Tsumbay NX-5025 Clock/Bluetooth Speaker Review

[spwath]

Full disclosure, I received this from Tsumbay at no cost to me in exchange for a review on it.

Now to the review.

 

 

Looks and Build

Looks pretty good, all black. Build is better than I would expect. Mostly metal. The top plate is metal, the sides/back are a metal speaker grill, the front is a shiny black plastic that the numbers appear in.

Bottom is all rubber, and it is nice and secure on any flat surface. Wont slide around at all. 8 buttons and the microphone on the top, on/off switch, aux port, micro usb port, and micro SD port on the back. Overall a solid and inoffensive design, better than some other Bluetooth speakers.

 

Features

Most Bluetooth speakers only are a Bluetooth speaker, probably with an aux port as well. However, this one does more. It features a clock, an alarm, a thermometer, a humidity sensor, a radio, and a micro SD card port, as well as the usual Bluetooth and aux port. The clock is accurate, and keeps time with a backup battery, but there is an issue. It only display 24 hour time, and can not be set to display 12 hour time. May be good for the Europeans, but not for Americans. I have to think about what time it is every time it is after 12. Along that note, it only display temperature in Celsius, though it does seem fairly accurate. These two things are probably stopping many American buyers from purchasing the clock. The 24 hour issue seem like it could be fixed with a firmware update, though new hardware would need to be implemented in order to give an F for Fahrenheit. Up to 3 different alarms can be set, but you can not set them up to go off on different days. There are 5 alarm sounds, including a short segment of "My Country Tis of Thee" for the patriotic folks, and "Greensleeves" for folks of the medieval era. The alarm can also be set to play of the micro SD card, or from the radio. The brightness of the display can be set to 10%, 50%, or off, if one wanted to just use it as a speaker, and conserve battery life. 

 

Sound

The micro SD card slot can only read certain micro SD cards, I'm guessing it has to be 32gb or under, formatted as FAT32. I only had a 128gb micro SD card, and it could not read it. The radio function is fairly easy to use. When you first turn to the radio, it searches for channels. It finds all the available channels in your area, and saves them to presets. Then you can just go through the presets of found channels. It doesn't get the best reception, like something with a large external antenna, but it is better than I expected, and I can get all the channels I want clearly. Interesting feature, I have not seen a Bluetooth speaker with a  built in radio before. Bluetooth is fairly painless, just a simple pairing process. Gets reception from a decent distance, but I found sometimes, even with the phone close to the speaker, it would cut out for a second, and come right back. Most of the time, it was fine though. The aux port works as expected, no issues at all with that. Sound wise, it sounds pretty good for its size. More bass than I expected. It doesn't compare to my Sennheiser HD650 headphones or my Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers, but that isn't a fair comparison. Compared to my moms Anker Bluetooth speaker, it sounds better. Definitely usable as a Bluetooth speaker. When placed on a flat surface, like a table, the bass increases a lot, probably due to the rubber base of the speaker coupling it to the surface. Inspecting through the speaker grill with a flashlight, it appears to have 2 drivers of approximately 1" on the front/side facing diagonal panels. On the rear, there is a large passive radiator to increase the bass. It can get loud. Louder than needed. Goes from 1-32 for some reason.... One thing I do not like, in order to skip track you short press the button, but to adjust volume, you long press. The other way around would have made more sense.

 

Conclusion

This is a very good speaker with loads of features. If Tsumbay would update it to have 12 hour time, Fahrenheit, and short press for volume, it would be a sure recommendation. Without that update, it is up to you. If you can look past the 24 hour time and Celsius, it makes a great Bluetooth speaker, with plenty of extra features.