The BT-205 is a simple, bare bones speaker offering from Audiomotion that’s designed to give users quick and easy access to their music. The BT-205 is by no means a radically styled high-end music player, but that’s perfectly fine as this unit offers solid performance to keep you more than satisfied.

Plain Jane

The design of this Bluetooth speaker is best described as utilitarian, with no unnecessary embellishments to speak of. This look is enhanced by its dimensions, measuring 12 cm by 12 cm, the BT-205 is relatively compact which makes it extremely portable. This compact and lightweight design helps in the promotion of the BT-205 as a VoIP speaker, one of the heavily touted features that its manufacturer boasts. Audiomotion has also fitted it with a noise-cancelling functionality to make the BT-205 ideal for small conference room or office space use.

Setting up and pairing your device with this speaker is effortless and truly serves as one of the areas that the BT- 205 shines. With that being said, there was one aspect of pairing that was quite frustrating. When users switch off the speaker, then switch on shortly after, with your devices’ Bluetooth still enabled, the speaker immediately begins playing content without prompting. This is something that we did not appreciate much and ultimately detracted from an otherwise seamless experience.

Simple, Inside and Out

The BT-205 is powered by a removable 800 mAh lithium-ion battery that produces a respectable six hours of playtime, which makes it ideal for use on short day trips and getaways.

Internally, Audiomotion has fitted two 2” speakers which produces a max power output of 20 watts, situated on either side of the cube. A control panel has been fitted on top of the BT-205, with play/pause, forward, back and volume buttons, with control for all these functions being accessed via a users device as well. The front of the device features an air-intake with the word “BASS” embossed on the plastic cover which seemed a little strange considering the BT-205 did little to distinguish itself as a powerful bass speaker. On the back, users will have access to a plastic latch-mechanism that covers the battery slot, 3.5 mm auxiliary connection for in-line device setup and mini-USB port for USB 2.0 charging cable (both included in speaker’s packaging).

Steady does it

In terms of sound, the BT-205 is simply adequate, with the only issues being the lack of top end sound quality and slightly tinny distortion when the volume was put on full tilt. But this is something we’ve come to expect with entry-to-lower level speakers. The level of volume itself was also disappointingly low, which would lead us to believe that it is better suited to playing in your room or smaller space as opposed to a larger venues requiring greater sound range.

Another issue that arose was some slight static that flickered every now and then while the music was paused. A similar sound occurred when we flipped quickly between songs.

The BT-205 is currently available via Audiomotion’s locally based online store and is listed at R799. Based on the sound quality of the unit, that price seems a little steep for consumers who may feel that they are not truly getting real value for their hard earned coin. One area that we cannot fault the speaker however, is its ease of use and battery life, which will definitely help in enhancing its appeal compared to competitors in the same price range.