soundcore Motion X600 Review
soundcore – a sibling of Anker – is a brand that I’ve largely overlooked. I think that’s because of my aversion to earphones – which are fundamentally incompatible with me – and my aversion to Bluetooth speakers – I don’t sit outside all that often.
Yet, while my back has been turned, soundcore have been busy refining their art and engineering something that would finally make me take notice. That something is the soundcore Motion X600.
I’ve tested speakers, iPhone docks, sound bars, radios and all manner of music producing gadgets over those intervening years, but none of them quite hold a candle to what soundcore have done with the X600. I know it’s not entirely unprecedented, but it’s the first – I suppose I could say serious – portable Bluetooth speaker that I’ve encountered in my techy toy travels. And by serious I mean it actually looks like something you’d want around your home, rather than a campsite or the back of a school bus.
It’s not just particularly excellent as a speaker, but combines the top notch sound – that you’d more readily associate with a stationary speaker dock or sound bar – with portability, on-the-go power, an absolutely cracking visual design and water resistance. The latter being a very strong win for those of us contending with British weather.
If you say something is water resistant… I’m going to test it.
From the very first glance at its treasure-chest like hinged packaging, to the experience of lifting the hefty speaker for the first time via its sweeping, cold, metallic handle. The X600 is quite something. If you want to save yourself a long read and are interested because you love how the X600 looks, stop here and buy one. Otherwise, strap in as I indulge myself and lavish a liberal literary laudation upon this sleek spatial sound speaker.
I think the Motion X600 packaging deserves a call out for being very cool, but I’m not a fan of the plastic wrap!
Build
The build quality of Motion X600 is evident from first touch. The cold metal of the arching handle with its textured underside grip feels premium and unyielding. The front of the speaker is also metal, giving the dense almost mesh-like grille a structural integrity that stands up to my best efforts to squash and squeeze it. The back, however, is plastic. Plastic that is, albeit, so expertly colour and finish keyed to the metal surface finish that you’d be forgiven if you mistook it for metal. The plastic doesn’t quite have the same sparkle as the metal, though, and the real giveaway is that it’s not cold to the touch. From a distance it’s not in the least bit apparent, and this gives the X600 a very premium look and feel, without wasting expensive materials where they won’t matter.
The metal speaker grilles really help the premium feel.
Unfortunately – like many other brands trying to capture a premium look and feel, but lacking confidence in their products – soundcore could not help but splash pointless little text labels in a few choice locations – “spatial harmony” and “high fidelity audio” adorn the left and right of the handle respectively and a “soundcore” logo on the top. These are so faint and small it’s almost as if the product design and the stick-silly-nonsense-text-on-things departments came to a compromise. The USB Type-C charging port is also labelled “IN PUT”, either through a tragedy of kerning or something lost in translation. It’s clear that soundcore’s reach for a fully premium finish exceeds their grasp, though they’re not far off.
IN PUT
I know invoking Apple is unfair, but Apple is a company so brazen and committed to clean design that they’ll hide all the regulatory text underneath the prongs of an AC adapter. I’ve also seen Withings hide similar info inside battery compartments for a clean look.
Brands that stick random meaningless text on their products because they’re afraid you won’t know how high fidelity it is otherwise, vs brands that hide the regulator information in microscopic text under the plug prongs.
The top and bottom are, as you might expect, plastic. The top is inset with an intricate metal grille for the skyward-facing speaker, embellished with the soundcore logo (which is the “d” from sound!?). On the left of this are the power, Bluetooth, spatial sound, bass boost buttons and on the right are volume down, play/pause and volume up. Each button is illuminated- most white, but Bluetooth with blue and power will illuminate red when charging or flash when the battery is low.
The power button is slightly inset, making it easy to find from feel alone- provided you know what you’re looking for. The other buttons are raised ever so slightly, with the larger volume and play/pause buttons being a little prouder. Despite being seamlessly blended into the top plastic, and thus immune to water, dust and grime, they have a definite, tactile click. Mechanical buttons mean the buttons will work reliably with wet hands – from a pool or kitchen – and you won’t get spurious button presses.
The seamless illuminated buttons on the X600 are part of the water-proofedness, but they also look good and don’t have any gaps for dirt. Makes the top wipe clean, which is a saving grace for a family barbecue. Less can be said about the upwards facing speaker grille, though, it’s a potential dirt trap! I wonder how washable it is…
The illumination and clear icons mean it’s obvious what each button does and where it is at a glance. Unfortunately this is not the case from touch- the icons are not raised and the buttons do not feel distinct from one another, although you can find each button in turn by running your finger over the top of the device.
Flipping the X600 around reveals more porting for the speakers – this time plastic and much less showy than the beautiful metal front – and a little rubber cover that pulls open to reveal the USB Type-C port and 3.5mm aux port. The Type-C port is for charging only, and a cable – but not an AC adapter – is supplied in the box.
Underneath is more plastic and four small-ish rubber feet; underneath which I’ll assume the screws are hidden. The rubber feet each have two smaller raised nodules, I’m reasonably sure this is to keep the speaker mechanically isolated from a hard table or surface and avoid unwanted, buzzy vibrations. The bottom is also adorned with a veritable essay of regulatory and informative text and logos. It’s hard to see even when you’re trying to read it, and on the bottom out of sight, so I’ll give soundcore a pass here.
Sound
I’d use the phrase “punches above its weight” here, but the fact is- the Motion X600 is quite hefty. I suppose five speaker drivers and a large battery will do that. What I can say is that the X600 impressed me. And it certainly impressed upon me a need to turn down the volume. This monster is loud. When soundcore quote their 12 hour battery life as a quarter volume and no bass boost or spatial sound, they are earnestly suggesting this is how you’ll use the speaker most of the time. At least if you like your neighbours and your ears.
And they’re pretty much right. I find somewhere around a quarter volume is great for casual listening around the house with the bass-boost toggled on or off depending on my mood and how much bass matters to the music I’m currently playing. There’s a generously sized, water sealed bass port at the back of the X600. It’s a great big rubber membrane which moves with the front-facing woofers and is presumably why the bass thumps out of this thing like it’s trying to escape. I am extremely tempted to chuck it in a bathtub, crank up the volume and see if I can make a little dubstep water fountain.
The back has a large bass port via a waterproof flexible membrane. This thing is so bassy that I usually leave boost off.
And, to stop beating about the bush, it’s not just loud, but delivers crystal clear audio without any distortion at high volumes that really, truly is “room filling.” I had the Majority Bowfell Plus set up in the kitchen for entertainment during my cleaning sprees – the soundcore Motion X600 has a smaller footprint, and no separate subwoofer yet still manages to deliver more than enough punch to completely topple Bowfell*. And I suppose at something like three times the price it should.
*note: not the actual mountain
Whether or not the 3D sound and upwards facing driver deliver an immersive audio experience is difficult for me to determine. I have no directional hearing so “immersion” for me is usually just loudness. What I can say is that music sounds markedly better with the 3D sound enabled, such that I’ve only ever really turned it off experimentally.
There’s a microphone inside the Motion X600, too, so you can use it like a giant speakerphone and field calls. You probably won’t want to, but it’s useful in a pinch. The voice call volume seems much lower than music volume at the same system volume level- this might be to mitigate the inevitable echo of their own voice that your caller will get.
Aux input works as you’d expect and despite the recess being a little tight it fits my bulky 3.5mm to stereo 1/4” jack cable.
I jacked my Yamaha MODX8 in via the aux port and was pretty impressed with the sound for music fiddling. I’m not really sure why there’s an aux at all, since using a 3.5mm audio cable with your dusty antique phone will inevitably scupper and rain resistance. Sadly despite the USB Type-C port being an alluring bag of mystery it will neither charge a connected phone nor enable audio over USB. The latter would have been pretty cool. It’s strictly for charging only.
You can, in theory, pair two Motion X600 speakers in TWS (True Wireless Stereo) mode but alas, I was only given one to play with. Hey, soundcore, the green one is nice too, just sayin’. There’s also support for the LDAC audio codec in Android 8.0 and later. Since I listen to basically all of my music via Bluetooth (or DECT) headphones from my iPhone or computer(s) I’m pretty sure I don’t have ears golden enough to even venture a subjective impression on how much better this sounds. It’s there if you’re into it, though.
The real litmus test is how invariably impressed people are when I fire up the Motion X600. No matter what the genre of music or the occasion, even the startup jingle sounds good.
The Not So Good
Look, I can’t very well go claiming the X600 is perfect. It’s not. But it’s good enough that my complaints are half-way between me reaching to find something I don’t like, and trying to helpfully find something you might not like.
soundcore’s Motion X600 has an IPX7 rating, which is a step down – no dust protection rating – from the less visually appealing Motion Boom Plus which is bigger, tougher, louder, cheaper and has a longer battery life. If you’re not in love with the Motion X600s sleek design and you’re looking for something a little more outdoorsy then you’ll almost certainly prefer, and be better off with, soundcore’s Motion Boom Plus. Despite its water resistant design the X600 is very much – as evidenced by spatial sound, which requires a space in which to function – a convenient indoor speaker first and foremost.
There’s a pretty hefty battery inside – a 6400mAh SW-34MP 2S2P – that is absolutely not user serviceable or accessible. The good looks and water resistance come – as is typical of almost everything these days – at the cost of serviceability.
Charging at 12w! I think this battery is something like 3x the capacity of the speaker itself.
The handle is not retractable, removable or adjustable. I’m totally fine with this, and I love just how sturdy it feels, but it’s not long enough to tuck your arm through (I carry a lot of stuff quite often) and not short enough to stow easily in a bag.You’ll have to melt glue and undo about ten screws if you want to remove it. Or, y’know, an angle grinder will do the trick too.
When powered on the X600 likes to make a low rumble and play its moderately loud startup sound. There’s also a shutdown sound and a little “Bluetooth connecting/connected” melody. These are great the first time you fire it up, but might get quickly repetitive and be undesirable if you’re just firing the speaker up for some quiet, relaxing tunes. You will need the app to turn them off, which can be done by toggling the “Voice Prompt” setting to off.
The App
The soundcore app works with the Motion X600, allowing you to access an equaliser and choose from some pre-defined settings or define your own. You can also update the firmware, configure the “Auto Power Off” time, change the aforementioned “Voice Prompt” setting and view your device serial number/user manual.
After an initial update and EQ tweak to your preference and deciding if you want “Voice Prompt” (the startup and Bluetooth pairing sounds) on or off, you’ll probably never need to use the app again. You could use it to view the remaining battery life – there’s no indicator on the speaker itself other than a flashing light for low battery – but you can also do this via the batteries widget in iOS.
Overall
The soundcore Motion X600 looks, feels and sounds incredible. There should be no mincing words here, it’s the best looking Bluetooth speaker you’re likely to ever come across by a country mile. If you’ve come across the Dali Katch G2 then- well- it’s still a coin toss.
I can’t get over how good this thing looks. I’m a little jealous of the green one though!
If you’re not a fan of disposable tech, however, you might find the lack of serviceability unforgivable. Sure you could extend the battery past its useful life with an external battery pack, but that’s not going to do any favours for the water resistance!
While the USB Type-C port is not fancy – it’s charge only – just having a normal, standard connector for when you need to recharge is handy. Most of my other speakers need a barrel jack, whereas the Motion X600 I could take away with me and charge with my laptop charger.
I’d also love for soundcore to go the distance and remove the white text from the handle, in favour of a cleaner look and to exude more confidence in their brand. Less is more. An easily replaceable battery would be great, too, but I don’t see that happening without a major redesign.
The soundcore Motion X600 is what happens when Bluetooth speakers grow up, get a job and stop sitting at the back of the bus.
But, as it stands, and accepting it’s close to a hermetically sealed, inscrutable magic box of music I cannot emphasise enough how good this thing sounds. The X600 has thrown down the gauntlet and shown the rest of the Bluetooth speaker market how it’s done with the sort of style and panache that I’m sure mediaeval knights only had in fairytales. I love the X600, everyone I’ve shown it to loves the X600, and it’s now the only speaker not relegated to a pile in my office.
You can grab soundcore’s Motion X600 direct from their website for a not-unreasonable £199.99 at time of writing.
Oh and that aversion to earphones? I’m currently testing soundcore’s Liberty 4 NC in lieu of my normal huge Jabra over-ear headphones. I guess I might as well face all my tech demons at once!