UE Wonderboom — Jack of all Trades

Ultimate Ears’s Boom series speakers are well-known for being LOUD and virtually indestructible. Their latest offering, UE Wonderboom, is no slouch and continues the tradition.

Design

At first glance, it looks like a smushed UE Boom 2 but don’t let it deceive you. On top and bottom, it has a soft rubber finish with fabric mesh running across the middle of its cylindrical shape. This provides ample of cushioning for its 1.5m Drop Proof rating.

Looking on top, it has a loop to hang it anywhere you like and 3 buttons: Pair, Play/Pause/Skip and On/Off.

All 3 buttons are crafted meticulously; Pair button is convex and has a circular motif, Play/Pause/Skip button is literally under the “Ultimate Ears” branding and On/Off button is concave and has a vertical bar. Hence, you can easily distinguish all buttons even when not looking at them.

On front, it has humongous (+) and (-) buttons for volume control. If you press both of them at the same time, it beeps to tell you the battery status.

1 beep = 0-25%
2 beeps = 25-50%
3 beeps = 50-75%
4 beeps = 75-100%

It would’ve been better if it had a 4-LED setup as a battery indicator but hey, something is better than nothing.

Once you flip it on the back, you’ll notice a flap which protects the micro-USB charging port from mother nature since UE Wonderboom is Water and Dust Proof (IP67). UE, please, can we have USB Type-C now? It’s 2018!

There’s a silver lining though, you won’t be needing it too often since it lasts 10 hours on a single charge. Of course it won’t last 10 hours if you blast at full volume but you’ll still manage to get around 7 hours of playback.

UE Wonderboom comes in 11 unique colourways which you can mix and match according to your style and preference, namely:

• Concrete
• Patches
• Avocado
• Unicorn
• Raspberry
• Lilac
• Cashmere
• Fireball
• Subzero
• Phantom
• Stone

Sound Quality

Not only does this speaker output LOUD volume, but also packs punchy bass. You can easily fill a room with a single unit. You can also pair two of them together for even MORE VOLUME or a dedicated multi-room setup. Alas, it doesn’t pair up as a stereo setup.

Since, bass isn’t everything UE Wonderboom delivers surprisingly clear highs but *comparatively* muddy mids. Fret not, nobody will walk upto you and say it sounds trash.

Since it is a 360 speaker, you can get faux subwoofer vibes when placed in front of a surface from which the sound can reflect back to you. Sure, it won’t give you *proper* stereophonic effect, but in real life, you really don’t feel the lack of it.

Should you buy it?

Priced at Rs. 6,995, UE Wonderboom provides a wholesome experience.

If there was a song to describe UE Wonderboom in a nutshell, it’d be Technologic by DaftPunk.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it,
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick, erase it…

You can literally throw it around, dunk it in water and it’ll still work as advertised. The only gripes I had with UE Wonderboom were the lack of a microphone and audio jack, but given the sound quality, I can somewhat give it a pass.

If you can afford it, you should definitely opt for UE Wonderboom.

Updates:

• It’s currently on sale at Amazon with 14% discount, bringing the price down to Rs. 5,989.