Jabra Solemate (white)

Following, so to speak, in the footsteps of Jawbone's popular Jambox, Jabra's Solemate is one of several compact Bluetooth speakers to hit the market this year and it's arguably one of the better ones, with a distinct, footwear-inspired design and decent sound for its size.

As its name implies, the Solemate has been cleverly designed to resemble a sneaker, complete with a carrying strap that looks like the loop on the back of some athletic shoes. The speaker is pretty small, but it's got a little bit of heft to it, weighing in at 1.34 pounds, and is larger than the popular 12-ounce Jawbone Jambox, which now costs slightly less (around $179).

Design
I liked Solemate's design and the treaded rubber base helps keep it from moving around when you play it at higher volumes. On top of the Solemate are three large buttons, two of which raise and lower volume. The third gives battery status and serves as an Answer and End key when the Solemate is in Speakerphone mode.

A switch on the right side turns the speaker on and off or places it in pairing mode. This is where you'll also find a 3.5mm audio input for connecting devices that don't support Bluetooth. And below the line-in there's a Micro-USB port for charging the device and administering any firmware upgrades.

The Jawbone Jambox (like the Jawbone Big Jambox) has similar connectivity and button options, but Jabra's added a little extra flair to its design by stowing a line-in cable on the bottom of the device, in the tread on the bottom. You have to take it out of its groove to use it, but it's great to have easy access to in case you need it.

Bag it
CNET colleague Brian Bennett and I agree that one of the slicker features of the Solemate is the included "sound bag" accessory, which doubles as a splash-resistant cover and protective carrying case. The bag's textured surface is designed to keep moisture, dirt, and sand out, but allows sound to escape virtually unimpeded. That's right, the Solemate sounds essentially the same in or out of its sound bag, which makes it great for backyard and beach parties.

Performance
I used the Solemate in a couple of different ways and played around with its positioning, placing it on a table, then closer to a wall to get better bass response. As with a lot of smaller portable speakers, sound will vary on depending on your environment (inside or outside) and placement in a room.

I connected an iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S3 to the unit using Bluetooth as well as a wired connection. I got slightly better sound from the wired connection than the wireless one, but it wasn't a major difference.

The Solemate can play pretty loud and delivers a decent amount of bass. Like virtually all these small speakers, it has little to no stereo separation and it really performs best in the midrange and sounds quite good with well-recorded acoustical tracks (for instance, I'm listening to Coldplay's "U.F.O." as I write this). If it has a weakness, the sound just isn't incredibly detailed and things can start to sound a little harsh at higher volumes; the sound holds together OK but I tended to listen to the speaker at lower to midlevel volumes rather than crank it.

If you do raise the volume, the speaker can fill a small to medium-sized room with sound and like the Jawbone Jambox plays much larger than its size. I think most people will be impressed by its sound -- and be quite happy with it -- so long as you don't expect the world. I also thought speakerphone performance was quite good. Jabra does have plenty of experience making speakerphones, so that's not surprising.

As for battery life, it's rated at 8 hours of music playback, which is good.

It's worth noting that while the Bluetooth worked fine in our tests with iOS and Android devices, we did get some dropouts when connecting a Mac laptop via Bluetooth. We're not sure what the issue was, but Mac OS X has been known to be a little finicky when it comes to connecting with Bluetooth speakers, so it's more than likely a software issue (and it could very well be isolated to certain systems).

Performance
I liked the Solemate and, as I said in the intro, I think it's one of the better Jambox-esque speakers to hit in 2012 (it even has similar voice prompts to the Jambox when you turn it on and pair the speaker). While it delivers a bit bigger and slightly better sound than the Jambox, it's also physically a bit larger and heavier and you lose some sound quality at higher volumes. In other words, there's a bit of a trade-off. You get the smaller size with speakers such as the Jambox and the tiny Soundmatters FoxLv2, but the Solemate has a little more oomph to it.

All that adds up to a solid compact Bluetooth speaker that I don't think you'll regret buying (and most people will be quite happy with it). But if Jabra had priced it lower than the Jambox (closer to $149), I'd have an easier time recommending it even more strongly.