iGear Evoke Bluetooth Solar Charging Speaker Review: Modern music device in retro look
With features like retro styling, radio tuner, multiple connectivity options and solar charging iGear Evoke Only Rs 3,000 It offers a lot for its price. Is it the best low-budget portable speaker currently? Find out in this review.
Solar and micro-USB charging on the iGear Evoke speaker
iGear Evoke bears a lot of resemblance to the Saregama Carvaan series of portable music players. It looks like an old-fashioned radio set. Apart from the style, another element that draws attention to it is its colour options. I got a yellow colour unit. Blue and white colour options are also available.
It has a folding handle on the top for easy carrying. The speaker is placed on the front. The controls and ports are on the front and right side of the device. There is a dial on the front to set the AM/FM/SW radio frequency along with four buttons to control playback and connectivity mode (when using Bluetooth or digital storage media).
On the side of the speaker are a switch for selecting the source (radio or digital media), a USB port, a microSD card slot, an auxiliary socket for 3.5mm connectivity and a micro-USB port for wired charging. There is also a dial that controls power and volume. Turning the dial initially turns the speaker on and then it is used to adjust the volume. The speaker is large and all the controls on the device fit quite comfortably and work well.
There is a solar panel on the top of the iGear Evoke, which keeps the speaker charged as long as it is exposed to sunlight. There is also a telescopic antenna that can enhance the quality of the radio signal.
Solar charging means that the user does not need to plug the speaker in all the time. It also depends a lot on the usage. The company has not given details about the charging time of iGear Evoke. Solar charging is much slower than wired charging and it can take several hours or even days to fully charge the speaker’s battery. Sometimes you may have to rely on USB charging. However, it is still a useful feature. If you take it on a camping trip, it is very useful when there is no access to electricity.
iGear Evoke has a 1200mAh battery. With this you can also charge other devices. This means that you can use the device as a solar-charging power bank in times of emergency, although it will charge at a very slow speed. Apart from this, the speaker has a rated sound output of 5W. Bluetooth 5, FM/AM/SW radio, USB port, microSD card slot and 3.5 mm auxiliary input can be used to play audio. You also get a wall adapter and charging cable with the speaker.
The battery life of the speaker depends on your usage and media source. Since it keeps charging itself in sunlight even when in use, the battery gets drained faster when the speaker is in use than it gets charged. I was playing audio via Bluetooth, which was on medium volume. In this, the speaker was able to give 10 hours of battery life.
Lots of connectivity options, but unsatisfactory sound quality on the iGear Evoke
Although the speaker is quite different in itself, but in terms of sound quality it does not live up to expectations. The sound can be called okay or below average. It also depends on the music source. Even with the best source, the sound quality seems to be low. Listening to it at home for everyday use did not seem bad. The device had a sharp sound which was not clear. The sound experience seemed to match its retro style.
The sound from the FM radio was also not as clear as playing MP3s via Bluetooth or local storage. Even when I was outdoors with the antenna fully extended, the sound was not clear. Music played via Bluetooth and USB drives was much clearer in comparison. Still, the sound was quite faint and there wasn’t much detail.
There is a dial for tuning the radio frequency but it still automatically locks the tuning to the radio station without any hassle. When using digital connectivity, the four physical buttons on the front are used to control music. A small display could also have been provided on which the music track or battery level etc. could have been shown. But, at this price, the absence of a display also seems justified.
I listened to Tiesto’s Boom song on it, and while listening, I had my smartphone connected to the speaker via Bluetooth. The strong beat of the track was heard with low bass and popping sound. The track was not fun to listen to. Apart from this, tracks with heavy bass also sounded quite odd. When I played Jetlag and Axwell’s With the house classic So Right, it felt as if I had placed a heavy blanket on the speaker. This dynamic track also sounded quite muffled.
When playing music from a USB drive at medium volume, the high points of the sound were quite piercing. The vocals were muffled. The music listener can get bored of this very quickly. The same was the case with other tracks as well, where I could not find any details in any track. Despite having so many connectivity options and features, iGear Evoke is not able to deliver good sound quality.
Verdict
There are many affordable wireless speakers available in the market, but iGear Evoke stands out from all of them due to its retro design and solar charging. Its feature of charging other gadgets also seems to be quite useful. Also, there are many connectivity options. The only drawback seen in this is its poor sound quality.
The iGear Evoke lags behind in terms of sound quality, but if you just want a simple device to listen to music occasionally, then you can check it out. If you are more interested in music, then you can check out the Mi Portable Bluetooth Speaker (16W) which is available for Rs 2,499. It produces quite loud sound and is better in terms of performance.
