Stuff - UK (2020-04)

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TESTED HUAWEI SOUND X

GOOD

MEH

EVIL

It’s bigger

than a

HomePod

It sounds

better than a

HomePod

Supports

hi-res and a

stereo pair

Supports

HiLink smart

home

Nice

gesture

controls

[^ W

or

ds

Ja

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es

D
ay

]

Huawei has partnered with French audio specialist

Devialet to deliver a smart speaker that rivals the

HomePod... only you probably won’t understand it

Huawei is getting itself a bit of a

reputation – quite a few, actually.

There’s the one for ruffling White

House feathers, and the one for

causing UK 5G controversy, but

also the one for making excellent

smartphones and picking clever

partners to work with – thus its

ace Leica phone cameras.

So when it came to making the

Sound X smart speaker, it called

in the big guns at Devialet – the

high-end French audio brand

responsible for the outrageous

Phantom wireless speaker.

Together they’ve conjured

up an Apple HomePod-esque

effort... but due to the US trade

ban with Google (which we’re

sick of explaining), its AI assistant

doesn’t speak English.

Huawei says it’s coming to

Europe this year, with the right

language for each region, and

it should be about on a par for

price with the HomePod. Until

then, it’s relying on sound quality

alone as a straight Bluetooth

speaker... but that’s fine by us.

£215 (est) / stuff.tv/SoundX

Shut up and jive

Design your name

There are no ports here, only

a power socket that feeds into

the bottom (2), and the lead is

removable (but nowhere near

as nice as Apple’s fabric effort).

There’s Huawei branding,

‘co-engineered with Devialet’

branding, and touch controls on

top, which we’ll come to later.

The steady pair’s picnic

On startup, our Sound X speaks

Chinese. This is Huawei’s Xiaoyi

voice assistant, and it’s really

not a lot of use to us. Instead,

Bluetooth 5.1 pairing is simple

and steadfast, and anyone with

a compatible phone can use

Huawei Share NFC streaming

with a single tap.

Meshin’ around

The Sound X follows the basic

cylindrical form of the HomePod,

but opts for a black piano-gloss

finish and a mesh fabric grille on

the bottom section only. The

eye-catchers are the exposed

subwoofers (1) – one on each

side – that vibrate in the fashion

of the Devialet Phantom.

No smarts

outside

China