Review: USB Fever, MP3/PC Small Sound Box

Posted by: Peter Murphy on Sep 13 2008

So work is crazy, and I have had this item, an external speaker unit, from USB Fever, sitting in my locker at work, and whilst I waited for things to cook today, I thought I’d try it out rather than twiddle my thumbs, or reading my news feeds. One thing that got me with these speakers right away, was the fact that this is the first time I’ve gotten anything from USB Fever that was not in a generic/plain box. You will note the condition of the packaging I’m sure, the quaint Asian to English translation, and the somewhat worn look of the packaging. I’ve never received anything from USB Fever for review, that has not come in an unpadded envelope.  Thus the worn look, postal workers don’t wear kid gloves as we know. Considering that, I’ve never received anything from them broken either, testimony to the sturdiness, and their judgment in saving on packaging. So just to say it cost HK$ 22.20/US$ 2.99 to send this, when the item retails for US$ 14.99, it cuts their profit down quite a bit. I know in the photo above it looks pretty dinky, but using it today I was quite happy with how it worked with internet streaming radio on my axim in a pretty noisy environment.

So What’s in the box?

I know it looks like I’ve been hanging out at Pixar, and have a few spare parts from a recent kids movie, but that’s not the case. Inside the box are, from top to bottom, the speaker unit itself, the DC charger for the unit, and of course the USB charger cable.

To note the speaker unit itself, comes with a built in headphone cable and plug that is only 18 inches long, the speaker in use is not going far from your device of choice.

The unit itself is quite small, (that’s it on the left, sitting atop my Axim) highly portable, weighs nothing, and could quite easily transported in a pocket if need be. For something this inexpensive, the build quality is good, the sound quality is… I’ll get to that later, the battery life is better than the Axim’s when running Core player, on a full charge, when using streaming media the Axim started sending me messages before the blue LED on the  speaker unit started to dim.

That picture makes the speaker unit look even more animated.

On the back left of the unit, you can see the charger input, (from left to right) the off/on switch and the volume control. It is a very simple speaker unit, and I would say designed for utility, not the audiophile that want’s a high quality music experience from a PC or mobile device.

One thing I would say now is battery life is great, I’ve been using the review unit all day, without charging it and it is still showing no signs of a lack of responsiveness.

Conclusion

This is something that most people would think of as a toy, not something you’d expect to offer a quality sound experience, in the simplest of terms, it is a low cost, utility speaker unit, to get you sound when you need it and don’t have your Sennheiser’s handy. I enjoyed this because I used it with the Axim, and then came home and it was a useful utility, combined with my laptop.

All in all though, functional and cheap, something to add to the mobile quiver, as a just in case.

Available from USB Fever for US $ 14.95

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