Apple HomePod mini review: Sound quality, features, price and battery

On first use it seems strange that this new Apple product doesn’t have this essential feature – then it all makes sense.

REVIEW

Apple is back at it again bringing colour to our homes with its release of the HomePod mini in three fresh new colours – orange, yellow and blue. The mini speakers are small but ready to become a statement piece, fitting in any room, and filling it with music.

Unboxing

The speaker, aka HomePod mini, comes boxed with an attached USB-C cable, a USB-C wall plug, an Apple sticker and a start-up guide. Bring your iPhone close to the HomePod mini and your phone and mini will audibly guide you through set-up. When in use, the HomePod mini is mostly voice controlled but you can also tap the top of the device to pause, play, skip tracks and adjust the volume.

Apple launched its HomePod Mini smart speaker in new colours, including orange, yellow and blue.

Sound quality

Although this smart speaker is just under 8.5cm tall, its audio quality is surprisingly impressive. There’s a full-range driver built-in along with dual force-cancelling passive radiators and the shape has been carefully crafted to produce a high quality 360-degree sound output.

Music sounded delightfully clear, loud, balanced and bass-rich no matter where I placed the speaker in the room. This is probably also due to the Apple-designed S5 chip which allows the speaker to optimise the sound quality to suit the room where the device is placed, in real time.

Elly Awesome found the little speaker to have good sound quality. Picture: Supplied

Features

Besides playing music, Siri is a big part of the HomePod mini’s user experience as it’s able to recognise up to six different voices to offer you personalised updates and information. By asking “Hey Siri, what’s my update?” Siri gives you a rundown of your day including the weather, what’s on your calendar, travel time for trips you often take (e.g. to work), what’s on your reminders and even a short news update.

Conversely, you can also ask Siri to set reminders or send messages – not new to Siri – but it’s convenient with an always-on HomePod with loud responses even on the other side of the room.

You can use your phone to guide you through set-up. Picture: Apple

Some hidden features of the product that I found helpful was being able to ask Siri to ‘ping my phone’ or ‘find my keys’ (with an AirTag attached), conversely, when relaxing at home asking Siri to play a TV show on my Apple TV 4K. Siri can actually turn on your Apple TV, pause, play and rewind shows while your HomePod mini becomes your audio output. Additionally, you can use the HomePod mini to control your smart lights and tell Siri to “turn the lights off in 15 minutes”.

The HomePod mini is small but powerful. Picture: Supplied

Some of these features aren’t entirely revolutionary compared to the other smart speakers on the market but the HomePod mini is perfect for bringing the entire Apple Ecosystem together seamlessly. And don’t get it twisted – the mini is made specifically to complement the Apple ecosystem – so it can only be used with Apple devices (first and foremost iPhone but also iPad) with Apple Music and Apple Podcasts.

Battery life

Interestingly the HomePod mini isn’t battery powered and cannot be charged; it has to be plugged in and powered. I was initially shocked by this though I suppose it’s because it’s small and I confused the mini with a portable speaker – the HomePod mini is meant to be a permanent fixture in a room.

The idea is to purchase one or more and have them set-up in places where you’d listen to music or want convenient access to Siri. And if you purchase more than one you can choose whether to play different songs in every room, link two as a stereo pair or have each HomePod mini in sync to fill your house with music.

All in all, this is the perfect smart speaker for an iPhone user’s home. HomePod mini is also available in White and Space Grey, retailing for $149 which is a great price considering the build quality and user experience.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawwesome | YouTube