Verdict
Ultimate Ears continues it's tradition of releasing rock solid, tried and tested, small speakers, with the Wonderboom 4. It's a great sounding little speaker but with little to distinguish itself from the previous Wonderboom 3 there's little reason to upgrade if you already have the older speaker.
The Good
- Compact and lightweight design
- Rugged build with IP67 rating (waterproof and dustproof)
- Decent battery life of up to 14 hours
The Bad
- No app support for customizing EQ settings
- Wonderboom 3 is now cheaper
The Wonderboom 3 was one of the most popular compact bluetooth speakers you could buy. However, it was released in 2022, and was only a minor update over the previous Wonderboom 2 that released all the way back in 2019! So it was well overdue an upgrade. So, I was genuinely excited when the Wonderboom 4 was released. Not that the excitment lasted long. So, it’s worth looking into why that was and whether it’s worth buying, whether you have an earlier Wonderboom speaker, or not.
So what’s new?
Whilst the Wonderboom 4 retains the ‘outdoor mode’ of the Wonderboom 3, so that music supposedly sounds better outside, it also adds a ‘podcast mode’ which is designed to make voices clearer and recess everything else. Both modes are essentially just EQ tweaks to the sound though and make a marginal improvement to the sound in their targetted use, at best. Ultimate Ears would do much better to just provide mobile app support with these speakers so you can tweak the EQ yourself. Sadly, it’s still missing with these speakers.
One update that has been a long time coming, is the charging port. The Wonderboom 4 finally sees the end of the micro-USB port and has been updated to USB-C charging! The fact that this is one of the biggest changes that Ultimate Ears has done to their speakers this year, across the range, when others did this years ago, is a little depressing. At least they finally got there in the end though.
Surprisingly that hasn’t changed the charging times though. So no fast charging here, despite the new USB-C charging port. Both the Wonderboom 4 and the Wonderboom 3 take 2.6 hours to charge up to full, and both will give you 14 hours of playback.
What’s the same?
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Wonderboom 4 retains a lot of similarities to the older Wonderboom 3. The old saying of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” pretty much applies here, as the Wonderboom 3 was a great little speaker.
Physical Design
They are both physically identical, in terms of both size and weight, with both measuring approximately 10cm tall and wide, and weighing 420g.
The controls stay the same too, with the top buttons controlling power on/off, bluetooth pairing, and the middle play button triggering play,pause and skip tracks. You can however still only skip tracks forwards, not backwards.
They’ve both retain the EQ mode switch underneath, that allows you to switch between ‘normal mode’ and ‘outdoor mode’, and also ‘podcast mode’ on the Wonderboom 4.
Weatherproof
Both are also IP67 rated, making them both dustproof and waterproof. Perhaps even more useful is that they both float too which makes fishing them out of a pool or lake super easy.
The Sound
From a sound perspective, both speakers come with two 40mm active drivers and passive radiators, and peak at the same volume level of 86 dB inside, or 87 dB outside if you use the outdoor mode.
Despite these similarities they do sound slightly different. The Wonderboom 3 I was always vocal heavy so that you could hear singing clearly. The Wonderboom 4 however has a more balanced sound profile. You can still hear vocals clearly, but there is more clarity in instruments. The difference is minor though and unless you had them side-by-side you would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
One thing that Ultimate Ears Boom Series of speakers has always done well is 360° sound, and this continues with the Wonderboom 4. So music sounds the same no matter where you are sitting in relation to the speaker. This makes the Wonderboom 3 or 4 a great party speaker. These aren’t large speakers though so it’s definitely for smaller groups.
When played at low to medium volumes, both the Wonderboom 4 and 3 sound great. Just don’t push them to higher volumes as then the bass massively falls off and the sound quality noticeably compresses.
What’s not to like?
So as good as the Wonderboom 4 is, there are some limitations to it. Predominantly because it has so much in common with the Wonderboom 3.
There is still no mobile app support for the Wonderboom range of speakers. So not only can you not change the EQ, but you also can’t get firmware updates for it either.
You also can’t link a Wonderboom speaker with other Ultimate Ears speakers using their PartyUp feature. However you can pair it up with another Wonderboom 4, or 3, for stereo mode.
Verdict
So with the release of the Wonderboom 4, the Wonderboom 3 is now even cheaper! You can buy it for as little as $52! For something that has so many similarities with the Wonderboom 4, that actually makes the Wonderboom 3 a better buy. As long as you can live without the podcast mode, which I think you can, and you can also live with the micro USB charging, which might be a harder pill to swallow for some.
The Wonderboom 4 is still my preference though. I wouldn’t upgrade to it if I already had the Wonderboom 3, but if you’re looking at buying a new compact Bluetooth speaker, then the Wonderboom 4 should definitely be on your shortlist. It sounds good, has good battery life, is well priced at $100, and is often discounted to less on sites like Amazon.
