JBL Charge 3 speaker review and specs by Our

The new copy of the portable audio sys­tem received more advanced IPX7 pro­tec­tion and improved sound. Read about oth­er inter­est­ing fea­tures of the device in the JBL Charge 3 review.

Content

About JBL Charge 3

Specifications

Equipment

The audio sys­tem is packed in a large box with a pic­ture of Charge 3 sub­merged in water. Key fea­tures (Blue­tooth, IPX7 water resis­tance, JBL Con­nect) and the Inter­na­tion­al Design Awards 2016 win mark are print­ed on the front of the pack­age. Detailed tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions can be found on the back.

Inside the box:

• JBL Charge 3;
• Pow­er Sup­ply;
• Inter­change­able plugs (US and Euro­pean includ­ed);
• microUSB cable;
• Doc­u­men­ta­tion.

Design and build

The Charge line is shaped like a beer can. In Charge 3, the man­u­fac­tur­er decid­ed to slight­ly cor­rect the lines of the device, now the audio sys­tem is more like a “bar­rel” of JBL Xtreme. The body of the device is made main­ly of plas­tic with alu­minum inserts. Much of the area of ​​the Charge 3 is cov­ered in a soft-touch fab­ric.

The tex­tile sur­face is very tena­cious, the col­umn does not slip in the hands even if it is dipped under water for a long time. On the shelves of stores, the device is offered in five col­ors: black, gray, red, blue and turquoise.

There are six func­tion but­tons on the top side of the Charge 3. They con­trol Blue­tooth pair­ing with oth­er devices, vol­ume lev­els, JBL Con­nect oper­a­tion, and play­back of the cur­rent track. The but­ton out­lines pro­trude a lit­tle from the fab­ric, they are easy to grope blind­ly.

The JBL logo is sewn into the front of the device. Below are five LED lights that show the cur­rent bat­tery lev­el.

Wired inter­faces are built into the back of the speak­er. There are 3.5mm TRS, microUSB and USB con­nec­tors. The lat­ter is designed to charge oth­er portable devices from the built-in Charge bat­tery. The USB out­put deliv­ers 2 amps, which is enough to quick­ly charge most smart­phones and tablets. The con­nec­tors are pro­tect­ed from water by a thick rub­ber plug.

The top and bot­tom of the “keg” are cov­ered with large pas­sive radi­a­tors with the com­pa­ny logo. They are built into small recess­es so that the col­umn can be placed ver­ti­cal­ly. It can also be placed hor­i­zon­tal­ly on the plat­form below.

There are two small flaws in the Charge 3 build.

The first is the rub­ber cov­er on the con­nec­tors. Imme­di­ate­ly after pur­chase, some prob­lems may arise with this plug. Often it does not ful­ly enter the groove, which is why water gets inside. At first, to close the plug, you will have to apply a lit­tle effort to firm­ly fix the rub­ber par­ti­tion.

The sec­ond draw­back is the inclu­sion of the device. To do this, you need to briefly press the top but­ton, which is why the speak­er can some­times acci­den­tal­ly start inside the back­pack. When turned on, it also emits a non-adjustable beep sound that can­not be turned off.

In gen­er­al, the Charge 3 form fac­tor is very well bal­anced between good auton­o­my, nor­mal sound and com­pact­ness. The audio sys­tem is still easy to trans­port in a small bag, although its weight has increased by 200 grams com­pared to the pre­vi­ous mod­el. In addi­tion, the device is pro­tect­ed from water accord­ing to the IPX 7 stan­dard, it can be safe­ly immersed under water for a short time.

sound

The sound qual­i­ty has improved marked­ly since Charge 2. Now the vocals do not drown out the rest of the musi­cal instru­ments, but gen­tly har­mo­nize with them.

Through­out the entire fre­quen­cy range (from 65 Hz to 20 kHz) there are no dips or dis­tor­tions. This also con­firms the fre­quen­cy response of the speak­er sys­tem.

How­ev­er, dif­fer­ent ways of syn­chro­niz­ing with exter­nal devices can dras­ti­cal­ly change the impres­sion of the speak­er. Con­nect­ing a smart­phone via Blue­tooth sig­nif­i­cant­ly los­es the wired con­nec­tion between the audio sys­tem and the com­put­er’s sound card. If you move a few meters away from the Charge 3, the sound los­es depth and is often inter­mit­tent.

Syn­chro­niza­tion with a PC is not accom­pa­nied by any prob­lems. The device works best in a sta­tion­ary for­mat. The device can be used at par­ties, but you need to make sure that the smart­phone with the track run­ning is not far away from the speak­er.

autonomy

The doc­u­men­ta­tion says that Charge 3 should work con­tin­u­ous­ly for about 20 hours at medi­um vol­ume.

In prac­tice, this fig­ure is at the lev­el of six­teen hours. A low bat­tery is indi­cat­ed by a flash­ing red LED and does not affect music play­back in any way.

Charg­ing time from the pow­er sup­ply — 2.5 hours. USB input from a com­put­er will charge the col­umn for an hour longer. If desired, Charge 3 can be turned into a pow­er bank by con­nect­ing anoth­er portable device to it.

Peculiarities

The Charge 3 has a JBL Con­nect sys­tem that allows you to con­nect mul­ti­ple speak­ers into one audio sys­tem. After syn­chro­niza­tion, the effect of stereo sound appears. The process is con­trolled by a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion from JBL.

There is also a built-in speak­er­phone inside, with which you can ful­ly talk with a tele­phone inter­locu­tor. His voice is trans­mit­ted direct­ly to exter­nal speak­ers, so the device is great for small video con­fer­ences.

Conclusion

The Charge range is clos­er than ever to per­fec­tion. For only $180, the man­u­fac­tur­er offers a nice design, great sound and a sol­id bat­tery. There are prac­ti­cal­ly no flaws here, and minor flaws almost do not spoil the impres­sion of the device.

The colum­n’s only com­peti­tor is the pre­vi­ous JBL Charge 2 Plus. The devices have almost the same tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and a slight dif­fer­ence in price. The pre­de­ces­sor will appeal to those who love com­pact­ness, the sec­ond mod­el is lighter than the Charge 3.

pros

• Excel­lent auton­o­my
• Water­proof IPX 7
• The pres­ence of a built-in micro­phone
• Tena­cious tex­tile sur­face
• Abil­i­ty to charge oth­er devices in pow­er bank mode

Minuses

• Mediocre sound when con­nect­ed via Blue­tooth
• Pos­si­ble invol­un­tary acti­va­tion
• Too rigid plug on the under­side of the case