Belkin SoundForm Elite Hi-Fi Smart Speaker + Wireless

This speaker is just fine for me it is a bit heavy on the bass but that’s not a bad thing for some people ask my neighbour! Lol it easily fills my room with sound . For such a small speaker it’s loud once connected to Alexa it’s responsive the belkin app is pretty much useless for anything other than connection and there’s no bass treble controls or eq settings which would be nice but got this on offer so happy with it.

Sounds powerful for a small speaker- bought it as a Xmas prezzie for my son. The fact that you can have the phone on charge while using the speakers is an added bonus for me. Overall, really please with my purchase.

Awesome sound pity about the charging compatibility! Samsung z3 flip owners it just won’t butty!

Great speaker overall but sound glitches out even when very close to it. Don’t know why it does this.

Belkin Soundform speaker is sublime as a speaker, and looks amazing, I can slot my phone on the top, it charges, and I know where it is!! It really does it all, and for the price I would expect it to. I am a huge fan of Belkin so I knew the quality would be good, what I didn’t expect was the plug, it looks like the predecessor of a normal plug, like you used to have a brick as a mobile phone and now they are sleek and small its like this plug has gone backwards, other plugs are sleek and small, and this is a brick!! It means I can’t use it where I want as there is limited space and it doesn’t fit, but overall, I am very impressed as it looks great in the second location and does an amazing job. My husband had to set it up, as I gave up, so if you struggle to set your phone or other devices up definitely look on line first before set up, as I made it worse, I am rubbish so should have waited but I was like a kid at Christmas when this arrived.

I was so keen to get this, it’s a great combination to have a wireless phone charger, Alexa and Bluetooth speaker all in one.

I was impressed when it arrived, it’s in a nice box and even comes with dust bags covering the speaker which gives it a luxurious feel. I got the white version which is actually grey and white, it’s a decent size and looks great.

To set it up you need to download the belkin soundform app which gets it synced with your wifi and Alexa. I’ve only ever used Alexa with my fire tv stick and phone so I was really impressed with what it could do. First thing we did was ask Alexa to call Santa – it doesn’t do phone calls for you normally but they make a special exception for Santa’s workshop! My daughter loved it so that was really fun. You can also ask it questions and to play music which works well. I also like the fact you can press to stop Alexa listening which is good when I’m not using it although unplugging it also works!

The volume choices when playing music via Alexa are a little disappointing as they seem to limited to only a few levels so I either have to have it a little louder or quieter than I’d like. If you pair it with your mobile you can use the buttons on your phone to have more control over the volume. The sound quality is really good though so that part doesn’t disappoint.

The wireless charging also works well as long as you put the phone in the right place as instructed.

My only negative with this is that it’s mains powered only so you have to have it plugged in at all times to work. Seems a bit counterproductive to have a build in wireless phone charger but it needing to be plugged in! The plug is also really big and bulky so doesn’t fit easily into our kitchen plug which is in a shelf unit. If you have anything around the plug socket limiting the space you may need to use an extension lead to make it fit.

Overall I’m really pleased with this, I’ve got it sat on my dressing table (make shift home office) and enjoy using it throughout the day. Would recommend!

This arrived in a bespoke branded lift top box with speaker in the centre held securely top and bottom with moulded cardboard and inside a string pull net bag for added protection, below this is had the instruction leaflet giving instructions on getting the soundform application for both IOS and Android, a detailed diagram identifying everything on the speaker along with its function. In the bottom it had the plug/power block which is disappointingly large so you will need a good free area around the plug socket to accommodate it.

After unpacking everything I installed the soundform app on my phone, plugged the speaker in and ran through the setup which I found to be very straight forward along with giving step by step onscreen instructions Once I had it set up I gave it a try out, I already have an echo dot and with smart devices along with music I find it extremely useful but didn’t want both the new speaker and my echo dot both responding simultaneously, so I renamed the echo dot’s wake word to echo from Alexa via the Amazon Alexa application which worked perfectly to avoid any duplicated reply.

The wireless charging platform on the speaker works perfectly and being 10 watt it charges faster than the more common 5 watt wireless chargers and also looks aesthetically pleasing when playing music from your phone along with not running the battery down. I found the sound quality extremely good especially normally using an echo dot which does not have the greatest sound quality, the vibration cancelling works extremely well and even at full volume playing tunes with a lot of bass sound I detected no distortion or vibration.

The soundform application works well and allows very quick switching from Bluetooth to Alexa or Spotify along with being able to add more services, I like the spinning record deck animation while playing music although simple I thought it a nice touch, the app is limited on functions and settings but in my opinion did everything I needed with Alexa being able to do the rest via voice control.

Overall the look of the speaker is very nice with the concealed LED’s on the front being bright enough to see without being too bright and irritating, the look of the speaker is very nice and everything appears to be finished to the highest quality with attention to detail such as the power supply plugging in under the speaker matching into the base, the sound quality is extremely good with the vibration cancelling working really well to allow distortion free music at the highest volume. The only issue I had was the ugly and large power supply plug, I presume they put the PSU inside this rather than inside the speaker to keep size and heat down, I have plugged this in out of sight and out of mind and was the only thing that stopped me giving this top marks.

This smart speaker is Belkin’s alternative to the Echo Studio, or equivalent smart speaker. Unfortunately I only have cheaper Echo devices so I can’t do a like-for-like comparison and tell you whether the Belkin is worth paying the (at time of writing) forty quid extra for compared to an Echo Studio.

But it is a fantastic-sounding, chunky Bluetooth speaker and a lot of thought has gone into the sound quality. It sounds rich and warm, with an amazing amount of bass but faithful high-end reproduction as well. It has to be said that it’s really quite a heavy speaker, so I would certainly expect it to sound powerful considering its weight, and it does.

The notable point about the sound is that the advertised vibration suppression really works. I have other speakers which can throw out big dollops of bass, but they will shake the table underneath them in the process. The “push-push” design of these speakers manages to push a lot of sound sideways without vibrating anything downwards, which is very clever- you can hold it in your hands whilst playing loud music, and your hands don’t get shaken. The vibration cancelling is very clever and effective.

I got a white one and the design, frankly, looks a bit cheaper than the price tag. There’s something about Belkin’s slightly-soft white plastic shells that feels and looks a little cheap and basic. The QI charging pad on the top is effective at charging my Samsung S10, but it’s not very elegant-looking. The fabric outer is a pleasant touch that softens it a little but the overall look is a bit of an ugly beast.

Setup is fairly straightforward, using the Belkin Soundform app on Android, for both regular Bluetooth use and use with Alexa. A firmware update took a surprisingly long time (over ten minutes) and it took me a minute to work out that the speaker’s microphone is off by default when you switch it on.

There are a few minor but tangible limitations that I find a little bit disappointing. For example, if using it with Alexa, there is no option for changing the wake word. We’ve switched the wake word to “Echo” on the other devices in the house because we were finding that the devices seemed to recognise it better. On this device’s settings, there is no wake word option- only “Alexa!” will wake it up. Some of the other settings are missing too.

In addition, I’m surprised at how loud the quietest volume setting on this speaker is. The speaker doesn’t seem to have the ability to do really quiet playback, for example for ambient music for relaxing. Even the loudest volume setting is a little bit loud.

Also, whilst I’m listing niggles, there’s something odd with Alexa’s voice. While music through Bluetooth sounds crisp and sharp, whenever I use the voice control and get a voice response in Alexa’s familiar accent, the sound quality sounds just slightly lo-fi and crackly for some reason, and I can’t figure out why, as the WiFi connection is strong and so on.

There are a lot of smart speakers available in the same price range at time of writing, including some from big-name manufacturers like Denon. Belkin’s addition to the selection feels like it ticks all the right boxes, without doing anything particularly special. The vibration cancelling is its only real distinguishing feature, and it does sound great, but I do have a few niggles with it, and it maybe doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the crowd otherwise.