“It's a $25 ultra-portable waterproof speaker that doesn't suck, and that's more than enough to recommend the Select 4 Go.”
- It's just $25
- Dust- and waterproof
- Good sound quality
- Excellent battery life
- No aux input
- Less bass than similarly sized speakers
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If you had asked me in 2023 what kind of a portable Bluetooth speaker I’d expect to get for $25, I’d probably have laughed and said, “lousy sound, little to no water or dust protection, and terrible battery life.” Then I would have encouraged you to spend a bit more to get a much better product. That was before I tried the new Soundcore Select 4 Go.
I can’t tell you how Soundcore managed it, but this incredibly affordable little speaker defied all of my expectations. And, thanks to a variety of fun color options, it doesn’t even fall victim to the boring black-box design of so many previous cheap speakers.
About the worst thing I can say about the Select 4 Go is that it comes in plastic packaging instead of cardboard, making it harder to recycle responsibly. In the box you get the speaker, a quick-start guide, and a USB A-to-USB C charging cable. Given that many companies have stopped including these cables, I can’t help but wonder if Soundcore could have shaved another dollar off the price if it had chosen to omit it.
At just 9.3 ounces — about the weight of a set of wireless headphones — you can chuck this thing in a backpack or even clip it to a backpack (it includes a loop but not a carabiner) and you’ll never notice it. If you’re like me and have a fondness for cargo shorts, it will fit in one of the pockets.
Operating the speaker is a cinch. Powering it on for the first time automatically pushes it into Bluetooth pairing mode. There’s no Google Fast Pair, but that just means you’ll need to take the extra step of opening the Bluetooth menu on your phone to find it.
From there the rubber-protected buttons are almost self explanatory: plus and minus for changing the volume, play/pause (single-press for playing and pausing, double- and triple-presses for track skipping), and a Bluetooth button to put the speaker back into pairing mode. It supports multipoint, so you and a friend can share DJ duties, but if you pick up a second Select 4 Go (which at this price you may well want to do) the Bluetooth button can also be used to enable stereo pairing between them.
Soundcore says the Select 4 Go is rated IP67, which means it’s effectively dust- and waterproof. I don’t have a pool or a beach nearby, but I have plenty of sinks and bathtubs and I can attest to the speaker’s ability to survive full water immersion. (Just make sure you keep the rubber flap over the USB port firmly seated.) I can also vouch for its floatation — it will happily bob on the surface either right-side up, or upside down. Remarkably, it only sounds a little muffled when upside down.
Overall, the Select 4 Go sounds really good — for the price. It doesn’t have quite as much low-end bass as the more expensive JBL Clip 4 (I don’t have the Clip 5 yet), and it’s nowhere near as powerful as the Ultimate Ears Miniroll despite being very similar size-wise. As you might expect, that means some strengths and weaknesses. For pop, rock, jazz, and any other genre that doesn’t rely on throbbing bass, it’s a perfect little companion. That goes for podcasts or vocals-dominant artists like Adele, too. If you’re into hip-hop or Hans Zimmer, or you were hoping to use the Select 4 Go for movies, I mean, you can — I just don’t think you’ll love it.
What you get is clear, well-balanced sound that remains almost completely distortion-free throughout its volume range.
Speaking of volume, this is not the speaker for powering a whole party. But stick it in the middle of a room (either on its back or its bottom foot) and you’ll be surprised by how well its 5 watts of power can fill a space. And not that I want to dump on other products, but if you listen to the Select 4 Go and the first-gen Marshall Willen ($120) you might come to the same conclusion I did: for casual listening, the Select 4 Go is a way better value.
You can use the speaker with Soundcore’s app to get access to 4 EQ presets and a 9-band equalizer, but just keep your expectations in check: These are small tweaks that are nice to have, but they won’t massively alter the sound signature.
Then there’s the battery. Soundcore says that, depending on the volume level, you can get 20 hours out of it. At 50% volume, I think that number checks out, but any louder and it’s going to be less — possibly as little as 16-17 hours. Don’t let that get you down; most portable speakers — even ones that cost many times more than the Select 4 Go — can’t do any better and many are far worse. There’s definitely enough endurance for a full day of adventures with room to spare.
Is it missing anything? Yes, but nothing that should be considered a deal-breaker at this price. You can’t use it as a speakerphone, you can’t use the internal battery to charge your other devices, there’s no auxiliary input for other audio sources, and there’s no support for high-quality Bluetooth codecs.
I’ll finish by paraphrasing my intro: If you need a tiny, rugged, portable Bluetooth speaker in your life, go ahead and buy the Soundcore Select 4 Go. For $25, you can’t go wrong. I suspect it will make its way into a lot of stockings this holiday season.
