beats Pill has improved on its predecessor in a number of important ways, especially when it comes to sound quality, durability, battery life and price. I like the form factor and lighter weight of the Bose SoundLink Flex (and you can get decent Flex imitations like the Tribit Stormbox power And Soundcore from Anker Motion 300 for $80 or even less if they are discounted). But the Pill does have a few extras, like USB-C wired audio mode and speakerphone functionality, that are appealing.

You’ll have to decide how important those extras are when you weigh the pill against the Bose SoundLink Flex. But any way you look at it, the Pill is a very good compact Bluetooth speaker. Like the Bose, it’s a wireless speaker that’s easy to recommend, especially when the price drops by $20 to $30, as the SoundLink Flex’s price sometimes does during flash sales.