Sonos Play Review: Performance Meets Convenience Leave a comment

It’s smaller and extra moveable than the brutish Transfer, but massive sufficient to sound a lot fuller than the pint-sized Roam. It might sit fastened on its charging cradle to rival the homebound Sonos Period 100, or comply with you wherever. In different phrases, it’s the epitome of Sonos versatility, and now that it’s working correctly, it’ll be exhausting to go up.

Play On

Opening the Play’s brown cardboard packaging feels equal elements Scandi minimalism and sustainability, in keeping with current releases just like the Arc Extremely soundbar. Inside, a white acoustic wrapping provides option to a stout tubular speaker with a rubberized loop connected, measuring 7.6 x 4.4 x 3 inches and weighing slightly below 3 kilos. You’ll additionally discover easy setup directions and a wi-fi charging stand, however no wall adapter. You’ll want one that may provide a minimum of 9 volts and a pair of amps (18 watts), however a 15-volt, 3-amp (45-watt) mannequin is really helpful for “optimum” charging. Sonos says the adapter omission is about decreasing e-waste, however will fortunately promote you one for $29.

In any other case, the Sonos app is all that you must get going. After the compulsory firmware replace, my Play was streaming on my house community in minutes. Sonos hosts over 100 streaming providers immediately, and you can even stream over third-party providers like Spotify Join, Tidal Join, Apple AirPlay, and extra. You’ll discover the speaker as its personal “Room” on the app’s principal web page, the place you possibly can swipe as much as group it with different Sonos merchandise in your community, or go into the settings to tweak choices like EQ, Room identify (vital when you have multiple Play), and Sonos Trueplay to auto-adjust the sound to your atmosphere.

You’ll additionally discover a Battery Saver toggle, which is about by default to close down the ability when it’s idle for too lengthy. It’s this characteristic that, in response to Sonos, precipitated my connection woes as I examined the speaker’s 24-hour battery declare. Sonos says it recognized the foundation trigger, and after the firmware replace I’ve let the speaker energy down a number of instances, with no additional community disruptions over every week of additional testing.