Inateck 10W Stereo Bluetooth SpeakerI love Inateck products. The Kindle case they sent me last year is still the one I’m using, and it’s holding up nicely over time. I’m confident they have products which work well and will last.

So when they offered to send me a sample of the [easyazon-link asin=”B00JO6GQLS” locale=”us”]Inateck Dual-Driver Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker[/easyazon-link], I was all over it. When I saw the picture, I fell in love with the idea of a combination stand/speaker which didn’t involve a dock, so it can be used for any device, regardless of manufacturer.

I’m using it as I write this to play music from my HTC One M8 phone. Because of the shape of my phone case–it has a fold out stand–my phone doesn’t quite fit flush in the stand, but it works reasonably well. The sound is good, although remember that I’m not an audiophile. For my purposes, it’s good. I can crank it up loud enough that my cats give me dirty looks, and the sound does fill my living room, although it doesn’t have the rich sound you’d expect from speakers designed to be used in a large room. However, mostly I use it in my office or to watch video on my iPad, and for that, it’s fine.

The speaker has a fold-out stand in back to provide stability when holding a large device like a tablet. It pops in and out easily, but I wouldn’t be too rough with it. It doesn’t feel that sturdy. The rest of the speaker, however, is compact with rounded edges and looks like it will hold up to being tossed in a bag and taken travelling. I need to remember to take it on our next camping trip.

Pairing has been easy on both devices I’ve tried. It seemed to take longer for my phone to find it, but my iPad paired almost instantly.

Volume is controlled from your paired device. There is a button on the front for pause/play, which is nice. You can turn off the music without fumbling your device out of the stand.

It has a built-in microphone for phone calls, and call quality was fine. I called a friend who is hard of hearing, and she said that while it was obvious I was on a speaker, she could hear me with no problems. I’ll call that a win.

All in all, I’m happy with the speaker and delighted to add it to my stable of must-use devices.

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