JBL Pulse 4 Speaker Review

The JBL Pulse 4 is a cylindrical speaker that's meant to sit vertically. Both of its color variants have a unique transparent exterior. It also has 360-degree RGB lights that you can customize through buttons on the speaker or using its companion app.

This speaker is incredibly portable. You can carry it in one hand since it's fairly small and lightweight. It also uses a battery, so you can bring it outside without finding an outlet.

The JBL Pulse 4 has a decent build quality. The speaker is wrapped in transparent, glass-like plastic, which feels solid. However, it easily attracts fingerprints, so you may need to clean it regularly. It sits on three plastic feet that raise it above the surface it's on. It's also rated IPX7 for water resistance, so you can submerge it in up to a meter of water for up to thirty minutes without issue.

The controls are located at the top of the speaker, and they're all easy to press. There are buttons for adjusting the volume and a play/pause button that you can press twice to skip a track. However, there's no option for going to a previous track. There's also a 'PartyBoost' button, which allows you to link multiple 'PartyBoost' compatible speakers. The power, Bluetooth pairing, and 'PartyBoost' buttons all light up when in use. The speaker's 360-degree RGB lights can be adjusted using the 'Light' button, and you can shake the speaker to sync the lights with other connected 'PartyBoost' speakers. There's also a light on the back that indicates the battery level. Although the speaker beeps when it reaches max volume, there's no sound to indicate when it reaches minimum volume.

• JBL Pulse 4 speaker
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• User Manual

This smaller speaker struggles to reproduce a deep and rumbling low bass, which is most noticeable with genres like EDM and hip-hop. Still, its mids are quite balanced, meaning voices and other lead instruments are clear and present in the mix. Unfortunately, there aren't any customization tools on hand for its sound.

This speaker's 360-degree design lends itself to excellent directivity, meaning you get consistent sound from all angles around the device. That said, it has to downmix stereo content into mono to play it back, so you don't get a clear separation between the right and left channels with stereo tracks.

This speaker gets loud enough to fill an average-sized living room with sound, and there isn't too much compression when you push it to max volume. That said, it's not really meant for larger or more open spaces.

The manufacturer advertises this speaker to last 12 hours off a single charge, which is pretty consistent with our test results. There's even a power-saving feature to shut the speaker off after twenty minutes without an audio file, which helps conserve battery life. That said, charging back up takes quite a while, which isn't ideal for everyone.

The JBL Portable app is okay. It's compatible with iOS and Android, and you can use it to make patterns for the speaker's RGB lights. You can pair two speakers to create a stereo pair or link them with the 'Party Mode' feature to amplify audio for a larger space. The 'Equalizer' feature makes a light pattern, but the app doesn't include sound adjustments like an EQ. If you want a similar speaker that's more customizable, check out the next-generation JBL Pulse 5.

You can't use this speaker wired. It comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable for charging.

Wirelessly connecting this speaker to your mobile devices via Bluetooth is easy. You can even pair it up to two devices at the same time. Overall, AV sync error falls within pretty good limits, especially with Android devices, so you don't notice much delay between the audio you hear and the visuals on screen. It's worth noting that some apps compensate for this differently, though.