Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 Speaker Review

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has a sleek design that looks somewhat similar to a lunch box or a car battery and has a removable leather handle to help transport it. Underneath its aluminum grille, there's dark blue mesh which is visible when looking at the speaker at an angle. You can also find the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 in 'Grey Mist', which is mostly white with gold mesh.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has excellent portability. This medium-sized speaker is fairly lightweight and comes with a removable carrying strap to help you carry it in one hand. Since it's battery-powered, it doesn't need to remain wired to a power outlet to work, so you can easily bring it along with you on the go.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20's build quality is alright, and the speaker feels solid overall. Its top and base are plastic, and an aluminum grille is wrapped around the speaker's body to protect its drivers. Its top surface is flat with raised edges to place and charge devices like your phone atop it. There's also a removable leather strap to help you transport it. Unfortunately, the manufacturer doesn't specify an IP rating for water or dust resistance and advises against exposing the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 to water or using it near a water source.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has a standard selection of easy-to-use controls, though they aren't texturized, meaning it's hard to tell what the controls are without looking at them. You can double-press its play/pause button to skip tracks and triple-press it to backtrack. To create a stereo pair, you can press and hold the Bluetooth button on the first speaker for five seconds until it emits an audible prompt, and then do the same on a second compatible Beolit speaker. Once you pair both speakers, they emit another audible prompt to inform you that they're connected. The Bluetooth light flashes blue when it's in pairing mode and turns solid blue once you pair the speaker.

When the speaker is on, the light next to its power button turns white. There's also a light on the speaker's rear that's green when connected to a power source and flashes red when its battery is almost empty. The surface on top of the speaker acts as a wireless charging pad which you can use to charge compatible devices like a phone or earbuds cases. There's an indicator light that flashes orange when it's charging a device, turns green once the device is fully charged, and then turns off. There's also a light that blinks as you increase and decrease the speaker's volume and turns solid once you reach its minimum or maximum volumes.

• Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• Quick User Guide
• Plug adapters (US, UK, EU)

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has a decent frequency response accuracy. With its 'Optimal' preset enabled, its sound profile is fairly balanced overall. Its balanced mid-range ensures vocals and lead instruments sound clear and present in the mix, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of music genres. The overemphasis in the bass range also adds a touch of extra boom and punch to the mix, which is great for bass-heavy music-lovers.

That said, while it produces a good amount of bass for its size, it still struggles to reproduce the deep thump and rumble typically present in low-bass. Also, while higher-pitched voices sound clear and crisp, sibilants like S and T sound harsh at times. Fortunately, you can tweak its sound to your liking using its EQ presets and 'Beosonic' sound customization feature, though it still likely isn't enough to feel much thump and rumble in the low-bass range.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has a very good soundstage performance. This stereo speaker has decent directivity, meaning its soundstage is perceived as immersive and spacious-sounding, and you can hear your audio clearly from most angles.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20's dynamics performance is okay. It can get decently loud, making it suitable to use in small to medium-sized rooms or at a small gathering. It isn't loud enough to fill large crowded rooms like at parties. There's also some compression present at max volume, especially in the bass range. It degrades audio quality as you bump up the speaker's volume, so your audio doesn't sound as clean and clear at louder volumes as it is at more moderate volume levels.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20's battery performance is just okay. While it doesn't take very long to charge, the speaker only lasts a little under six hours from a single charge, which isn't ideal for long listening sessions and needs to recharge regularly. However, battery performance varies depending on your listening habits, chosen settings, and volume levels, so your experience can vary. It's also important to note that while you can use the top of the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 to charge devices like your phone or earbud case, this causes the speaker's battery to drain faster. There's a power-saving feature that shuts the speaker off following 15 minutes of inactivity.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20's app isn't bad. You can use it to pair the speaker to another Beolit 20 or a Beolit 17 when you want to create a stereo pair. There are also five customizable EQ presets you can choose from: Optimal, Ambient, Party, Speech, and Favorite. While there's no traditional graphic EQ, you can use its sound customization feature, which Bang & Olufsen calls 'Beosonic'. You can find it next to the 'Favorite' preset and can use it to tweak the speaker's sound to your liking by moving around the sound circle to make your audio sound brighter, warmer, more energetic, or more relaxed. You can also save your favorite 'Beosonic' settings in the 'Favorite' preset.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 features an AUX input you can use to wire your devices to the speaker. However, unlike the Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 Gen 2 and the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore, you can't use its USB-C charging port to playback audio.

The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 has great Bluetooth connectivity. It has an outstanding range, so your paired device remains connected to the speaker even from far away. You can also pair it to up to two devices at once, which is handy when you need to quickly switch between audio sources. However, while it has low latency with iOS devices, its latency is high with Android devices. It can cause the audio you hear to be out of sync with the visuals you see when using the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 to watch movies and videos. Some apps compensate for latency differently, and your experience may vary.