JBL has made a lot of different speakers and listening devices to date. The JBL Charge 4 is one of the more popular JBL options. This speaker promises greater autonomy, the ability to charge your phone, and an abundance of other features that are catching people’s attention all over the world. Whether it’s because of its incredible design or abundance of features, you may be drawn to the JBL Charge 4 Speaker. 

Regardless of the reason, we’re going to dive right in and give a complete JBL Charge 4 review going over its specs, features, and of course the JBL Charge 4 price to determine if it’s really worth it or not.

Pros and Cons 

When it comes to doing a complete JBL Charge 4 review, we think it’s important to start off with the pros and cons before jumping right into the review.

Pros	Cons
Fantastic Sound Performance	Too Much Latency
Great design	Cannot use hands-free kit
Voice Guides
Capable to connect to several devices

Tech Specs 

The first thing we should start off with when it comes to the JBL Charge 4 review is the technical features of this headset. The Charge 4 has an IPX7 certification which means that it’s waterproof, a common factor found with most JBL speakers. Although you shouldn’t take it in the deep end in the pool, it’s able to withstand any splashes, beach trips, and surprise rain showers. 

In terms of connection to devices, the JBL Connect + function allows you to connect several devices to the speaker all through Bluetooth. That being said, this JBL Charge 4 speaker doesn’t feature a built-in microphone so you actually can’t do any hands-free, voice command options. 

Design 

When it comes to the JBL Charge 4 price, it’s well worth it due to the high-quality design of the speaker. The speaker is a cylindrical shape which is a signature shape for most JBL speakers. This particular model is domed and covered with a braided like pattern which makes it fairly resistant to dust. There are also little pads where the speaker makes contact so you won’t leave any scratches on surfaces as well. 

There’s a rigid plastic that’s covering the whole speaker. Not only does this look great but it’s also designed to protect the speaker with a combination of plastic and nylon as well. The end result of all these materials together – a robust, heavy-duty appearance. 

As mentioned earlier with the IPX7 certification, the speaker is fairly waterproof which was also taken into consideration with the materials and the overall design. It shouldn’t be immersed in water for 30 minutes or more, but if it’s raining outside or falls into a puddle, you can have peace of mind that your speaker won’t be destroyed. 

It’s important that the covering of the speaker is a high-quality fabric so that the water doesn’t in fact damage it. JBL has found the perfect material that protects the speaker efficiently but also allows for even and balanced audio distribution as well. 

Features and Controls 

When it comes to finding the perfect speaker for you, the features and controls are definitely something to take into consideration. The construction of the JBL Charge 4 is fairly simple, and that continues on throughout including with the features and controls. 

There are clearly visible manual keys which is how you operate the device. That means that there’s an on and off button, Bluetooth pairing button, and other indicators like adjusting volume, play and pause, or skip between tracks. 

With the use of the JBL Connect + function, using the app you can connect the JBL Charge 4 speaker and another device to be equipped with more power and therefore more sound. 

Although the speaker is Bluetooth, it doesn’t have a microphone so don’t expect the JBL speaker to be able to answer any phone calls or do any hands-free voice-activated commands. 

The JBL Charge 4 charger comes with a variety of different plugs and ports. There’s a micro-USB output, a USB-C port, and a mini-jack input, and USB-A input. This makes it possible to put in a variety of different JBL Charge 4 chargers or plugs and listen to a variety of different devices. 

Sound Quality 

The point of a speaker is to be able to listen to things so sound quality is very important. The JBL brand has produced a lot of audio devices, Bluetooth speakers being a major selling point for the JBL brand. 

When looking at a JBL Charge 4 review, we tested the sound quality in a variety of different settings and situations to ensure that we are getting the full and total picture when it comes to this Bluetooth speaker. We noticed that it had a fairly balanced sound with good frequencies and overall no clumsiness even at the different spectra levels. 

With the speaker having two passive radiators, the bass accentuates around 70 Hz. However, the back lacks a little bit of control and sometimes seems to invade everything. We also notice that with the presence of the mediums, the sound overall enhances the sound set. 

When it comes to vocals, they are very clear and distinguished when listening regardless of the volume or where you are listening to it. Personally, we find the happy medium is listening to the speaker at a volume around 60% or so because if you go beyond that, you may notice the mids and the highs being a little distorted. 

When it comes to the level of latency, this JBL Charge 4 speaker stands at over 330 milliseconds, which means you will hardly be able to watch your videos. We recommend if you’re going to do that, you go through the analog input instead. 

Lastly, that previous point brings up a good point. You will notice a difference when it comes to the sound performance of the speaker depending on whether you use a JBL Charge 4 charger and plug it in or if you connect something through Bluetooth. 

JBL Comparison 

JBL Flip 5 vs. JBL Charge 4 

As we mentioned, there are quite a few JBL products on the market so it’s hard to know what JBL speaker will be best for you and your needs. When comparing JBL Charge 4 to other speakers on the market, we found the JBL FLip 5 a comparable model and something that a lot of people seem to debate. Therefore we thought comparing the two in our JBL Charge 4 review post would make sense. 

In terms of the design, there’s hardly any difference and the two look very similar. They both feature a cylindrical shape with the standard JBL branding at the front of the speaker. We think that the rigid plastic that’s on both speakers looks great and functions as needed when making them both splash and rainproof. They’re also both manual when it comes to controls and functions as well. 

In terms of sound, both the speakers don’t actually have a built-in stereo speaker which is because of the absence of the subwoofer prescient. 

In terms of tech specs, the Charge 4 requires about 5 hours to fully charge, but once full you can get about 20 hours of listening time. For the Flip 5, for charging the device for 2.5 hours, you get about 12 hours of battery life. So that means the Charge 4 has an overall longer life and the Flip 5 will have to be charged more often, but for shorter increments.  

A nice feature about the Charge 4 that the Flip doesn’t have is the auto-shutoff. This will turn your speaker off if it’s not being used after a certain amount of time (pre-programmed) so you don’t waste any of your battery power. 

Overall the two are fairly comparable so just depending on what’s the most important factors to you when it comes to speakers, that will help narrow down your selection of the right JBL speaker for you. 

Overall Thoughts

The JBL Charge 4 speaker is a fairly great speaker. In terms of design and functionality, it gets a solid rating from us. The sound quality is pretty good and balanced which is important. We would have loved to see a microphone included for hands-free controls, but that’s not completely necessary and hardly missed at all. 

We hope this JBL Charge 4 review helped give you a better idea if the JBL Charge speaker is the right one for you and your needs. Overall, for the JBL Charge 4 price, it’s definitely a decent Bluetooth speaker option in our opinion.

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