Kitsound Hive Bluetooth Wireless portable stereo speaker Review

Kitsound Hive Bluetooth portable speaker
 (with a few friends of the Kitsound Buddy bee speaker and Trendz USB bee.)

Ive something exciting for your music-o-holics out there today, I know Ive brought you quite a number of mini portable speakers this year; but The Kitsound Hive is one I'm excited about as Ive heard so many good things and seen so many great reviews.

Ive also had the opportunity to review a few of Kitsound's products already and know what great quality they are.

 So when Kitsound offered to send me a couple of their best speakers to bring you to review I couldn't wait to try them.

 The Kitsound Hive  and  The Kitsound Boombar 2

 (The Boombar 2 is an upgrade to the Boombar.)

Today I'm bringing you The Kitsound Hive

Click on the jump to read my full photo-loaded review and video below

Packaging
You know I love great packaging on products as I feel if the company has taken the time and effort on the outside; the inside has to be good.
Kitsound always make a huge effort on their packaging and the Hive is no exception. Great colour design of elegant greys and yellow contrasting sides with a good product photo.
Inside you pull out an inner box which is...yes you guessed it is bright yellow.

This bright yellow inner box has some cool hive hexagonal shape designs cutouts so you can pop them out and use it as a gift box with your own writing on. Inside this you have yet another...yellow box containing the cables, pouch and user manual. Along side it you have your Hive in a soft plastic bag.

 In the box you get your 

• Hive speaker.
• Micro USB charging cable.
• Axillary cable.
• User manual.
• Velvet black pouch storage bag.

Description

The Hive Bluetooth Wireless portable stereo speaker does alot for its cute size; this black rubberized coated speaker is built to withstand a few knocks which I love as in this house we have pets that can be quite curious. I also like to take my portable speakers outside in the garden or to another room and don't want to be worrying about chipping paint etc.

I absolutely adore the Hive design as they've used the bee hive hexagonal styling for the speaker cutouts and added accents all over the speaker. Ive always had a soft spot for bees so I really appreciate the design.

Even the three buttons across the top are hexagonal in shape to add something different to round buttons. You have your Bluetooth, minus and plus buttons which are extremely responsive and have a high quality feel to them.

The side of the speaker has the Auxiliary in port, the transparent on/off button with LEDs, plus the Micro USB charging port.

Each of these are very neatly set into a hexagon accent; everything has been thoroughly thought out.

 The back of the Hive also has the added hexagonal accents so it looks good from all sides.

 Underneath the hive its hexagonal theme even extends to the four little rubber feet. Here you can see the passive radiator to provide full warm, bass sound.

The Science Bit

• Bluetooth; V2.1.
• Range: Up to 10 meters.
• Playtime: Up to 10 hours.
• Output: 5W RMS (2.5W@4ohm x2).
• S/N Ratio: 78dB.
• Frequency response: 50Hz - 20kHz.
• Aux: 3.5mm. 

Measurements
16.5cm long x 4.9cm depth x 6.1cm high.
Weight is 400g.


Charging
Its easy to charge the Hive, simply plug in the micro USB to your USB on PC or wall and leave for at least 4 hours especially the first time.

When charging the on/off button glows red and once charged it glows green. Once green you then have 6-10 hours play time; depending on volume levels.

Pairing

This couldn't be easier.

• Turn on the Hive via side on/off button.
• Press and hold the Bluetooth button on the top for 5 seconds and you will get a lovely electronic bleep and the indicator light on the front bottom right hand side will flash red and blue alternatively.
• Turn on Bluetooth on the device you wish to use and my phone scanned and found it within a few seconds; saying Hive on my Bluetooth list.
• The light on the front will remain a stationary blue once its found the connection. 

 Your ready to rock!

 My own Sound Comparison between my Samsung S4 and the gorgeous Hive.

Sound

I was expecting alot from this little guy and I wasn't disappointed, the Hive really does deliver gorgeous controlled mid ranges and trebles as well as warm bass. I still personally wanted a bit more bass but its certainly gave some rumble when turned up to around 3/4. Anymore and I got distortion on my bass so you may have to juggle with your devices equalizer to get it just right.

I'm so happy the sound is gorgeous all round and definitely one of the best speakers I have in sound, design and the fact its Bluetooth with brilliant range. It states 10m, but I left it upstairs went to the bottom of the stairs and it still worked, turned to another room and it faltered a bit. We live in a cottage with foot thick bricks; outside it managed at least 15m with nothing in between so its quite impressive.

Portability
I love companies that offer pouches and cases to use with their products and again we get a lovely black velvet pouch to store the Hive in.

 

Its portable to a limit but its actually a bit too big for most of my handbags, it would fit easily into a tote size bag or large handbag or even a rucksack; but its a bit weighty to carry around all day especially if hiking etc; if your based at a camp site its perfect. 

Weight wise, I would say its equivalent to a tin of baked beans and a tin opener, or a small first aid kit; so incase of a zombie apocalypse what would you rather have a tin of baked beans or your music. 

This adorable Hive is ideal as a home speaker to move from room to room or take outside for a barbeque or while your gardening or to take away in a caravan its ideal as its rectangular design is very stable and wont roll around.

But its not mobile enough to carry around while hiking its a little too heavy for me.

It almost comes in as an in between size speaker for me.

If you need really portable I would recommend the Kitsound Cadet I reviewed earlier this year as its quite a bit smaller and rounder it fits easier into a handbag.
Or the cute Kitsound Buddy bee speaker.

Opinion

This gorgeous Hive fills a room with your favorite vibes, it looks elegant and stylish especially with the choice of colours available and it can take a knock or two with its tough rubberized coat; although this coat also shows up finger prints and dust. It has good bass and with a bit of juggling with your equalizers you can turn it up high with no distortion. The radiator underneath really does make a difference for such a small speaker. I even turned it on its end so the bass side faces me and it gives you more bassey sound. But I personally still wanted a bit more, but that's just me as Im a complete bass-aholic.

Its one of the best bass speakers I own and its really getting some use here on my desk infront of me as I type.

 The fact its stereo 5 Watt speakers (2.5W x 2) too makes the sound really good. It looks yummy on my desk and it gets alot of admiring glances from friends and family.

The fact it comes with a lovely velvet pouch means I can pop it in a bag and take it with me and the rubberized coat will protect it from any bangs and small falls. 

Pro's

• Powerful amplifier.
• Passive radiator for warm bass.
• Sturdy design.
• Bluetooth connectivity.
• Rechargeable.
• 10 hours of playtime approx.
• Black velvet pouch to keep it in.

Con's

• No SD card slot, but Kitsound offer many other alternatives if you want an SD card slot.

Buy your own Kitsound Hive

Choose from 5 great colours
For ONLY
£39

All my thanks goes to the lovely girls at Kondor/Kitsound for sending me this gorgeous speaker for this review.
All my views and opinions are my own.

If you after something different checkout my other Kitsound Reviews below

Kitsound Cadet

Deadmau5

KitSound Clash On-Ear Headphones with In-Line Mic

If you loved the Trendz USB Bee in the above photos see my review below.

 

Trendz Character Bee 8Gb USB drive

 

Kinivo BTH240 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones Review

Kinivo  BTH240 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

Hiya people sorry for the slight delay in this post but things have been a bit hectic round here; but were back ontrack and have a huge variety of reviews and products coming up to share with you see here.

So today I have something for the sound-a-holics out there. Are you going on holiday, camping or to the gym, have you packed your headphones yet...stop...and checkout these sleek, elegant, on ear headphones from Kinivo.

Kinivo is a company founded in 2010 and based in Washington USA; they offer innovative electronic products that help customers in their home, at work or when they are on the move.

Kinivo ZX100 Mini Portable Speaker

I recently reviewed this mini portable speaker from Kinivo which was just gorgeous, so Im looking forward to sharing these on ear headphones with you all  read on.......

Packaging
The packaging of the BTH240 is nice and simple, as much as I love luxury packaging keeping things simple keeps costs down for us all. It has a good photo of what your buying and explains all the techie bits on the back its still good to wrap up and give as a gift...you have to start thinking of Christmas soon guys sorry!

Whats in the box
Inside the box you get your Kinivo "On-ear" headphones, a micro USB charging cable and a concise easy to read and understand manual.

 Plus a beautiful black velvet pouch.

Description

These Kinivo BTH240 Bluetooth headphones are a new and improved design to the BTH220 design.

Kinivo BTH220 original design

The improved design has a new look and new features.

• Sleek new design- smooth black frame with silver lining and a compact button layout.
• Micro USB Charging port.
• Increased battery life - Up to 10 hours of music and talk time.
• Reduced LED brightness - Modified LED design for a more comfortable experience. (I find this odd, could people really complain that the LED is "too" bright when its sitting on your ears...really!).

 Main Features

• Lightweight (73g) foldable design provides maximum portability and storage.
• Rechargeable- Built in battery provides up to 10 hours of uninterrupted talk/music time or 200 hours in stand-by mode.
• Hands-free, the BTH240 has a built in noise cancelling microphone. Music will automatically pause when receiving an incoming call.

Device Compatibility

• iPhone5, 4S, 4, 3GS.
• All iPads, iPod touch.
• Android phones and tablets.
• PS3 (Supports ONLY chat audio).

Kinivo BTH240 Headphone is covered by 1 year limited hardware warranty. 

Measurements

The headphone cups themselves are 5.5cm in diameter each.          

They are extremely lightweight but they have a high quality feel to them and the piano black gloss really adds an air of luxury. You can see from the image above and most of my images in this review how glossy they are by the cloud reflections on them as I shot them outside.
(I can assure you they are not fingerprints).

 The first headphone has the Kinivo logo printed on a silver band; the second headphone has all the buttons on....see below.

 Kinivo Logo

 This right-hand headphone has all your controls on, and the microphone.

• The central button turns the headphones on and off by holding for 4-5 seconds and you will see the LED turn blue and the same to turn off when you will see a red LED.
• The LED lets you know what the headphones are doing, blue for playing or just being on and red when charging. It will flash alternate blue and red while searching for Bluetooth. 
• The volume buttons are rocker switches for up an down.
• Then the arrows skip to next or previous song choice...simples!

All these buttons are easy to get too even while wearing them, its easy to get used to where they are without having to see them.

On the side of this headphone you have a neat little Micro USB charging port; covered by a small rubber dust flap that slots securely into place to protect from dust and damp.

 From here you can charge your headphones with the cable provided.

This takes approximately 2-3 hours for a full charge; of course when you first get your headphones charge for the full time of 3 hours to be sure. You can see here the LED glows red while charging.

 The underside has super soft black leatherette material for the ultimate in comfort.

 These have half a centimeter of plushiness and believe me they really are comfortable and sooo soft. I feel these will be hard wearing as they are well stitched and well padded .

The headband itself is made of a strong flexible plastic. They have a slight springyness to them to take the wear and tear of being pulled on and off the head.

 Each headphone is on a small plastic hinge to easily twist them round to sit comfortably onto your ears. I cant say at this time how hard wearing these hinges will be but they are absolutely fine at the moment and they've had alot of use.

Use

As soon as I got these I whacked them onto charge as I couldn't wait to try them, I love the design and the high quality feel and looked forward to hearing what they sounded like. A huge bonus is that they came half charged as I found the red LED turned off after only an hour, but as it was first time charge I continued to 3 hours to make sure.

Bluetooth

Next was to pair them to my Samsung S4 and again so simple to do; yes even for you non-techies out there; dont panic it is easy.

To Pair

• Press and hold the Middle multifunction button for longer than if you would to turn on approx 7-10 seconds or until the LED flashes between red and blue.
  TIP: Don't release when you see the blue LED keep holding till it changes to both.

• Go to settings on the device you wish to pair > Bluetooth > Search/Scan.

Im so impressed as my S4 found the headphones in literally seconds so fast.

Now your ready to Rock......

Kinivo headphones BRH240 paired on my S4

*Ive paired it on my S4 and my Nexus 10; plus Windows 7 with no problems at all.

Once connected to Bluetooth the headphones claim to have approximately 10 meters range...well I beg to differ as I found it makes 15 meters easily and has made up to 20 meters outside with nothing blocking its way.

I can even go downstairs and into a different room with only slight cutting out.

Obviously its better if your phone and you are in the same room you will get the best from your headphones.
Its so well padded I can even sit listening to music and the other person next to me a couple of feet away cannot hear anything.

Wear-ability

There is only 1 way round to wear these and that's with the loops sitting neatly over your ears and the main headphone sits on the right hand side, keeping the writing the right way up. The headband sits behind the head; perfect for those that do not like thick over the head headbands. The leatherette is so soft and the padded ear cup is super comfy with a good grip even while moving about the house, up and down stairs or working out they still stay on.

They maybe wouldn't stay on during a vigorous workout, but yoga, Pilates or using weights, I feel will be fine.

Sound Quality
The sound quality on these headphones is just fantastic; as it has a gorgeous overall sound range which is crystal clear. It has fabulous bass...woohoo with excellent mid ranges too. I'm no expert with sound but as Ive said before I know what I like and what I'm looking for personally.
The volume on these is something else as it goes up higher than I can stand and that says alot as I'm hard of hearing. This is so unusual with companies in our techie age who will often cap the volume to much lower on many devices.

Even though this pair of headphones does not have noise cancelling when listening to music; I can listen to Utube and videos at night right next to my other half and he cant hear anything and vice versa as I cant hear whats going on around me.
It does however have a noise cancelling microphone and it will pause your music when you have an incoming call so your free to chat hands-free and continue your workout or gardening etc.

The luxury looking pouch

Storage
These adorable headphones fold up to half their size to store easily into its own gorgeous velvet pouch so you can keep the manual and cables together.

It looks impressive getting them out of your bag infront of friends too...but beware people will want to borrow them due to their amazing expensive good-looks.

 I like to hang mine on my bag and you have to admit they look fab don't they.

Opinion
I would highly recommend these adorable headphones; they not only have amazing sound for their low-end price; but they look far more expensive than their £21.99....yes I did say £21.99...I simply cant believe they look and sound this good for the price.
These are an ideal affordable gift for someone who wants to keep a pair just for the gym or walking the dog etc; especially with the 10 hours of music or talk time.
They are wireless, rechargeable, lightweight, comfortable and look good with their elegant, modern design so everyone will want to borrow them.

Plus they fold up so small and fit neatly into the supplied black velvet pouch to keep in your bag.

With Christmas creeping up fast...eeep...they are ideal gifts for any music lover. Seriously what can you get for twenty-two quid these days.

Pro's

• Great design.
• Both wireless music headset and Bluetooth phone headset.
• Hands-free.
• Quick charge.
• 10 hour music/talk time.
• Pouch.

Con's

• None.

Buy yours from Amazon for

ONLY

£21.99

Or Kinivo for 

ONLY

$24.99

All my thanks goes to Kinivo for sending me these Headphones free of charge for this review .

All my views and opinions are my own.

Those of you asking about my Samsung S4 Phonecase shown in this review is
The Strawberry Bling case from Mobile Madhouse.
Its also in several colours and designs.