FiiO PS1110 Walkbox – A Phenomenal Portable Speaker

For some time now, I’ve been looking for a portable speaker, one to bring to school or just at a friends house and just blast music into them. It isn’t exactly easy to do this when your entire music collection is on your iPod. It is quite a hassle to take your music out (coming up in another post soon), or to connect to a larger dock. Instead I found myself looking through the various local shops for something a bit easier to manage. I’ve heard about plenty of portable speaker where you just plug the speaker into the audio jack of your MP3 player, but generally they aren’t well received.

Here I am again in awe with yet another amazing product from FiiO. Titled the PS1110 Walkbox, this portable speaker is about the size of an iPod Classic; slightly smaller in width but longer in height, and almost the same thickness. What is amazing about this speaker is the quality of the sound, and the volumes it reaches. I had to go through a few of the crappy speakers that are offered in shops before actually going online to order this. DealExtreme.com and Focalprice.com both stock the FiiO PS1110, and if you aren’t planning to read any further, go order them now, you won’t be disappointed.

The FiiO PS1110 just sounds great. I can’t put it in any other way. There are definitely some design flaws, but when it comes down to it, it is loud and clear. The music pumped out of the speaker at full volume will beat even some full sized dedicated speakers and probably most computers. For a mere $15, this is a bargain. I know there are other portable speakers out there for cheaper, but they don’t sound nearly as good, and some of the shapes just annoy me. The nice and flat FiiO PS1110 is pretty easy to carry around and it looks pretty good too.

Beyond trying it with the iPod, I decided to connect it to the DS to see how it sounds. Moonshell has never been more attractive, and the games sound better than ever. This is the first time I’ve noticed how brilliant the soundtrack on Luminous Arc is or how irritatingly bad some of the sound effects in Brothers in Arms are. You don’t have to listen to the tinny sounds anymore, and it can be infinitely louder than the DS Lite. Transformers sounded brilliant, I didn’t have to struggle to hear the dialogue anymore, and nothing beats sitting down at lunch in the noisy cafeteria and turning up the volume of a portable music to actually go over that sound.

Back with my iPod setup, it also sounds great. I have a FiiO Portable Amplifier attached to my iPod, didn’t seem to change the quality much, but the bass booster definitely added a bit of warmth. This brings me to my next point, one of the flaws of this speaker is the lack of bass. It isn’t so much that it is bad because it lacks bass, but more so that you can’t expect much from a portable speaker. There isn’t a sub woofer to make your ears pop, but there is a bit of bass. But once you are a bit further from the speaker, it almost disappears, which is a bit disappointing.

In terms of style, I love the design. It is really simplistic. It doesn’t need to fold up into shapes like other speakers on the market, nor does it need a billion slots for chargers. In total there is 1 audio jack, 1 USB-Mini port, 1 LED indicator, 1 switch and 2 buttons for volume. I don’t see the need for anything else. What is a bit sad is the case scratches easily. The white plastic is pretty prone to scratches and the metal face is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. I guess the included soft pouch should correct that. It even has a separator so that you can put the included cable inside without damaging the case.

The other two flaws of the walkbox are the buttons and the power sources. The volume buttons are buttons. It isn’t a sliding switch. It is also digital, which means you can’t change the volume unless it is on. This is a huge hassle. But I guess the smart people at FiiO thought it would be ok if they immediately reset the volume after each power down to around 40%. It is a decent idea I guess, since the volume was picked to be pretty decent, not too loud or too quiet.

The switch for power is in the middle by default. It is rather loose, so it shifts easily to the left and the right. These are two power sources, one side for USB and the next is for the batteries. The problem is the switch changes pretty easily in a backpack, and seems to drain out my batteries because of it. The other problem is the power sources themselves. Using two AAA batteries is ridiculous in the age of rechargeable battery packs. And even more ridiculous is the USB slot, it doesn’t charge anything, your speaker has to be tied to the USB charger, if not, it powers off. Would it have killed FiiO to put in a built in battery?

I guess I can’t complain since it pretty much beats everything in its category by far. The FiiO walkbox is the best portable speaker I have bought for such a low price. There is nothing on the market that I have seen that can compete. And I am saying in terms of design, sound and even price. If you are looking for a speaker as I have, go for a FiiO PS1110 Walkbox right now, you won’t be disappointed.