Sony SRS-XB100 Speaker Review

The Sony XB100 is a small, lightweight speaker with a similar design to the Sony SRS-XB13, the previous generation of this speaker. It's meant to sit vertically, with the driver situated on top, and you can hang it in this position from your bag using the built-in strap. The strap is detachable, too.

This speaker is small enough to fit in your hand. It's lightweight, too, so it's portable. Since it's battery-powered, you don't have to worry about plugging it into a power outlet to listen to your music.

The Sony XB100 has great build quality. It has a sturdy feel and a smooth finish, and the metal grille on top protects the drivers inside. It's rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, and you can submerse it in water, too. The tight seal on the AUX and micro-USB ports helps to protect them from the elements. This speaker even floats, though it tends to tilt onto its side in the water. You'll find it useful if you drop it into the lake on accident, for example, but it probably isn't the best choice for listening to music at a pool party.

The controls are on the side of the speaker. They're painted white, so they're easy to identify. They're easy to use, too, and there's some feedback to help you keep track of the speaker's settings. For example, you can hear an audio chime when you power the device on and off, and small lights appear when it's turned on and connected to a Bluetooth device, its stereo is paired to another speaker, and the battery is charging.

There's a power button and a Bluetooth button that you can press to enter pairing mode, or you can hold it down to stereo pair with another unit. There's also a play/pause button that you can use to answer or end a call. You can press it twice to skip a track or three times to return to the previous track. Finally, you can use the volume buttons to adjust the volume.

• Manuals
• Sony SRS-XB100
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable

This speaker's frequency response accuracy is acceptable. It's a small device, limiting its ability to bring a deep and rumbling low bass. Still, it does a good job with most music genres, as its balanced mids ensure that voices and other instruments are clear and accurate in the mix. The extra emphasis in the mid-to-high bass adds a boomy quality to the mix. Despite having a companion app, its sound isn't customizable, which is disappointing.

The soundstage is decent. This speaker has to downmix stereo content into mono to play it, so you don't notice a separation between the left and right channels in stereo music. That said, thanks to its 360-degree design, its soundstage has great directivity, so you can place the device in the center of the table and get consistent sound all around.

This speaker's loud enough for use in an average-sized room. It won't fill up larger, more open spaces like a backyard, which is expected from such a small device. There's some compression when you push it to max volume, though, so you'll notice some compression artifacts.

The speaker's battery performance is excellent. The manufacturer advertises it to last around 16 hours, and in our tests, it did even better than that, with a total battery life of over 20 hours. However, battery life will vary based on usage, and playing audio at maximum volume will deplete the battery life quicker than at a lower volume. The speaker shuts down after 15 minutes without an audio signal, too, which is handy if you want to save its power. You can also disable this feature by holding the play/pause and volume down buttons simultaneously for five seconds.

You won't find a built-in voice assistant with this speaker. That said, if you pair it to a smartphone with Google Assistant or Siri capabilities, it can use the technology through your phone. It's not great at hearing you from far away or in a noisy environment, but it can still pick up on your commands with the microphone positioned toward you.

Unlike the Sony SRS-XB12, this speaker is compatible with the Sony Music Center app, making it easy to manage the device from your smartphone. You won't find more premium sound customization tools, but still, the app lets you perform some basic functions like turning the device on and off, checking the battery level and adding apps like Spotify and Netflix. You can see a video of the app here. You'll notice that the app doesn't let you stereo pair with another unit, but you can still access this feature using the Bluetooth button on the speaker itself. If you like to golf and want a small speaker designed with this use in mind, check out the Bushnell Wingman Mini. Its app offers golf-focused features.

This portable Bluetooth speaker pairs with only one device at a time. It'll stay connected, though, even if your device moves further away. Bluetooth latency on both Android and iOS devices is also quite low, so there's not much AV synchronization error. While some apps compensate for this differently, you won't notice much delay with dialogue-heavy videos on platforms like YouTube.