Philips EverPlay BT7900
A big bassy sound makes for a meaty mobile speaker The BT7900 can reach incredibly high volumes without any distortion
£84 FROM Philips, philips.co.uk features Bluetooth, 10-hour battery life, IP57 and IPX7 ratings, Micro-USB slot, 3.5mm audio jack, 21x7.2x7.1cm, 520g
The EverPlay BT7900 does bass – very well, in fact. But there’s a lot more to like about it than its low frequency finesse.
It works very well away from your phone. While most Bluetooth speakers offer 10m of range, you can walk 30m away from the BT7900 before the music cuts out. That’s handy, as is its waterproof, shockproof and drop-proof design.
The speaker is covered in a mesh-like DuraFit jacket, which gives it a tactile, anti-slip coating. It’s waterproof (dunk-able for 30 minutes in a metre of water), dust-proof and shockproof. While it can cope with water, it does seem likely to get stained by sand or dirt. If you’re sat on a beach listening to your tunes, you may find that the sand spoils the speaker’s good looks.
The BT7900 has a soft, round shape that hides twin front-firing 1.5-inch neodymium speakers that each reach 7W. Each end of the sausage-like design is sliced to make it easy to position upright. That just about works, but leaving it horizontal, where two silicone runners give a soft grip on surfaces, is more stable. A hidden clip lets you to fasten a handle to the speaker, and there’s also a microphone for hands-free calls.
On one end you’ll find a standby button surrounded by controls for Bluetooth pairing, play/pause and volume; on the opposite end is a small hatch that covers a Micro-USB slot for recharging it, alongside a 3.5mm audio jack for wiring it up to a non-Bluetooth device. Bass and detail The EverPlay BT7900 can reach incredibly high volumes without any distortion. It’s more than just loud, however, with good mid-range and treble detail too. We found that the impressive bass levels do dissipate slightly when you put the EverPlay BT7900 on a surface – it actually performs slightly better when you use the grab handle to hang it somewhere, or hold it in your hand.
In our tests the battery lasted for just shy of 10 hours. At this price, it would have been nice if it also acted as an emergency portable battery for a smartphone.
The BT7900 is adept with bass amid a tremendously loud yet balanced soundstage, and it’s a great option for your garden or house if you’re hosting a barbecue or party. We’re just not sure whether it’s designed particularly for the indoors or the outdoors… but then perhaps that’s the point.