Sony SRS-XB100 review: a cheap Bluetooth speaker with good sound but too few features
The Sony XB100 was first made available in mid-2023 and is currently priced at a reasonable $49.99 / £44.99 / AU$66. It would appear that Sony made a few sacrifices to lower the cost, but that doesn’t mean this speaker isn’t good value for money. The small print on the Sony website states that the XB100 has up to 16 hours of battery life when the volume is set to 36. Whether that’s the volume level (the volume gauge on the app isn’t numbered), or volume percentage, there’s no easy, if any, way to accurately determine. So instead, I tested the speaker at 50% volume and it reduced by 20% in just under three and a half hours, suggesting that the speaker could last up to the stated 16 hours of playtime. As well as using this Bluetooth speaker to listen to music and podcasts, you can also use the XB100 for hands-free phone calls. To vie for a spot in our best Bluetooth speakers buying guide , it has a feature called Echo Cancelling that is designed to allow two people to speak at once wi...