Sound and battery: 20 portable Bluetooth speakers

Jawbone Mini Jambox

Jawbone's Mini Jambox is a little bigger than the Harmon Kardon Esquire Mini, but still not much bigger than a late 1990s mobile phone, or a 1980s King Size Mars Bar. It doubles as a speakerphone, but there's no support for NFC.

It's best feature is that, like the Braven 705, you can use two of them to play music in stereo. With two Jambox Minis on hand, I tested it and while it worked, setting it up was a pain. It's a new feature, added since the speaker was launched. So I had to download a firmware upgrade and then search Jawbone's website to find out how to set it up.

The other key feature is what Jawbone calls LiveAudio and describes as 'rich, crisp, three-dimensional sound.' We found that it made little difference to the output. That output was fine for a small speaker. It lacked bass, of course, but trebles and mids were fine. Admittedly, I liked the colour co-ordinated USB and audio cables, but the Jawbone app, was less useful. It allows you to do nothing more than set up a speaker and add playlists that already exist elsewhere on your device.

At £110, the Mini Jambox is less expensive than the Esquire Mini, but offers only 8 hours battery life, compared to 10 hours in the Harman Kardon speaker. And the Braven 705 offers better value than both. At its full price of £150 I wouldn't even consider it.

JBL Clip

The JBL Clip is the least expensive speaker on test. Although it doesn't offer NFC support, nor a dual stereo mode or companion app, it does double as a speakerphone. It's around the circumference of a coaster and about as thick as a small burger and comes with its own karabiner to allow you to hang it somewhere convenient.

The clip is narrow, so only suitable for a bag or pushchair strap or a belt loop. It's a nice touch nevertheless. There's a captive audio cable with a mini-jack on one end, so you can connect it to any device with a headphone jack. Battery life is disappointing at only five hours, but given the size and price of the Clip, perhaps not surprising.

I was pleasantly surprised by the audio output from the Clip. It struggled with the rock track test, naturally, but other than than there was plenty of volume and both the acoustic and classical tracks sounded remarkably good from such a small speaker.

If price is your main concern, the Clip is the speaker to choose, and while you will have to compromise on battery life, you won't be giving up much audio fidelity.