Having a great portable speaker is really handy. These take anywhere devices allow you to bring music, audio books and other sonic goodness to any space you find yourself in.
Now, one of the big players in the space has brought a new device to market. The Sonos Move 2 has just been unveiled, hot on the heels of the original Sonos Move speaker. That was a pretty good offering, but the new device looks set to knock it out of the park.
For starters, the battery life has been dramatically increased. The Move 2 will support up to 24 hours of playback on a single charge – a full 13 hours more than the original. That should allow users to use the Move 2 for much longer, without having to worry about topping up.
That's not all, either. The inclusion of a USB-C port allows users to charge their phone while listening to music. That should make it far more useful, particularly when used out and about. You might even be able to do away with a power bank for quick top ups.
Of course, all of that is useless if the sound quality isn't good. That's rarely an issue for Sonos, though, and it doesn't look likely to be the case here. A duo of angled tweeters are paired with a midwoofer for fantastic response across the audio spectrum, and sumptuous stereo separation. You can also use two Move 2 speakers for an even wider stereo soundscape.
That's fuelled by three class-D amplifiers. Those have been tuned specifically for this box, to ensure the sound recreation is perfect for the Move 2's architecture.
Automatic Trueplay reappears here too. That software analyses the environment around the speakers, making intelligent adjustments to the EQ to optimise sound quality. It happens in about 60 seconds, and continually monitors to keep things sounding as good as possible throughout your listen. Of course, you can also make manual EQ adjustments in the Sonos app.
With all of those improvements, you might expect a pretty significant price hike. That doesn't appear to be the case, though. The Sonos Move 2 will retail from £/$449, marking a £/$50 increase over the original.
Given the suite of new features on board – and the notoriously iffy global financial situation since the first generation device launched – that's pretty reasonable. We'll have to get hands – or, I suppose, ears – on to give a proper verdict, but based on what we know so far, this looks set to be a knockout.
