Soundcore Motion 300 Portable Speaker review

Последнее обновление 31 окт. 24

Soundcore Motion 300 Portable Speaker review

If you are looking for a speaker that is primarily intended for outdoor use, it is not only important to have good sound, but also for it to be shockproof and resistant to environmental influences. The Soundcore Motion 300 is a really good accessory for adventures where things might get a bit rough. Thanks to its IPX7 rating, it is waterproof and the robust design can withstand being dropped.

Design of the Soundcore Motion 300

The Soundcore Motion 300 weighs just under 780 grams and has handy dimensions of approx. 20 x 9.9 x 5.4 cm. The speaker, which is available in green, blue and black, has rounded edges and a carrying strap on the left, which is attached with a push button. This looks neatly finished, as evidenced by the eyelet, which is stitched to prevent fraying. However, I would have liked the detachable loop to be a finger’s width longer so that it could be slipped on quickly and comfortably with two fingers.

The silicone coating protects the sides and the underside of the speaker. The top is surrounded by a grid that prominently features the manufacturer’s logo, while soft rubber feet on the bottom and back provide a stable and securely separated footing. The USB-C charging port is secured by a rubber cover on the narrow right-hand side, while the power button, pairing button and other controls are located on the top.

The technology of the Soundcore Motion 300

Soundcore uses two full-range drivers in the Motion 300, and these have an astonishingly wide frequency range of 65 Hz to 40 kHz. The stereo speaker is technically state-of-the-art and offers Bluetooth 5.3 including SBC, AAC and LDAC codecs. The latter means that it is Hi-Res Audio certified.

Thanks to Soundcore’s SmartTune technology, the Motion 300 also recognises changes in the speaker’s orientation, and the sound adjusts automatically – regardless of whether the speaker is hanging by its loop, on a table or standing on a shelf.

It should be made clear, however, that due to the design, the stereo image was quite narrow, and channel separation was correspondingly difficult. You can change this by simply pairing a second Motion 300 speaker.

Battery life

The manufacturer states that the Soundcore Motion 300 lasts around 13 hours on a single charge. Of course, this will depend heavily on the volume and the codecs you use. A full charge takes around five hours.

Operation

On the narrow top side, you will find the control panel: Power On/Off, Bluetooth pairing, BassUp mode, volume down, playback and volume up. Press the play button twice to skip forward one track, press it three times to skip back one track and during phone calls, use it to accept, hang up or reject them. Pressing and holding summons the voice assistant. Incidentally, all commands were always executed reliably without any issues or problems.

App connection

The Soundcore app is used with the speaker. It shows the battery life on the start page, as well as a play/pause button and a volume control. This only changes the volume when it is unlocked or when you tap anywhere on the bar. Below, you can click on the equaliser. Here, the sound is pre-set to adapt automatically when the Motion 300 is upright, horizontal or hanging. If these adaptive sound pre-sets don’t suit you, you can define your own pre-sets with a 9-band EQ. You can also choose between four additional EQ curves (“Soundcore Signature”, “Extra Bass”, “Voice” and “Balanced”). In the Soundcore app, you can deactivate the start and shutdown sound, which was a bit too loud for our taste, and you can also adjust the automatic switch-off time (switch off or 5, 10, 20, 60 minutes), adjust the brightness of the buttons (Off, Low, Mid, High) and run firmware updates.

How does the Soundcore Motion 300 sound?

With a speaker of this size, and lack of resonance body, it should be obvious that bass cannot be adequately reproduced. That’s why they use a DSP here, and this primarily amplifies the low and mid-range. However, the bass was still reproduced with vigour and the BassUp switch added a bit more weight to this. However, it did not always fit.

The mids were clear but could be masked by bass. For spoken content such as podcasts or radio plays, it would be worth using the “Voice” EQ pre-set, which provided better intelligibility. The treble was surprisingly clear and present, although it was noticeable that it felt more present when the Soundcore Motion 300 was lying down and not when it was standing upright. If you turn the speaker up really loud, you can hear how the DSP tries to prevent distortion. It does this quite well, but you could not say that this was a fine-resolution sound image. It also seemed as if the BassUp function artificially cut the bass and took away energy in order to avoid annoying resonances or distortions.

And what exactly was the benefit of the high-resolution LDAC codec? Did the qualitative gain ever materialise? Our 24-bit/96kHz test tracks only demonstrated minimal differences – if any – when we switched back and forth between AAC and LDAC. The codec-related forced pause when switching made a 1:1 comparison extremely difficult. Nevertheless, we had the feeling that the sound was a little more open and detailed on some tracks.

Phone calls with Soundcore’s Motion 300

During our test calls, we were always able to understand the other person well and were surprised at how clear and unmuffled their voice was. Our conversation partner had just as few problems the other way around. A nice extra that not many competitors offer is that this makes the speaker suitable for video conferencing.

Conclusion

The compact Soundcore Motion 300 is robustly built and offers two full-range drivers with a combined output of 30 watts. Thanks to app connectivity, this Bluetooth speaker is pleasantly flexible, and the premium Bluetooth codec LDAC is designed to ensure even higher audio quality. Thanks to the hands-free function, this handy, outdoor-compatible speaker can even be used for phone calls.We, therefore, recommend the Soundcore Motion 300.

Soundcore Motion 300 Wireless Hi-Res Portable Speaker Bluetooth Speaker SmartTune Technology 30W Stereo Sound