Beats Pill Vs Bose Flex - Battle Of The Over Priced Speakers

August 5, 2024 Alexis Herrera

Get Them Here:

Sony ULT Field 1: https://amzn.to/3Yn5o5k

So this is the Beats Pill, now I really appreciate the great build quality of this speaker, I love that you can use its USB C port to charge your own devices and it has a long battery life. However, for me it is hard to justify this speaker due to its price to performance ratio. But then theres the Bose Soundlink Flex which is a little older and its price to performance ratio isn’t as good as id want it to be in 2024… but it does sound decent and it has a lot of bass to it. Nonetheless if you’re trying to choose between either of these two speakers, lets see which one is right for you.

So first theres price… now I feel both of these speakers suffer from a big name brand tax… the Beats more so than the bose. Both of these speakers have a retail price of $150 but the bose now likes to go on sale for $130. Now I feel that both of these speakers are over priced, and I can only recommend them if they are heavily discounted, nonetheless if you want to pick any of these speakers up they’ll be linked down below.

So first theres the design of these speakers, now both of these speakers are very small and they are very easy to take on the go with you. Both of these speakers can easily fit in your back pack and you can attach these speakers on to things thanks to their fabric loops. However, the beats lanyard is much easer to work with than the Bose’s tighter loop. But regardless, both of these speakers feel super premium cause they both have a mostly siliconed wrapped body and they both have a metal face plate on the front… where as with your other more popular options like the Sony ULT Field 1 and JBL Flip 6, these other speakers have a mostly fabric wrapped body… which also feel nice, but they dont feel as luxurious as either the Beats or Bose. And even though these speakers feel more premium, they are both super durable cause they are both dusty and water resistant.

Now when it comes to battery life, this is an area where the Beats easily beats the Bose. The Beats Pill has an advertised battery life of 24 hours, which is super impressive. However this advertised battery life of 24 hours is with this speaker playing at 50% volume, which is decent but this speaker is quiet for its size and price. So this is a speaker that you’re going to want to use at a higher volume on a regular basis, and real world use with this speaker playing at 90% volume, its good for about 9 hours of playback time.

Where as with the Bose, this speaker has an advertised battery life of 12 hours with it playing at 50% volume… and real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, its good for about 8 hours of playback time. And this speaker gets a little louder and it has a lot more bass than the beats.

Now in order to charge these speakers up they both charge via a USB C port as they should, so you can use your phone’s charger to charge them up… but something that I really like about the Beats is that you can use its USB C port to charge your own devices and you can use it as a wired connection. Where as with the Bose, you cant. And I feel that this type of feature is super useful cause you can charge your phone if you’re at the beach.

But this is the only port that you’ll find on these two speakers, unforuntly neither of these two speakers have an audio jack, which is pretty standard for speakers of this size. So you cant use the Bose with a wired connection, but you can use the USB C port on the Beats as a wired connection.

But when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, both of these speakers can be connected to multiple devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ, latency is not an issue for these speakers, you can use them to watch videos with on your phone, and when I comes to audio codecs, both of these speakers have support for SBC and AAC.

But with all of that out of the way lets talk about sound. Regarding speaker set up the Bose has a single frontward firing woofer and dual passive radiators that shoot out the front and back of this speaker, where as the Beats has a single frontward firing woofer and a single frontward tweeter. So just due to the two very different speaker set ups here, these two speakers are going to sound and perform very different from one another. Like I mentioned earlier, the Bose has a lot of bass to it thanks to its passive radiators, where as with the Beats, this speaker is lacking in the bass department, but it sounds a lot more open cause its woofer and tweeter setup helps with instrument separation, the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs, like this.

Tweeter dempt

So like you may have just seen, the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs. And this is going to help with the Beats Pill instrument separation… but the Beats leans towards a brighter sound signature where as the bose leans towards a warmer sound signature, and you cant adjust the EQ on either of these two speakers. But now we’re going to jump into the sound test… both of these speakers are playing at 90% volume.

Sound Test

So like you may have just heard, the beats sounds noticeably more open, and has a lot more definition in the highs than the Bose cause the Beats has that dedicated tweeter that handles the highs. However, the Bose has a lot more bass than the Beats cause the Bose has those passive radiators that shoot out the front and back of this speaker. Now Beats says that the Pill doesn’t need passive radiators cause of the new high performance magnets in the woofer which is going to help deliver more bass… but the lie detector determined that that was a lie. And then when it comes to the max volume performance on these speakers… both of these speakers are a little quiet for their size and price in 2024… but the Bose does get a little louder than the Beats. But more importantly, since the bose has more bass than the beats, its music sounds a lot more impactful than the Beats. And for that reason I prefer how the Bose sounds over the Beats, even though technically the Beats Sounds better cause it sounds more open… but it sounds disappointing.

But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers up with other speakers. Now with both of these speakers, if you have two of the exact same speakers then you can wirelessly pair them up and get them to play in left and right stereo mode, or you can get them to play in sync. And this type of feature is great cause if you take these speakers to the beach then you can cover a larger area with music without having to blast your speakers and drain your battery life faster.

However, with the Bose you can also pair it up to Bose’s older soundlink speakers, which is nice… but you cant connect it to Bose’s newer Bose Soundlink Max. So if you’re planning on growing your collection of speakers… neither of these two speakers would be great options cause their eco systems are pretty small right now.

But with all of that being said, I like the premium build quality on both of these speakers, and I really like that you can use the USB C port on the Beats to charge your own devices… however for me it is hard to justify either of these two speakers in 2024 cause of their performance to price ratio. Now if I had to choose between one of these two speakers, its would be the Bose Soundlink Flex cause I like the bass that comes out of this speaker. However, if you are looking for a small portable bluetooth speaker in 2024… personally I highly recommend that you go with either the JBL Flip 6 or Sound ULT field 1 cause both of these speakers are more affordable and smaller. They both get louder, and they both sound better cause they sound more open and they have more bass. But personally, I do prefer the Sony ULT field 1 here over all of these other speakers.