So the new Bose Soundlink Flex is a great portable bluetooth speaker from Bose that
quite frankly just sounds way better than its direct competitors the JBL Flip 5 and
Sony XB23.
However… the Bose Flex does have a price premium to it and at first glance you’ll
might think that its direct competitors are really the JBL Charge 5 and Sony XB33.
But they’re really not.
Nonetheless if you’re wondering how the Bose Flex stacks up to the JBL Charge 5 and
Sony XB33… this is the video for you.
Now regarding pricing… both the Bose Flex and Sony XB33 have a retail price of $150.
Where as the JBL Charge 5 has a retail price of $170.
So the Bose Flex has Charge 5 and XB33 pricing… but it has Flip 5 and XB23 performance.
However, both the JBL and Sony do like to go on sale on a regular basis.
Nonetheless, if you want to pick any of these speakers up they’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about the design of these speakers.
The Flex is around the same size as the Charge 5 and XB33.
So all of these speakers are portable and you can easily throw them into you back pack…
but all of these speakers are considerably larger than lets say your JBL Flip 5.
Now when it comes to materials… the Flex has a silicon wrapped body and power coat
steel grill on the front.
And the use of silicon and steel on this speaker not only makes it very durable… its also
makes it feel very premium.
Where as these other two speakers have a mostly fabric rapped body.
Now there’s nothing wrong with a fabric wrapped body… but the silicone and steel
on the Flex just feels nice.
And when it comes to overall durability… all of these speakers check off the same boxes.
They're all dust proof and they're all water proof.
However, one small detail that we do have to address on these speakers design wise is
the light feature on the XB33.
I think it looks decent and its nice to have… but obviously please don’t make speaker
purchasing decision soul on their light feature.
And keep in mind… if you do decide to use this light feature… its going to chew into
your overall battery life.
Now when it comes to battery life… the bose flex has an advertised battery life of 12
hours.
And just given this speaker’s size I really wish that it had a 20 hour battery life of
at the very least a 15 hour battery life.
But nonetheless with this speaker playing at 80% volume its good for about 8 hours of
playback time which is not bad at all.
But for comparison sake… the Charge 5 has an advertised battery life of 20 hours…
and with it playing at 80% volume it good for about 10 hours of playback time.
And keep in mind…
80% volume on the Charge 5 is going to be noticeably louder than 80% volume on the Bose
Flex.
And then there’s the XB33 which has an advertised battery life of 24 hours… but that with
this speaker playing at 50% volume, with its light feature turned off and while in stamina
mode.
Which just makes this speaker sound very flat.
Where as if you were to use this speaker with its light feature turned on and with its Extra
Bass Mode turned on… then it has an advertised battery life of 14 hours.
So real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, with its light feature turned
on and with its extra bass mode turned on… this speaker is good for around 7 hours of
playback time.
Now if you were to use this speaker with its light feature turned off… you can always
extend its battery life that way.
Now when it comes to charging all of these speakers… they all charge via a USB C port
as they should.
However, both the Charge 5 and XB33 have a USB A out port so that you can charge your
own devices.
Now it think its great and all that these speakers have a USB A out port… but I think
its going to become obsolete in the near future cause most phone these days now come included
with USB C charging cables.
And unfortunately you can’t use any of these USB C ports to charge your own devices…
and you also can’t use them as a wired connection.
And I also gotta point out that none of these speakers have an audio jack.
Now unfortunately… this is the norm now… but I really feel that a speaker of this size
should still have an audio jack just in case.
Especially the Charge 5 given its rather impressive speaker set up.
But when it comes to wireless connectivity, all of these speakers can be simultaneously
connected to two devices at the same time so you can easily hot swap from one device
to another regardless of operating system which is great for power users… or you and
a friend can both be DJ.
And when it comes to watching movies or videos on your phone… all of these speakers have
zero latency across the board whether you’re using an iPhone or an android device.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these speakers.
Regarding speaker set ups… the Bose Flex has a single frontward firing transducer and
a pair of passive radiators that shoots out the front and back of this speaker.
The Sony XB33 has your fairly common set up of dual transducers that shoot out the front
and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides.
But then theres the Charge 5 who’s set up is a little different.
The Charge 5 has a single frontward firing transducer which handles the mids, it also
has a single tweeter which handles the highs, and then you’ve got your dual passive radiators
that shoot out the sides.
But now we’re going to jump into the soundtest.
All of these speakers are playing with their stock EQ.
However hen it comes to volume… the XB33 is playing at 94% volume, the Flex is playing
at 87% volume and the Charge 5 is just coasting here at 75% volume.
So unfortunately I am going to have to say that the XB33 does struggle to keep up here.
Performance wise, this thing is playing at 94% volume… but also from a sound quality
standpoint this speaker does sound the most narrow here.
It sounds fine… but the Bose and JBL do sound better.
Now when it comes to instrument separation…
I gotta say the Bose and JBL sound very open.
And I think thats very impressive given that the Bose doesn’t have a dedicated tweeter
like the JBL.
However one knock that I do have against the Bose when compared to the JBL…is that the
treble on the Bose is raised up a little more.
Where as the JBL sounds more balanced.
Overall the Bose flex really does give the JBL Charge 5 a real run for its money when
it comes to sound quality… but performance wise the JBL Charge 5 is going to get noticeably
louder and have more bass than the Bose Flex.
Just remember… the Bose Flex was playing at 87% volume where as the Charge 5 was just
coasting at 75% volume.
Now even though I think both the Bose Flex and Charge 5 sound great just the way they
are…
I think its important to point out that these speakers don’t have an adjustable EQ.
Where as the XB33 does.
So if you’re someone that wants to tune your speaker to your liking… then you’ll
might want to take that into consideration.
But now lets talk about pairing this speaker up with other speakers.
The Flex is a soundlink speaker.
Meaning that you can pair it up to one other bose soundlink speaker and either get them
to play in sync or you can get them to play in left and right stereo mode.
And the easiest way to do this is through Bose’s Connect app.
Or if you have one of Bose’s smart sound bars or smart speakers… you can pair a Flex
to them though Bose’s Music app using simple sync.
So even though you can’t pair like 5 flex’s together… the flex does give you a good
amount of flexibility if you’ve already invested into Bose’s eco system some how.
And im just putting it out there…
I still love my Bose smart soundbar.
However, when compared to the JBL Charge 5 and Sony XB33… with the Charge 5 you can
pair it up either to a JBL Boombox 2, Xtreme 3, JBL Charge 5, another JBL Flip 5 or to
a JBL Pulse 4.
And you can pair up to 100 speakers together.
Which is obviously over kill.
And personally I do feel JBL has the best speaker pairing protocol out there.
Now with the Sony… you can also pair up to 100 speakers together and you can pair
your XB33 either to an XG500, XB43, XB33, or to another XB23… and if you’re feeling
very adventurous… you can even pair your XB33 up to an XP500 or XP700.
Now I don’t know why you would want to do this… but
you can.
But finally here’s the microphone test for the Bose Soundlink flex.
Now over the last few years most portable Bluetooth speakers like these have removed
their microphones.
And personally I just wouldn’t bother taking phone calls with this speaker.
The microphone on this speaker is really just so that you can interact with your voice assistant.
But with all of that being said… the Bose Flex is defneitly a solid speaker that really
sounds great.
However this speaker does carry a price premium to it.
Now I think the Bose Flex does justify its price tag because sound quality wise it does
punch above its weight class and its silicon and steel body makes it feel very premium…
However, if you’re thinking about getting the Bose Flex…
I think you should still consider going with the JBL Charge 5 because you are going to
get better performance out of it and you’re going to get a noticeably better battery life.