DKnight Big MagicBox portable Bluetooth speaker review

Smartphone users who want to enjoy their favorite music through a portable Bluetooth speaker have a sea of options to choose from these days. Many accessory makers offer small setups that promise to deliver a much higher sound quality than the built-in speakers, and in plenty of cases at a pretty reasonable cost too.

DKnight is no different. Its Big MagicBox setup, which features dual 10W drivers and "advanced bass enhancement technology", claims to offer "exceptional sound quality" and is touted as "the most competitive speaker" in its segment of the market. But, just how good is it in real life?

Being labeled as portable speaker, the Big MagicBox should be small and light enough to be carried around. And, coming in at 6.8 x 2.8 x 2.8 inches and 15 ounces, it certainly fits the bill.

The Big MagicBox also looks quite nice. It's got a round profile, with the power button on the left side and controls at the top. The power button is hidden behind a rubber flap, behind which you can find a 3.5mm jack to hook it to your smartphone, or another device, using a cable (that is provided in the box), a small reset button, and a microUSB port for charging (you also get the cable to charge it with, but no wall adaptor).

The buttons at the top give you controls for answering calls, adjusting the volume, playing and pausing music, and moving to the previous and next tracks. The buttons are rubberized, each having the shape you expect (plus for increasing the volume, minus for decreasing it, a right arrow for skipping to the next track, and so on), which makes it easy to operate the speaker in the dark.

To know if the Big MagicBox is facing in the right direction, the small rubber tab with the DKnight logo at the bottom has to be facing you, the power button has to be to your left, and the first button at the top to the left has to be the phone button. It can be pretty easy to have it facing the opposite direction, because its design is close to symmetrical.

To pair the Big MagicBox, you need to power it up and connect to it via Bluetooth from your smartphone. You can, of course, also use it with other types of devices, like a tablet or laptop. DKnight notes that if you have the cable plugged in, it will not charge.

The Big MagicBox can only be paired with a single Bluetooth device, so if you want to switch to another one you will have to unpair it and start over. To break the pairing, press the play/pause button for five seconds until the blue light over the power button flashes. Then, you can connect it to another device.

While that is not ideal, you can get used to it. What I do not like is the fact that the Bluetooth range is pretty short. With another Bluetooth speaker I have, the Divoom Voombox-Outdoor (check its review here), it can play music while the smartphone or laptop is in another room, but the Big MagicBox loses connectivity in a short distance.

DKnight is aware of this, as it specifically lists the short Bluetooth range as a possible problem users could encounter, and basically recommends that you keep your device closer to it and remove any obstacles that might interfere with the signal. Outdoors you shouldn't have any problems, as the straight line range is decent (up to 30 feet/9 meters).

The latest revision of the Big MagicBox features a 4,000mAh battery that claims to offer up to 12hours of playback time. And, based on my experience, that seems about right. To charge it, you can use any microUSB cable and your smartphone charger.

Since the functionality is only half the story, let's talk about sound quality now. Overall, I find the Big MagicBox pretty decent, but given the claims that DKnight makes I expected it to sound much better. The bass certainly isn't as powerful as promised. However, the speaker gets plenty loud for my taste, though, as you might expect, the quality drops the more you raise the volume.

DKnight notes that the "upgraded" version that is available since May 6 has "better bass and sound quality", and the unit that has been provided for testing has been shipped well after that date. But because there is no clear labeling on the package, there is no telling whether it is actually the latest revision.

DKnight currently sells the Big MagicBox for $49.99 on Amazon. The speaker is a best seller on Amazon, having an 4.5 star rating from over 600 reviews.

Photo Credit: Mihăiță Bamburic