The speaker market is getting more saturated with each passing year with more and more companies putting out their versions of speakers, more often than not with Bluetooth capability. Which is why we were particularly intrigued by the Oaxis Bento Magnetic Induction Audio Speaker, a speaker that has no convention connection to the device playing the music – no wires, no Bluetooth – besides physically sitting on it. Let’s check it out and see how magnetic induction stands up to its Bluetooth competition.
What’s in the box
For a device that requires no wires, the Bento comes the bare minimum in the box. Actually, the comment about not requiring wires is a misnomer – the Bento can be operated as a standard speaker with audio input to the back of the device via audio cable to a music playback device, though it’s designed to be used without them with your smartphone, or like device. As this is the case, Oaxis has included a 3.5mm audio cable if you need to connect with a cable, and also a microUSB cable for charging the device.
The Bento is actually quite a lot bigger than I expected it to be, but looking back on the press photos, I realize that should have clicked earlier. The top plate of the Bento is designed to fit a device up to about the size of a 7-inch tablet, and the edge around the top makes it difficult to put anything much bigger than that on it while maintaining contact with the surface – more on why that’s important later.
Also, despite what illusions I might of had that the speaker was actually able to compress further to hide the speaker in the mid-section, the whole speaker is actually rigid and is set in stone as you see it here. The Bento is designed to be portable, and it definitely is light, however it’s definitely not the most compact speaker.
How does it perform
The first time you get the Bento to amplify your music, it’s like magic – what was once quiet and tinny is now booming. The key word here is ‘amplify’, because that is essentially what the Bento does when you place your device on the top of the plate, amplifying whatever you’re playing on your device and making it louder. One of the more fiddly things to get the Bento working is that your device needs to be lined up perfectly with its speaker to a line that is drawn on the Bento’s top surface – this normally requires some wiggling at first, but like I said earlier, finding the sweet spot is pretty exciting.
As the Bento is amplifying the sound coming out of your device, it’s naturally limited by the actual audio performance of your device, though there does appear to be some magic in the background (i.e. physics) that make it sound slightly better. My LG G3 doesn’t have a terrible speaker, nor does it have an amazing one, but despite this, the Bento managed to give the sound a bit more depth, kind of like an artificial surround sound feature. I’d like to know what a better speaker might be able to do, but it did the job with my LG G3 and I was pleasantly surprised by the volume output of the Bento. Volume, of course, is controlled by your device, so unless you have the back mounted buttons of an LG G3 to contend with, this should be a relatively uneventful affair. I did note, however, that putting my LG G3 screen down on the Bento also yielded a similar, if more muffled and quieter, effect.
Because the Bento employs active induction rather than passive induction, it does actually require a rechargable battery which lasts roughly 6 hours. It’s said to need about 3 hours to charge up to, so you’ll be wanting to make the most of the time you spend playing music as well.
What I like about the Oaxis Bento Speaker
Simplicity is the number one thing I like about the Bento, particularly setting it up. Sure it takes a few moments of fiddling with your device’s positioning, but once it’s in the sweet spot, there’s nothing more to muck about with like Bluetooth pairing or companion apps. Easy as.
What I don’t like about the Oaxis Bento Speaker
With a product this simple, it’s sometimes difficult to come up with relevant peeves, however there was one thing that was disconcerting for me. If the volume of your device was somewhat low and there was a quiet period in the music, the Bento appeared to sometimes miss amplifying these parts of the music. Sure, turning up the volume did away with this, but sometimes that’s not always an option.
Final Thoughts
As far as simple products go, the Oaxis Bento Magnetic Induction Audio Speaker does exactly what it says on the box - it’s easy to set up and amplifies sound and does so with a minimum of fuss. If you’re in the market for something a little different from the masses of Bluetooth speakers out there, the Bento is a very intriguing proposition.
If you’re interested in picking up a Bento, they are available right now from gearbest.com for $62.79 USD, discounted by 35% and with free shipping – you can visit the product page here. Also, stay tuned because we’ll be giving away one of these speakers in the very near future.
