Are you looking for one of the very best Bluetooth speakers, but don’t want to spend too much money on it? Then go to Walmart: it’s currently offering over $50 off the JBL Charge 5 speaker, down from the usual $179.95 to just $128.04. That’s a decent savings of $51.01. Amazon is close with a price of $135.
If you like that but live in Britain, Amazon is currently doing the same speaker for 28% offwhich drops the price from £179 to £129. The discount doesn’t apply to all variants – some are out of stock and others, like the pink and gray, are slightly more expensive at between £141 and £144 – but you can get those price on the black, blue and camouflage versions.
Is the JBL Charge 5 worth buying?
Yes. We’re very pleased with the JBL Charge, and in our JBL Charge 5 review we said it’s a speaker built on a winning formula of balanced sound, high volume, and long battery life. And while those strengths remain unchanged in this fifth iteration, it improves on its predecessors in several ways. At its regular retail price, we’d give it four and a half stars out of five; at over $50 off its usual price, you could easily say it’s a five-star speaker.
We think the JBL Charge 5 is one of the best Bluetooth speakers on the market. It has evolved from a bass monster to something more mature; provided you don’t overcook the volume – we found 50% to 60% is the sweet spot, providing more than enough punch without being too harsh – it delivers clear mids, plenty of low-end thump and warm highs frequencies. That level is also the sweet spot for battery life: in our tests, continuous playback at 50% easily achieved the quoted 20 hours of battery life.
The name of the Charge 5 is a big hint about its other important function: you can also use it as a power bank. That will of course affect your overall listening time, especially if you use it to charge demanding devices, such as smartphones with large batteries. But it does mean that the Charge is a great travel speaker: it sounds great, isn’t too big or heavy, and it means you have one less charger to pack.