Beats Pill review

When basketball legend LeBron James and Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo were spotted earlier this year holding what was – at the time – a new and unannounced version of the Beats Pill, it felt like Beats could be back in its pomp. 

Never far from a sports star or music video when the first Beats Pill launched back in 2012, the lean into celebrity endorsement the brand was once so well known for felt almost nostalgic. And for a brand that once so clearly knew its place in the market, it felt like maybe it was finally finding that place once again.

The Beats Pill portable Bluetooth speaker has had quite the makeover too, with a new design, improved battery life and completely new sound. We even decided to take it to the beach to see how it fared.

Price

We were pleasantly surprised when we found out the Beats Pill would be cheaper than it launched at last time around (we tested the Beats Pill+ at £190/$200 back in 2016), and would cost £150 / $150 / AU$249.95. That puts it around the same price band as the Award-winning JBL Charge 5 (£160 / $180 / AU$200), and about £20 / $20 / AU$50 more than the five-star JBL Flip 6’s RRP (though it is often available cheaper) – two of our favourite speakers in this category. 

Design

Having bundled the Beats Pill into our suitcase and onto a plane to Portugal, we can confirm that it is pretty much the perfect size for taking with you in a bag, be that on holiday or to your local park. Not too big, not too small, it measures in at 7 x 22 x 7cm (hwd), weighs 10 per cent less than its predecessor at 680g and comes with a handy colour-matched lanyard for easy carrying.

It’s also been redesigned to look more like the original Pill, getting rid of the flat upper edge of the Pill+ and going for a completely rounded outer shell, with four feet on the bottom to keep it from rolling around when on a desk or table. 

There’s a metal grille at the front and a grippy silicone material across the back, with a handful of concave, clicky controls along the top – a power button, a multifunction button for track and call control, and volume. Give the power button a double press and you’ll also summon your phone’s built-in voice assistant, plus there’s a small LED to indicate battery level.

For colours, there’s a choice of Champagne Gold (our test sample), Matte Black or Statement Red. The latter takes us back to the Beats of old, but the Champagne gets our vote overall.

Around the back you’ll find a USB-C port for charging the Beats Pill, with a USB-C-to-USB-C cable included in the box. It can also charge your device if you’re caught short (though you can also turn this off if you prefer). However, most interestingly, this connection also works as an audio input, so you can connect your phone and play music back losslessly, at up to 24-bit/48kHz resolution.

It’s a niche addition for a Bluetooth speaker, but one we appreciate all the same. 

Features

Quite incredibly, previous Beats Pill speakers haven’t been waterproof, but that has thankfully been corrected here with a strong IP67 rating. That means it is fine for up to 30 minutes in fresh water up to a metre deep, plus it’s dustproof and sandproof, making it a great beach buddy (although keep it away from the sea – saltwater isn’t covered by IP ratings).

Battery life has been improved here too – you’ll get around 24 hours from a full charge, beating its larger JBL Charge 5 competitor, which can only muster 20 hours.

There’s a fast charge function as well, offering two hours of playback from 10 minutes on charge, and you’ll be able to fill it to full from empty in around 2.5 hours.  

As for what’s running things behind that metallic grille, the Beats team decided to start from scratch, and rebuilt the acoustic architecture from the ground up. 

That means there’s a completely re-engineered racetrack neodymium woofer and a redesigned neodymium tweeter, both sitting on a 20-degree upward tilt for better sound projection than the straight front-facing drivers of old. 

The tweeter sits in its own housing for better stability and reduced distortion, while the woofer uses stronger magnets to deliver a claimed 28 per cent more motor force. This, in turn, displaces 90 per cent more air volume for a more powerful sound, according to Beats. 

The result is a mono sound, but you can pair two Pill units for Stereo Mode if you want, or choose Amplify Mode instead – which keeps things mono but makes it louder.

As with all Beats products, one of the Pill’s biggest USPs is its ability to offer a similar experience to iOS devices as it does Android. That means fast pairing is available across both ecosystems, as is the “Find My” device feature. 

Ultimately Apple users still get the upper hand, just slightly, as controls are baked into iOS menus and OTA updates land automatically, while Android users require a separate app to access the same. It’s not really an inconvenience though, considering most other wireless speakers have a control app – though it’s fair to say, it’s relatively bare bones in its offering anyway, with no EQ controls, for example.

As for codec support, the Pill is compatible with Bluetooth 5.3 and supports AAC and SBC – but not aptX for better quality streams.

Sound

The first time we listen to the Beats Pill, it’s on the beach. Streaming from Tidal, it immediately makes its presence known at even a moderate volume (so much so that our friend looks with concern to surrounding sunbathers to ensure we aren’t causing any bother). 

With so much to contend with at the seaside, the Beats Pill manages to rise above it all. It offers fantastic projection, cutting through the wind, waves and surrounding chatter with a clean, clear and overall balanced sound. 

Its bass response is still probably best described as rich though, but one that brings solidity and authority to proceedings rather than boominess or muddiness. It’s rounded but not overbearing.

In fact, it’s probably the midrange that sits just that little bit more forward in the mix, so vocals are never missed or whipped away on the breeze. There’s a real pep in the Pill’s step – an excitement in its delivery – and even when our friend is convinced the older couple in front of us are showing concern at some rather choice lyrics from Cardi B, the Beats Pill still maintains the same drive and interest at a lower volume. That’s not something you can say for a lot of speakers at this price, where dynamics seem to fall flat at a lower volume level.

Of course, for our testing to be truly complete, we had to bring the Pill home from the beach (sigh) and into our dedicated testing rooms for a more critical listen, not to mention compare it to some of its many capable competitors. And this is when the Beats Pill started to show up some of its shortcomings. 

All the things we enjoyed about the Beats Pill on the beach are still present and correct though. Play Royals by Lorde, and the rich drum beat is delivered with punch, the right amount of drama and a good dollop of confidence. Lorde’s breathy vocals shine through with plenty of texture and clarity, while the finger snaps that follow every drum beat are as refreshingly crisp as they are intended to be. 

Switch up to something like DARE by Gorillaz, and the Beats Pill doesn’t waste a second showing us that it’s not above having a bit of fun. There’s a drive and enthusiasm to the Pill’s presentation that injects any track that even suggests it might be up for it with plenty of toe-tapping energy. 

However, it’s when we listen to it next to the five-star JBL Charge 5 that the areas it could improve in are more astutely highlighted. Listen to Feel Like Makin’ Love by D’Angelo on both and not only is the JBL Charge 5 capable of a much larger sound, with a more expansive soundstage – the Beats Pill sounding much smaller and narrower by comparison – dynamically, the Charge 5 really blows the Beats Pill out of the water. 

The bass guitar immediately sounds so much more interesting, and retains much more of its bounce on the JBL Charge 5. As the trumpets add in their two pennies, the Charge 5 can all the more explicitly translate the difference in character, texture and volume between all the moving parts of this slick track.

It makes for an overall more exciting and interesting critical listen, and though we weren’t able to compare them out and about, we would imagine this is something that would hold true whether you’re in a perfectly treated listening room, your local park or at the beach.

The JBL Charge 5 is considerably larger, though, which might not be quite as good for travelling with, and it arguably doesn’t look as nice or as premium as the Pill from a design perspective. But on a pure sound basis, the JBL Charge 5 does show up the Beats Pill’s weaknesses and reminds us why it’s one of our favourite Bluetooth speakers at this price point.

One trick the Beats Pill has up its sleeve is listening wired and losslessly, and there are benefits if you choose to. There is undoubtedly more detail and subtlety to the Beats Pill’s delivery when listening via USB-C, and this does have a small but noticeable effect on dynamics too.

It remains a sticking point even so, with the Pill still not able to be as explicit with a song’s dynamic changes or leading edges as its JBL competition manages to show wirelessly.

Verdict

The Beats Pill is a really likeable portable speaker that ticks a lot of boxes for what most people will want a portable Bluetooth speaker to do. A strong battery life, attractive yet practical design and decent feature set mean it holds its own against the competition in most areas that matter, while its clear, rich and energetic sound has an appealing presentation for an outside environment.

Dynamically, it could do better though, and its talented competition does show it up in this area, and by some margin. We’re sure plenty of people will still enjoy the sound it’s capable of, but it does fall short of the very best.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the JBL Charge 5

Also consider the JBL Flip 6

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