72 T3 MARCH 2022Te s te d
Bose SoundLink Flex£149.95
bose.co.ukn paper, the Bose SoundLink Flex has
everything it needs to compete with
the best Bluetooth speakers: decent
battery life, rugged and durable
construction, decent technical specification and
a trustworthy brand’s heritage behind it. But can
it knock the Bang & Olufsen A1 2nd Gen and the
Sonos Roam off their perch?
The SoundLink Flex is a reasonably compact
20x9x5cm and weighs a very manageable 600g. It
has an extremely sturdy fabric strap at one end of
its chassis, too, which means it can happily hang
off a hook or a bag. And the materials used mean
the Flex has an IP67 rating against dust and
moisture ingress. In fact, the SoundLink Flex
will float quite happily in water.
As far as usability goes, the Flex is properly,
well, flexible. Controls run along the top of the
frame of the speaker and there’s also the ability
to use Google Assistant or Siri for voice control.
Or you could give the Bose Connect app a go – it’s
classic Bose, inasmuch as it’s clean, stable,
good-looking and not really all that much use.
Certainly the lack of EQ adjustment will rankle
with any number of users. At least it’s possible to
use the app to form a stereo pair with another
Bose speaker, though.
With no adjustable EQ, the sound you get is
the sound you’re given. Happily, in many ways
that’s a perfectly agreeable arrangement.
Streaming from TIDAL reveals much punch
and drive. Given its modest dimensions, the Bose
is capable of quite unlikely scale of sound – theO
This impressive waterproof Bluetooth speaker brings powerful
sound and a rugged body, but it has tough competition
Bose SoundLink Flex
A MIGHTY FLEX
WE’RE IMPRESSED Sturdy build
and finish; expressive, full-scale
sound; strong battery life.
WE’D IMPROVE Bass feels a
little detached; can be spiky at
high volume; no EQ in app.
THE LAST WORD Delivers
clear and rich audio, in a suitably
tough body with decent battery
life. It’s not perfect, and it has
some hot competition, but it
gets more than enough right to
warrant consideration.VERDICT
Find great Bose SoundLink Flex
deals at: bit.ly/t3boseflxcompany’s claims of ‘room-filling sound’ don’t
quite ring true, but the Flex nevertheless sounds
bigger than it actually is.
Unlike a lot of designs that use a single driver
to cover the entire frequency range, the
SoundLink Flex has good presence and bite at the
top end but doesn’t get in any way hard even at
big volumes. The opposite end of the frequency
range is equally well represented.
Specification is a mixture of ‘thoughtful and
impressive’ and ‘rather disappointing’. On the
plus side, the 12 hours of battery life claimed by
Bose is easily achievable as long as you’re not
cranking the volume way up – and connecting
the Flex to the wall via its USB-C input will take
it from ‘flat’ to ‘full’ in around 150 minutes.
Certainly not in the ‘plus’ column is wireless
connectivity via Bluetooth 4.2 – it’s hardly a
disaster, but if you’re paying for a top-tier
streaming service subscription it might be nice to
be able to listen to their highest hi-res files on
your nice new portable speaker.
Where the Bose SoundLink Flex is good, it’s
very good indeed. So as far as resilience,
longevity and portability are concerned, it’s
among the genuine front-runners. There are
unarguable positives to its sound, too, not least
its full-range response and the assertive nature of
its lower frequencies. Some other designs do a
better job where frequency integration and detail
retrieval are concerned, though... which means
the Flex is a good option among the top speakers
of its type rather than a compulsory purchase.