Customer Ratings & Reviews

Loud enough to hear it over a vacuum cleaner, oven vent, etc. I leave mine plugged in while using it, playing music between breaks. Lasts 7-8 hours otherwise at 90% volume. Strange there is no aux jack underneath the charging cover. The bass is almost too strong, while the high end is slightly muffled, like the sound is bouncing around a corner... Lag is very low, almost nonexistent, even playing through a bluetooth antenna to reach this thing. I'd rather see a minimum battery life claim advertised for these things. How long can it go at full volume playing metal and house music? Its a more useful figure for customers.

Looking for a good sounding speaker for use writing on cars and other projects, this for the bill. At half price, it was a great value. Great overall sound (very similar to the JBL flip) and great battery life. Like having flat sides because it is rarely set on flat level surfaces, so it won't roll away.

This speaker is great. If you are looking for bass this is the one to choose. It is a heavy speaker and very durable. I love the appearance and feel. The battery life is also great

I love this speaker. It delivers quality sound and pairs easily. Battery life is good. I primarily use this in the kitchen and the bathroom. I’ve traveled with it and it’s never let me down. The design is good, easy to pick up and go with. I would buy this again. No doubt.

We fired this speaker up for its first interior painting gig! I accidentally got some paint on it, and the rubber material wiped right off. It was super loud but never distorted. We forgot a charger for two or three days and it just kept working. I love this speaker!

This speaker is pretty awesome and has really great sound! The bluetooth connects to my device pretty quickly. It is also not heavy so it is easy to carry on the go. Perfect to take to the beach and lake to listen to some tunes. Highly recommend!

great sound in a small package. easy to connect devices.

The quality of sound is great, but it lacks volume

I work in a warehouse and was looking for a good speaker. Debated between this and the JBL but decided to give this Sony a try and was not disappointed. Appreciate the long battery life and the speaker is loud and crisp.

I like that it’s water proof and sound great. I like it overall

Nice compact unit. Nice sound quality. Love the color.

This is an amazing speaker for the price and size. Quality of sound and battery life is exceptional. I can’t complain at all.

This Bluetooth speaker is such a great addition to my listening experience. I can take it anywhere and have awesome music to listen to. Looking forward to hearing my music in the backyard this Spring, Summer and Fall. Rock on !!!

Sounds great wish it was a little louder sometimes (solved that with an equalizer tho). Bass is great wish it was harder but it can be pretty good! Battery seems to die even when turned off tho even then i have to charge it only once or so a week

the price is very high, the battery does not last long and at high volume it discharges very quickly, the sound is good but it is not loud, the cable to charge the battery is very short

I love the sound and the fact that it will charge while I am still listening.

At first I was pretty confused by the design of this XE300 portable bluetooth speaker from Sony. I couldn't quite figure out why anyone would design a speaker with such a tall and narrow driver. Was this a "directional" speaker? Wouldn't that limit the amount of sound that is output by the speaker to a very limited range? As it turns out, Sony very deliberately designed this speaker with it's new line shape diffuser technology. This would explain why the design choice initially seemed odd. After curiosity got the best of me, I did a bit of research. Sony's design choice was inspired by professional grade audio systems that are used at serious concerts. This design is supposed to help with distributing the sound evenly and wider to fill the empty space around you. After using this in various indoor and outdoor settings, I can attest that it does a phenomenal job of filling any room, or the space around you. The sound feels better dispersed with a greater range of coverage as compared to other current outdoor speakers that I've owned. I'm a big fan of the sound signature on this speaker. The mids are very clear and crisp. Very impressed with the vocals for a bluetooth speaker (listened to a lot of Diana Krall and it sounded amazing!). Even at full volume, the sound signature retains it's sharpness with no distortion. The bass is tight and punchy. Initially, I thought the bass was a bit lacking for an outdoor speaker but as I began to listen to different genres of music, I noticed that it was more than capable of producing a deep and punchy low frequency without sounding muddled. I think it's a very well balanced sound signature. It's not the best sounding outdoor bluetooth speaker I've ever heard, but it is the best sounding outdoor speaker I've heard in it's pricing segment. Also, I realized I could increase the intensity of the bass to my liking via the Sony music center app. In terms of build quality, you can instantly tell it was designed to take a beating. I feel very confident knowing that it will survive multiple rough drops. Most the the body of the speaker is outfitted with a very soft and comfortable rubber lining. Sony made this an IP67 certified speaker. The moment you hold this in your hands, you can tell that it's fully waterproof, shockproof, and dustproof. Sony claims that it maintains it's operability when submerged upto a depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes. I left this floating in our pool for about 15 minutes playing music with no issues. I really like the rubber charging cut-out for the USB type-C port. Very easy to access and it has an outstanding seal. No water is getting through there! There are quite a few features that I found to be incredibly useful while using this speaker. A lot of these features are usually not found in other outdoor bluetooth speakers. I've listed them below: - 70 minutes of music playtime with a quick 10 minute charge - 30 meter bluetooth range (My current outdoor bluetooth speakers do 15M!) - Battery Care function (stops charging the battery just before it reaches 100% in order to increase the life span of the battery) - Incredibly easy setup. Just by my bluetooth being on, my Android device instantly detected the XE300 without having to manually pair it - Bluetooth version 5.2; This allowed for an extremely good bluetooth connection. During my week of testing, not once did I experience any sort of audio interruptions or noise - Physical battery indicator button that audibly tells you how much battery you have left - Phenomenal Audio EQ app; The Sony Music Center mobile app instantly detects the speaker, the app is very stable, and the EQ function is tuned well - "Bluetooth Connection Quality" on Sony Music Center App. Allows you to prioritize the bluetooth connection for sound quality or for a more stable connection if you're in a noisy 2.4Ghz frequency environment Overall, I think this is one of the best bluetooth outdoor speakers on the market in it's pricing segment. There are really only two minor cons I have. First, due to the somewhat large hexagonal shape of the speaker, it's a bit difficult to hold with one hand (for reference, I have medium to large hands). This is also compounded by the fact that it's a relatively heavy speaker. I would have loved to see Sony affix some type of unobtrusive waterproof handle on the back of the speaker where you can just slip your hand into. There's plenty of space on the back of the speaker to implement something like this. Not a huge deal but I think it would improve the portability experience. Secondly, you only get a measly 1.5 ft USB type-C charging cable. Luckily, with USB type-C being the current standard, people are likely to own multiple lengths of USB type-C cables. Other than those minor cons, I think beachgoers, pool junkies, or any outdoor weekend warriors will love this speaker. Not only does it produce some of the best sound in it's segment, but it's built to take heavy abuse. Buy with confidence, there's very little not to like.

Great for work or home. Great crisp sound! I’ve enjoyed using my Sony speaker during work and play!

This speaker is loud and has very good quality! It is a powerhouse when paired with another as a studio pair

I consider myself an audio enthusiast, so when a NEW Sony speaker was available, I jumped at the opportunity. ​​TL;DR for my frequent readers and details below. Good: Weight Design (won’t roll) Multi-positioning Multiple device pairing Battery life App tuning / ClearAudio+ Sound Bad: Slippery / smooth texture USB-A to USB-C cable doesn’t include wall adapter Meh: Another Sony App No Voice Commands Battery Percentage can be inaccurate (in conservation mode) Sony appears to be another manufacturer that is stripping color from their boxes and that’s not all that bad; simple packaging is good. Taking the speaker out, I felt the heft of it. A rubbery appearance with a cool cloth design jumped out at me with the rubbery section being very smooth. It’s a clean-looking, gray, barely badged speaker with a number of low-profile, small buttons. Single handed carrying of this speaker, if you’re not holding onto some of the fabric is slippery. Some kind of low-profile strap to slip your hand under would come in handy as I know I’ll be in a hurry, grab the slippery part & it’ll get dropped. I like to fully charge devices before starting up the configuration and that was quick out of the box, only 45 or so minutes. USB-C is adapted for this speaker, however it’s an A->C cable is included without a wall adapter and since most of my adapters are USB-C now, making me have to dig out an old Samsung charger. Right off the bat, another Sony App is needed: Sony Music Center. It’s a bummer that it isn’t shared with the wireless headphones/earbuds App. Spotify, YouTube Music and iHearRadio can be launched from the App, to stream music from that device. In the Settings section, you can configure a number of preferences including: Bass/Treble/Mids, a “Sony knows best” ClearAudio+ setting & some other effects that I find pretty useless. Good thing to note: Sound tuning survives the App closing on the device it was changed on. I found that during music play, ClearAudio+ did a decent job tuning to what the music was heavy with (bass, etc). TV streaming & sports, also a good job; I didn’t find myself needing to turn the mids / treble up. A new trend of charging up to 80% for battery conservation (like on my new laptops), is also included with the App for this speaker. Side note: if you’re charged to 100% and enable the battery conservation setting, it’ll say the speaker is only at 80%; disabling it shows the true value - for me, 100% after a full charge. I ran this speaker from the day I received it and for another 4 days of random use which only brought it down to 80%. Given that, I’m pretty happy with the battery life. Multiple devices can simultaneously connect to the speaker, which can be good and bad; streaming from a TV and getting a notification from your phone will ‘lower’ the volume to the stream until the notification finishes. With the design looking like a house when on its side, it’s not going to roll off a table and allows for different positioning to keep sound facing the way you want it to be. One thing that keeps this from being the ‘always by the pool’ speaker, is the lack of voice assistant integration; a “Hey Google” or “Alexa” would have made this my only speaker, but I’ll have to keep the other one in play. Speaking of the pool, it’s documented to be waterproof for up to 3 feet for some amount of time. The charging port has a water-proof looking door and secures tightly so I’m not concerned about water getting in there. Since I like this speaker so much and I don’t need to have it floating around in the water (does it float?), I didn’t want to put that to the test. So, after a fair amount of use I recommend this speaker.