JBL Charge 5
A portable Bluetooth speaker that doesn’t skimp on sound quality.
JBL certainly knows its stuff when it comes to making great-sounding speakers. The fifth instalment in the Charge series improves on its predecessor, the JBL Charge 4, with the next generation of Bluetooth connectivity, better audio, a new design, USB-C charging, and it’s now more durable with improved dust resistance as well as waterproofing.
Sporting the familiar cylindrical JBL design, the Charge 5 is a good-looking speaker that comes in loads of colours including green, red, pink, teal, blue, black, grey and white. The colour coats the rubberised ends as well as the main mesh body. Although taller, longer and wider than the JBL Charge 4, it still feels small enough to be portable. And it’s actually 5g lighter. An IP67 rating means it’s waterproof and dustproof so if you do get caught in the rain then you won’t need to worry about speaker damage.
The JBL Charge 5 has an RMS power output of 30W + 10W with a new wider 52x90mm bass driver and a separate 20mm tweeter. An impactful, punchy low-end paired with crisp highs delivers a wellbalanced sound across genres. Although there were some tracks where the vocals take over slightly, it wasn’t a big issue. Overall the audio is energetic, detailed and accurate. And loud: it would easily fill a room, if not a house. The volume will happily cut through the hustle and bustle of a busy park.
If you want to make the music louder, PartyBoost lets you pair two or more compatible speakers together. You just need to press the dedicated button on each of the speakers you want to pair. This replaces the old JBL Connect+ seen on the JBL Charge 4, so you won’t be able to use PartyBoost with Connect+ speakers.
Another really handy feature is the built-in power bank, so if your phone is running out of battery you can top up the charge and keep the music playing. The battery life itself hasn’t changed from the Charge 4, and didn’t need to. The Charge 5 will last about 20 hours of music, which is plenty for a day at the beach or even a weekend away. Of course, if you use the speaker to charge up your devices it will drain more quickly. Once empty, it’ll take about four hours to recharge back to 100%, which is longer than other speakers. But if you think ahead then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The JBL Charge 5 sounds fantastic and the volume goes seriously loud as well. Not to mention the array of extra features like PartyBoost and the power bank.