Customer Reviews

39 out of 40 people found this review helpful:

 

Surprising sound, February 12, 2007
Great sound from a little package. This is the tiniest unit and you would never guess but it has a huge sound for it's size. I have an Acer laptop which I love. It's performance is practically flawless --- Except the speakers, which are the worst. You can barely hear music from them. So I purchased these speakers for a boost in sound and they work great. I think they're priced a little high, but they do have a tremendous sound for the size. Very portable and easy to take along.I would recommend them for the traveler. There a great addition for a laptop with low sound performance and very portable.

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56 out of 60 people found this review helpful:

 

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR DELL LAPTOPS, September 2, 2007
After several weeks of light, mid-volume use, the speaker stopped working on my Dell Latitude D500 and I began receiving error messages noting a "device malfunction". After trading emails with J-Lab customer service, I was instructed to return the speaker by mail (at my expense) for a refund. The refund I received was 80% of the original purchase price because, according to J-Lab, the device was still "working" upon receipt. The representative handling the return acknowledged that there has, in fact, been a history of compatibility issues with Dell laptops-- in other words, a "working" speaker may not always operate correctly when connected to a Dell laptop. Is trying this speaker on your Dell worth the risk of paying two sets of shipping charges, losing 20% of the purchase price, and spending time emailing representatives and repacking/mailing the device? If not, maybe it's worth considering alternatives.

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20 out of 20 people found this review helpful:

 

Terrific Little Speaker with Clear, Strong Sound, September 6, 2007
After reading several dozen consumer reviews describing laptop speakers I puchased this one. You simply plug it into your laptop, or USB hub, swivel the gooseneck to position the speaker where you want, and you've got an excellent speaker that fits in a small laptop utility bag.

The only complaint I have is that there is no quick volume control; once you've plugged it into your USB port, it overrides the laptop's volume control "knob". You have to open the volume icon in your Control Panel every time you want to adjust the speaker volume, which can be too slow when you're being blasted by a loud video.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the volume modulation in the speaker itself, just that there seems to be a wide volume range across items I view--YouTube, email messages with videos from friends, etc.

If this speaker had a volume control knob it would be perfect!

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20 out of 23 people found this review helpful:

 

Are we listening to the same speakers?, August 7, 2007
We bought this speaker for our Gateway M505 Media Laptop on a recent trip. The M505 has reasonable speakers for a laptop, but their volume level isn't quite strong enough for us to be happy--we'd always find ourselves straining to hear dialogue from movies.

From reading the reviews I honestly thought this would solve our problem in a nifty self-contained USB-powered fashion.

For us it didn't.

We found the speakers to be nearly identical to the M505 speakers, and while the B-Flex did give us the tiniest improvement in volume, it wasn't enough to really give us adequate volume, or the "big sound" many reviewers have mentioned. Also, there is no way a speaker the size of these can give the kind of frequency response any level of audiophile would be happy with.

So, who should try out this speaker? If you have standard tinny sounding laptop speakers (the almost nonexistent kind), these will be a big improvement. Also you will like the fact that it is USB powered so no batteries, no cords are needed.

However, having said that, I really think the bottom line is, to get truly better sound, you need to use a powered speaker. I think some of the JBL's may be the way to go.

For cost of these guys, unless you catch them on sale, my advice is to keep looking. We had to return ours. (Thanks to Amazon a really fair & generous return policy).

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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful:

 

Powerful Speaker for a Small Price, January 16, 2007
When shopping for a laptop speaker my one requirement was that it be usb powered. There were very few products on the market that did this and the reviews for almost all of them were terrible. I finally stumbled upon the B-Flex, the reviews were good and the price was right. This is a great product. You're not going to be blown away by the sound, but given its price and its small size, it gets the job done. I'm very happy with it.

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