Edifier MP200 A Cute Cubic Speaker Review

2019, is here and it should be another great year to be a gamer, movie fan, tech geek and so much more. There has been a lot of change here at Invision (IGC) in 2018, new members joining, old members leaving, a loss of a child at only 8 weeks old, been heartache, pain, and lies aplenty from people that thought they were helping by not telling the truth. 2019 though for me, is new, I was the one that lost my little girl Esmé at only 8 weeks and within this review is my announcement, the biggest change in my life and a review of a speaker that I felt would be amazing for what I wanted it for, so without further ado… here we go

Yes, a picture of a babies room, and I would like to announce the birth of my little boy Elias who was born 07.02.2019. Above is the picture of his room, all gaming, and Mario designed, as I am a huge Nintendo Fan. We learned a lot with our little girl, even though it was so short, music and sounds were one of those aspects. We found out that our girl slept much better with white noise over melodies, the only issue we had, was that all the sounds would come from my mobile phone. So when someone would call or message, it would wake up my little girl, so it was not the best idea, but it worked when people were just leaving me alone.

So this time I thought I needed to do this much better, I need to have a small, wireless, cute and colourful unique speaker and I found it with the Edifier MP200.

Now I did not need something huge, or powerful, I just needed a speaker to do the job I want it to do. The MP200 is only 2 inches in diameter, splash proof and can only push out 5.5watts. Being splash proof is amazing, babies do puke and puke can get everywhere, being a boy, he will be able to pee right over my head and reach places I really do not want pee to reach. The only thing the speaker is going to be used for, within the first few weeks/months is playing music, possibly white noise. Why white noise? Well, its the sound your baby hears when in amniotic fluid, everything is muffled. So white noise is a familiar sound that can help soothe your little one and also help them sleep. When it comes to audio you can play audio files MP3/WMA/WAV/M4A through the microSD Card.

Now, this speaker has everything you want, portable, it is, Bluetooth 4.1 and keeps its connection up to 10m. I tested this connection and I can confirm the 10m range is about right, but I managed to get it a little further 12m before It started losing its connection. It has a Micro SD connection so, if my mobile is in use, or I am out and about with my mobile, I am able to download and install the sounds I need onto an SDcard and not have to worry. That does not mean I am going to go out to the Cinema or clubbing or a meal for two and leave the little man all alone, it just allows me to more control over my mobile phone. I also have a PC with Bluetooth, so I can also stream from that when I am not working on it.

When the item arrived it arrived in its own little box and when opened the speaker was housed in its own plastic dome like a globe, all it needs was some fake snow and you would pretty much have a snow globe. The package comes with 4 manuals in different languages, a lanyard already attached to the speaker with an Edifer cap that allows you to tighten the cord around your wrist. The final item would be a MicroUSB charge cable, just below 1metre long. Now surprisingly Edifier products normally come with a premium price, this speaker comes in at a moderate £49.00 on Amazon, you might even be able to find it cheaper elsewhere.

When holding the speaker with the lanyard attached to my arm, the speakers outer casing feels lovely and smooth like a babies bum, or like my bum used to feel like many years ago, before I started sitting on my butt in offices typing all the time, maybe I should start going to the gym, or maybe not, I am just too lazy.

On one of the sides hidden by a flap, you will find slots for the MicroUSB and the MicroSD Card. Just above the flap is a small LED which will glow blue when in Bluetooth made, Red when you are playing tracks on the SDCard. When you are charging the device from completely dead, can take around 3hrs, that’s a rough estimate, you will notice a white LED and when fully charged it will turn off. After a full charge you can expect an average of 12hours of play time, this is based on the volume you are playing your music on, the higher the volume the less time the speaker will last for.

When looking at the top of the speaker you get a button to answer a call (phone control) this works when you have your phone paired to the device. Play and pause and the power on and off button. Then on the final side, we have buttons that act as a track finder and volume control.

I tested the speakerphone when my parents interrupted my game time, they knew I was not directly on my phone and could tell I was a different device, however, saying that, they said my voice was clear and understandable.

You can also attach the speaker to your PC and your PC will recognise it as an audio speaker via Bluetooth or through USB connection. If you have the speaker attached via USB you can also charge the speaker, handy when you want to take the speaker away when not being used.

The speaker works very well and dishes our a number of hours of listening time, though there seems to be more emphasis on low frequencies over high frequencies when streaming from a mobile phone which offers no way to control the audio sound stage. When streaming from the PC you have a little more control, but this is nowhere near a high-end speaker, and what do you expect for the price and the size of the driver. The speaker is a simple, cute, elegant mobile speaker, and does exactly what a speaker does, outputs sound, with the addition of being able to to use it to answer your phone. This is a great speaker for walkers, campers, and kids, if you are a person with high expectations, then look elsewhere this speaker will not give you what you want from its small sound stage.