Huawei has recently unveiled its portable smart speaker engineered with Devialet- the Huawei Sound Joy. From sound quality to smart experience this rugged speaker promises to offer a joyful musical experience for everyone. Let us see if this speaker delivers what it claims.
The Huawei Sound Joy is cylindrical and comes shrouded in a specially woven fabric encasing. The touch and feel of the speaker is rugged, robust yet looks very stylish offering a good grip when held. It also provides IP67 water resistance which compliments the speaker’s claim to be a ‘must’ in any outdoor hike or a camping trip.
On the one side are the physical controls for the Bluetooth, play/pause, voice assistant, stereo and On/ Off and a USB-Type C charging slot. The buttons are made of soft plastic and are very responsive. They are also backlit thereby making it look premium and easy to handle in dim lit conditions. The buttons are also accompanied by a lanyard, which is very useful when used on camping trips. On the other side are the two large volume buttons which are tactile and responsive and easy to locate. There is also a NFC logo to indicate the location of the coil.
The speaker performs at its best when placed vertically. Owing to its cylindrical shape, the speaker rolls over the surface when placed horizontally. I personally felt that the speakers performed exceedingly well when placed vertically.
Moving on to the audio performance, the Sound Joy features a Devialet co-designed speaker system, consisting of a 20 W full- frequency speaker, a 10 W tweeter and dual passive radiators that incorporates Huawei’s push-push design along with SAM technology.
The bass performance is truly out of the world and punchy. I was amazed at the output considering the size of the speaker. For an average listener, the speaker is sure to outperform their expectations. The mid and low-end ranges are clear and crisp and bass heavy. But at the same time won’t attract true music enthusiasts as it falters when capturing minute details, such as the vocals at the high range. Bass distortion and lack of tonal balance is very evident at higher volume.
The speaker is a decent option for listening to podcasts and movies and it fares much better than a regular laptop speaker and does provide an immersive audio experience.
To make the experience more interesting, Huawei has also added a multi-colour LED ring in one of the passive radiators. This also resonates the volume levels, battery level, percentage of software updates. It is a joy to see the LEDs glow in response to your music. This feature adds to the excitement levels, when used in a darkened room. This cool feature can be accessed only through the Huawei’s AI Life app and that’s where its drawback too lies. This can not be accessed on iOS devices. I have an android device, which to my surprise also remained unresponsive despite multiple attempts.
The Huawei Sound Joy connects with your smart devices via Bluetooth 5.2. There is a built-in NFC chip that enables one touch transfer. This feature works only with a Huawei smartphone. I tried testing this feature using my android device (which is supposed to support this feature) but yet again it remained unresponsive.
The auto discovery feature is also limited to Huawei devices and yet again not supported on iOS devices and didn’t work on my android device as well.
The Sound Joy once paired with your Huawei watch can be used to control the volume and skip tracks easily. The speaker’s assistant button summons the virtual assistant of choice on your connected smartphone.
To take the experience to the next level, there is also an option to link another Huawei sound Joy speaker with just a press of a button provided on the speaker or by a single shake of the two devices at the same time. But I could not test this feature since I had only one speaker with me.
The device also comes with 3 onboard mics for voice pickup. The call quality is good and the reception at the other end was crystal clear.
Huawei’s AI Life app helps you tinker with the speaker’s features and tuning its sound and the LED lighting. The app provides three sound output modes – Hi-Fi mode, Vocal mode and Devialet mode. When tested using an android phone, I could not find any major differences between them.
The speaker comes with an 8,800 mAh battery which according to Huawei would last for 26 hours of nonstop play. And, when I tested the speaker, I did found it to last longer and the battery lasted for a little more than a couple of weeks with varied usage.
To conclude the Huawei Sound Joy has all the right ingredients for the making of a good speaker. It is no doubt a very good first attempt. The design is stylish, rugged and at the same time looks premium. The multi-color LED ring makes it look trendy and attractive. The IP 67 rating further enhances its outdoor usage. The battery life is also a positive addon. It can also complement your TV or laptop. The speaker produces loud sound for its size
However, music playback is a bit of a letdown. I felt the bass sometimes overpowers the lyrics. The volume levels are inconsistent towards the higher end of the notes. Lack of an equalizer option in the AI Life app is disappointing. And another major setback is the lack for support for iOS devices and a patchy support for android devices. The full power of the device can only be utilized if the speaker is operated using a HUAWEI smart device.
The HUAWEI Sound Joy in now available in Spruce Green and Obsidian Black is available across the UAE stores at a price of AED 599.
