The Braven 850 brings huge sound to the portable bluetooth speaker Arena

Over the years I have seen and heard a wide variety of bluetooth speakers. I have seen some powered by AA and AAA batteries. Some that have build-in batteries. Others that need to be plugged into the wall at all times. Some have been small enough for your pocket and others that would require a suitcase to take with you. Many of you have probably seen our reviews on a plethora of portable and stationary bluetooth speakers. Depending on your budget, the sound you want and if you want portability or one for the bookcase, we could easily recommend a few different ones that would suit your needs. However, there has always been a hitch in my eyes when it came to bluetooth speakers. If I wanted big sound, I couldn’t go portable, I had to go stationery. For instance, the JLabs Bouncer sounds great and has a remote, but has to be plugged in at all times to work. If I wanted to take some sound on vacation or down to the lake, I would have to take something else, like the Braven 600, 625s or BRV-1. Again, great little speakers, but they won’t irritate half the beach.

I think Braven had the same thoughts in their heads when they went to work on their next series of speakers. They took all the great looks and feels of the Braven 6 series and beefed it up in size, sound and function. Let me introduce you to the new Braven 850 and Braven 855s. We will touch on the Braven 850s later in this review. The focus here is solely on the Braven 850. Brave is calling the 850 their “most talented speaker yet.” Rightfully so too. Just looking at the box you know you are in for one hell of a surprise.

Inside you find a complete international kit for the speaker. The charger plug is interchangeable with tips for USA/Japan/Mexico, European Union/Russia/Philippines, UK/Hong Kong/Singapore and Australia/New Zealand/ China. Giving you some awesome travel abilities. They also send you with the usual Braven branded headphone to headphone cable that is 24″ and the user’s manual.

Size wise, you are looking at 9.5″ x 2.75″ x 4″ and weighs in at 3 pounds 5.5 oz. It is one hefty sob. The design looks identical to the Braven 650. It is completely wrapped in aircraft grade aluminum with hard plastic end caps. Machine drilled holes created the front and rear speaker grills to create a seamless and minimalistic look.

On the right side you find your 5 LED lighted battery light indicators, battery check button, USB out, AUX in and power port.

On the top you find your physical button controls, power, phone, play, volume up and volume down. You will also find your mic hole for using it as a speaker phone. On the bottom you have two nice soft padding to protect your various surfaces and dampen the speaker against vibrations from the music you are pumping.

All of that sounds and looks good right? Lets get into some details about what this monster packs. Powering the speaker is a 8,800 mAh battery. Which is rated to deliver 20 hours of continuous playback. Basically this will probably outlast your phone. Unless you are rooted and modded to the hills and get crazy 2 and 3 days of battery life. Still, 20 hours of playback and a 8,800 mAh battery are pretty impressive all by themselves. Lets not forget the fact that the Braven 850 packs 20 watts of stereo output. What good is that big battery if you can’t use it for something else. That is why Braven always puts a nice little USB out port on their speakers. If you need to charge up your device at anytime, just plug it in. The USB port is rated at 2.1 amps. It won’t have any issues charging up your Note’s, Tabs, Nexus 7 or….. iPads. Basically any tablet that can be charged with a USB cable has a life saving friend near by.

But wait! There’s MORE! A lot more actually. The Braven 850 also features True Wireless. Simply press and hold the battery button and it will sync with another Braven 850 to double your sound and give you that loved left and right audio blast. The buttons on the top for control have multiple functions. The + and – obviously will change your volume, but if you press and hold one or the other it will change tracks as well. If you press and hold them both down at the same time you can turn the SRS WOW HD sound on and off. With it on, you will immediately notice an increase in clarity and bass response.

“But Stormy, how does it sound?” I am glad you asked. When you pull out a speaker this size and with the weight that it is packing, you expect a lot. I expect to have my wife come out of the back bedroom and tell me to turn it down. She did. A couple of times actually. I have issues with not having music turned up loud enough to melt my brain. 20 watts of power with the two HD drivers + two passive subwoofers really deliver some noise to your environment. It really does sound incredible and when you atar to toggle around with your EQ on your phone and the SRS WOW HD function, you can really create a super rich and clear sound that I haven’t heard from a portable speaker to date. I pushed some old school Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera. Hit up 2Pac, Tech N9ne and DMX. Passed the bottle to NOFX, Dropkick Murphys and Rancid. Then mellowed out to some Ben Harper and Jack Johnson. While you won’t shake the walls and knock down your wedding photos, you will definitely be heard by your surrounding neighbors and possibly get kicked off the beach.

What we liked about the Braven 850

• The design and look of the speaker is both minimal and impressive. A large aluminum looking box sitting on your cooler or bookcase gets some questions asked in a hurry. 
• Setup is as easy as power, pair, play. Doesn’t take rocket science to connect the Braven 850 your phone, tablet and anything else you have around. There is a great sonar sound that pumps out to let you know it is able to pair.
• Operation of the speaker is painless. You can do what you want and need directly on your device, or simply press the buttons on the top. In previous models you had no on speaker controls. With them, you can easily leave your phone on the counter or in your pocket to rock out or answer a phone call.
• The little things like the AUX in port, 2.1a USB port, SRS WOW HD, 5 (20% increment) LED lights to see how much power you have left and the 8,800 mAh battery are all great, but it is the sound that it pumps out and the volume at which it can pump it. Crank it to 11 boss.
• The ability to answer calls and use it as a speaker phone is nice as well. Unlike many other speakers that do the same thing, this one actually sounds really good and people on the other end can hear you clearly.

What we didn’t like about the Braven 850

This is a tough one that deserves more of an explanation than a bullet point list. While I don’t care too much about how I turn on a speaker or a device, I did prefer the switch that Braven had on the 600 line. While I have no trouble pressing and holding the soft touch power button, I personally just hate to do it. I like a quick click.

While the 850 pumps out the sound, you will need a little fine tuning to truly enjoy it. A lot of it depends on the genre and style of music you listen to, or plan to turn on. Most everyone is familiar with the EQ options in Google Music, or various other apps that you can grab for other occasions. If you plan to blast out some heavy bass songs, you will want to adjust it just a little if you want the speaker at full volume. I did get it to crack and pop a bit. It was easily solved with SRS WOW HD turned on and a quick EQ adjustment on the bass section.

I understand the need to charge it from a wall plug versus charging via a usb charger. It would take way to long to charge up 8,800 mAh off your PC or laptop and in the laptop case, your laptop would probably die before the Braven 850 was charged. I just have to remember to keep the wall adapter handy and not lose it.

Product Specs, the short version

• 20W output
• 20 hours of continuous wireless playback
• Built-in internal speakerphone and microphone
• Patent pending on-the-go ability to charge almost any USB-powered device
• Bluetooth v3.0 EDR
• (A2DP) 1.2 Support
• 33 ft. operating distance
• Hands Free Profile (HFP)
• 3.5mm line-in
• True Wireless – wireless daisy-chaining between two BRAVEN 850 devices for true left and right channel stereo
• DTS SRS Wow Sound enhanced listening mode

Overall 

Braven has certainly, at least in my humble opinion, lived up to “their most talented speaker yet” claim. I didn’t clock the actual play time, but I know the battery charged up my Galaxy S III while I rocked out in the back yard for 3 days, about 3 to 4 hour stretches, and still had some juice left. I used it to watch a movie on the Chromebook in the bedroom using the AUX cable and woke up my son. The 850 sounds incredible while working outside, BBQing, hanging out with your friends or just kicking it in the garage. Any place you can image you want bigger, better and more powerful sound, the Braven 850 will do it.

Rating – 5/5 Exceptional build quality, ease of use and sound.

 

Before I sign off from this review and give you some links to pick one up, I mentioned the Braven 855s. Take everything you just read, saw and learned about the 850 and toss a rubber coating around it and make it dust and IPX3 water-resistant. Slight external design change to keep the crap out of the speaker while floating the river, white rafting or mudding. You can pick up either model, or a pair so you can go full stereo, via the links below. Besure to check out the Braven website too.