While probably more popular for its smartphones and network equipment, Huawei has also released a number of consumer audio products in the Philippines – mainly TWS Earbuds and Speakers. For the latter, the brand has recently announced the newest addition to the lineup, the Huawei Sound Joy.
Huawei Sound Joy is designed to deliver good sound quality and a bunch of other nifty features while maintaining a portable form factor, allowing you to bring the party anywhere you go.
What’s in the Box?
Packaging-wise, it’s more or less standard. Apart from the speaker, you get a USB-C to USB-A cable, and the documentation. The manual uses more of a purely visual approach, which can be a bit confusing to some.
Huawei Sound Joy Specifications
| Dimensions | 73 x 202mm (D x H) |
| Weight | About 680g |
| Frequency Response | 50hz – 20 kHz (-10dB) |
| Speakers | 1 x 20W 50 mm x 75 mm racetrack-shaped full-frequency speaker |
| 1 x 10W 19 mm tweeter | |
| 2 x passive radiators | |
| Power Supply | Supports 5V 2A, 9V 2A, and 10V 4A charging |
| Microphone | 3 Microphones |
| NFC | Supported |
| Bluetooth | 5.2 |
| Bluetooth Playback | AAC, SBC |
| Battery | 8800mAh |
| IP Rating | IP67 |
Design and Build Quality
While it basically looks like a lot of other “large soda can” form factor speakers, the Huawei Sound Joy does have a few tricks up its sleeve.
For one, it’s got RGB lighting on one side, which begs the question as to why it’s not on the other. The good thing is that it’s not just for aesthetics, but the lighting effect also lets you know the progress of say, of a firmware update. You can turn the light off to save battery. The speaker also boasts an IP67 rating, which means you can take it on your adventures with a little more peace of mind.
Apart from the Huawei branding, there are physical buttons for controlling the volume, powering the device on or off, play or pause, Bluetooth pairing, and stereo pairing (in case you have two of these.) There’s also a USB-C port for charging, as well as a dedicated button for activating the voice assistant on your phone. You can use the speaker as a microphone to issue voice commands. As far as materials go, much of the outer shell is made of plastic, while the buttons are made from a rubber-like material.
Connecting to the speaker can be done in a number of ways – the usual, Bluetooth, using the AI Life app, or via NFC, in which you’ll just need to tap the back of an NFC capable smartphone to a specific point in the speaker, and the rest is automatic.
Sound and Latency
The device is powered by a four-unit system by Devialet, a French company that makes speakers and other audio product. You get a full range speaker, a tweeter and a pair of passive radiators.
As for its sound, the bass on the Huawei Sound Joy offers good punchiness, even at its default setting. Despite that, it doesn’t overpower the other frequencies. Vocals are probably what I love the most in this – just enough forwardness, and good clarity. As for the treble, it’s not too airy or piercing, good for those long hours of relaxed, fun listening.
What’s amazing about this speaker is the volume. Yes, it can get really loud, more than enough to fill a small room. Tried it on an outdoor setting (a rooftop to be specific), and it still works decently, although there is just a tiny bit of distortion when on high volume. As for latency, there’s no noticeable delays, at least on YouTube videos.
Software
The AI Life app lets you control the volume of the speakers, enable or disable the lighting, set an off time, connect to another Sound Joy for a stereo setup, and read the user guide.
There’s no built in equalizer, but you can choose from three sound profiles, as well as adjust the amount of bass you want to get via a dedicated virtual dial. Lastly, the app lets you update the speaker’s firmware.
Battery Life
Huawei claims up to 26 hours of uptime, and to be honest, that might really be the case, as I’ve tried using the Sound Joy for a whole work day and it’s still running the next day. That’s with varying levels of volume. The device supports 40W SuperCharge technology, and in my case, zero to full took an hour using the power brick for the Mate 30 Pro.
Verdict
At the time of writing, Huawei has not yet revealed the local SRP for the Sound Joy. In any case, I think that it’s a great speaker for those who don’t have a lot of space, and for those who wants something portable and won’t need to be plugged in to the wall socket. The build quality is decent, it sounds great especially in upbeat and vocal tracks, and the battery life is excellent as well.
Having a companion app also enhances the experience as it allows you to tinker with a bunch of settings, and the RGB lighting is a nice to have. Oh, and it can be paired with another Sound Joy for a stereo setup.
On the flip side, there are a few things that can be improved, the tiny bit of distortion when close to max volume, which might not apply if you’re just using this in a small room, and that granular control over treble or even an equalizer would’ve been a nice addition to the app. The AI Life app also doesn’t support iOS devices.
Get the Huawei Sound Joy via the Huawei Online Store, Lazada, and Shopee starting May 5.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
