Ultimate Ears entered the Indian market partnering with Logitech last year with an impressive first product, the UE Boom. This year the company announced its second wireless speaker called the UE Roll which is comparatively cheaper and a new approach towards the design. The new speaker is targeted at users who like to take their music everywhere, especially around the water as it is fully waterproof.
The UE Roll comes in a discus shape and is as big as your palm but maintains the typical UE approach of using a textured fabric mesh, loud and bright colours and the distinguished large volume buttons. The speaker also comes with a stretchable military grade bungee cord which lets you hang it or tie it onto almost anything say on your shower head, on your bike or your backpack. The curved-disc shape of the speaker not only gives it an interesting look, but solves another purpose. The speaker throws out a 360-degree sound which sounds really good for its compact size. The microUSB port for charging along with the 3.5mm auxiliary audio port sit at the bottom covered with a flap to protect them from water and dust so one has to securely close the flap before throwing it around water.
Apart from the large volume buttons on top, you get the power and the pairing button at the bottom which light up and throw out Tabla thumps as feedback. Both of them are plushy so tactile feedback isn’t very impressive. As mentioned before, the speaker is fully waterproof and has an IPX7 rating, which means you can throw it in the water for 30 mins at 1 meter depth. It can also withstand small drops as it is shock proof thanks to the rubberised finish at the bottom. The design is well done and let’s
Coming down to business, the sound quality is noteworthy as almost any type of music sounds vibrant and surprisingly good for such a small package. Highs and mids are punchy and even vocals come out really crisp.The 2-inch driver delivers appealing but limited bass and the two ¾-inch tweeters take the job of handling the treble which hits the sweet spot. Even at high volume the speaker maintains the quality of sound and tires hard to control clipping. There is also a companion app which lets you pair two UE wireless speakers together as well as fiddle with some equaliser settings in case you like to fine tune your music.
Bluetooth connectivity is great offering a 65-feet range, of course that depends on where you are using it. The speaker doesn’t have a built-in microphone though so attending phone calls is not possible. This is fairly odd because almost every speaker in this range offers this feature. The speaker also lacks NFC although that isn’t a major setback. The battery life is pretty good lasting about 9-hours on a full charge but that tends to drop if it is used at high volume level for a long period.
Coming in a variety of colours including Volcano (Grey), Atmosphere (Blue), Sugarplum (Pink/Purple) and Sriracha (Orange) in India, the UE Roll is priced at Rs. 8,495. The price seems justified for the sound quality and the unique build only if you are looking for a rough and tough speaker and don't care about having a built in microphone.
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