Beats Pill

About Beats Pill

The Pill is the portable speaker in the range: small enough to drop into a bag, loud enough for a room or a garden.

It is the only Beats product that is not worn, and the only one where the comparison is not with an AirPod. Apple's own speakers are the HomePods, and they are a fundamentally different proposition: mains-powered, home-fixed, built around a voice assistant and multi-room audio. The Pill runs on a battery and goes where you go.

That makes the choice simple in a way most audio decisions are not. If it needs to move, this is the one. If it lives on a shelf, it is not.

Portable speaker or home speaker?

Ask where it will spend its time, and be honest about the answer.

A portable speaker is built around a battery, ruggedness and pairing quickly with whatever phone is nearest. It is for gardens, kitchens, hotel rooms, worktops and anywhere without a socket to spare. What it gives up is the sound a mains-powered speaker gets from more volume, more amplification and no need to preserve charge.

A home speaker is fixed. It plugs in, it usually sounds considerably better for the money, and it can do multi-room and voice control properly because it is always on and always connected.

The common mistake is buying portable for a speaker that never leaves the kitchen. You pay for a battery you never use and accept worse sound to get it. The reverse mistake is rarer and more obvious, because a mains speaker in a garden is immediately impractical.

What should you check on any portable speaker?

Three things, and only one of them is loudness.

Water resistance, against what will actually happen to it. A speaker for a kitchen worktop needs to survive a splash. One that goes to a beach or a poolside needs considerably more, and the rating is the difference between an accident and a replacement.

How it pairs, and with how many devices. A speaker shared by a household is picked up by whoever is nearest, and one that requires disconnecting somebody else first becomes a small daily argument. Multi-device pairing is worth more than it sounds.

Battery in real use rather than the quoted figure, which is usually measured at moderate volume. A speaker used loudly outdoors will not reach it, and a speaker that dies partway through an evening has failed at the one thing portability was for.

Volume is the thing people ask about and the least likely to disappoint. Most portable speakers are louder than the room they are in needs.

Who should buy something else?

Anyone buying a speaker for one room permanently. A mains-powered home speaker sounds better for the same money and adds voice control and multi-room. Buy the HomePod or a rival rather than paying for a battery that never leaves the kitchen.

Anyone whose priority is sound quality per pound. Portability is expensive: the battery, the ruggedness and the size constraints all take budget away from the audio. A bookshelf speaker or a home unit at the same price will beat it.

Anyone who needs serious outdoor durability. Check the water and dust rating against what you will actually do, and if the answer is beaches, boats and building sites, shop the ruggedised category specifically.

Anyone who wants a voice assistant in the room. Portable speakers are Bluetooth-first and generally rely on the phone for that, and if hands-free voice control is the point, a home speaker does it properly.