Other Factors and Wrapping Up

NFC

Besides the battery test, the Leviathan Mini has a few other points of note. The NFC functions as you’d expect it to. Tap your NFC enabled phone or device to the left side of the speaker and it immediately pairs the bluetooth connection.

Another significant point of note here is that, like most other portable battery devices these days, the battery looks unserviceable. Or at least not designed to be user serviceable. I’m sure the guys at ifixit would be able to do a decent teardown and rate it, but that’s beyond the scope of what I’m doing here.

Calls

Taking calls on the Leviathan Mini is a breeze. If your phone rings, it fades out the music and you answer using the multi-function button on the top. The sound comes through clearly and the people at the other end of the few calls I took while doing the endurance test said that my voice came through clear and without issues.

Dual Leviathan Mini's

Last point to make here which I wasn't able to test. The Leviathan Mini can pair with another Leviathan Mini with each one acting as an independent channel for a wider stereo soundstage. It's an interesting notion and makes me wonder if they are trying to sow the seeds of a preliminary attack on Sonos or perhaps in the future to allow for some surround sound 5 speaker wireless setup for gaming/watching tv with. Who knows what the future holds.

Conclusion

So wrapping up, there are a few points to note. Is it an audiophile grade piece of hardware? Absolutely not. Is it a great sounding, portable, battery powered, bluetooth speaker? Absolutely. The battery life is excellent, the size is ridiculously small, particularly given the sound it puts out, the total package is generally very good, oh and yes, it sounds great too.

There is of course the small matter of the elephant in the room. This is getting compared to my wife’s Bose SoundLink portable bluetooth speaker. Whether you personally like Bose or not (many don’t), it’s likely they make one of, if not the most popular bluetooth portable speaker series in the SoundLinks. This comes at a cost though, both in terms of money and size. The current version of the Bose weighs more than double the Razer (1.37kg) and is substantially larger, as well as being almost double the price of the Razer in the UK ($300 Amazon US, £250 Amazon UK). Add in to that the fact that it lacks a microphone and personally, I’d go with the Razer. Overall I’d say that the Bose usually sounds slightly better than the Razer, although its bass is even more overpowering and in tracks which need precision (like the first sample I tested) it sounds worse.

Some people will buy the Bose for the name, the better quality they think it represents, the image, they may like the sound more etc. But personally I think they'd be doing themselves a disservice not to try the Razer. They'd be surprised, I know I was.

So, once again I find myself being surprised and impressed at what can be delivered in a small package. It doesn’t have the most features (some are “splash proof” or can charge your phone), but it has the features you need, expect, and are likely to use in it all the time. It does what it aims to do very well (create decent big sound and let you enjoy your music), even more so considering the size of the package it comes in. Is it going to set a stadium alight? Of course not. Is it a very small and great sounding portable bluetooth speaker to have outside at the barbecue? Entirely.

Reviewed at $179.99 (Amazon US) and £129.95 (Amazon UK).

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