This is the review of the comparison between two smart speakers from the same brand, from the same series, and also, retailing for the same price range. The comparison here is between the JBL Link Portable and the JBL Link 10. To know which one is better for the price, go to the detailed review.

JBL Link Portable	JBL Link 10
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Solid audio performance. Packed with features. Combines portable use with Google Assistant for convenient smart home management.	Google Assistant integration. Portable and rugged build. Decent sound quality. IPX7 water resistance. Competitively priced.
CONS	CONS
We miss dynamics and control, it gets pretty tame. No JBL Connect support. No aux input.	MicroUSB charging instead of USB-C. Distorts on heavy sub-bass. The sound is a bit low in volume. Short battery life.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

JBL Link Portable

The Link Portable is a new speaker from JBL with Google assistant that replaces the JBL Link 10 which was our old portable speaker about the same size but they had all sorts of problems with the charging port on the back. This speaker is retailing for around a hundred and eighty dollars on the JBL website.

JBL Link 10

The JBL Link 10 is a portable speaker with Google assistant meaning you can take it anywhere out in your garage, to a party, as long as it’s charged to the beach, that kind of thing. This speaker is retiling for around a hundred and eighty dollars currently on the JBL website.

DESIGN: 

JBL Link Portable

As far as the speaker is concerned, there are a few main buttons. Obviously, on the bottom, we’ve got that charging conductivity. On the back of the speaker, we have the Bluetooth functionality, we’ve got a mic mute and unmute if you don’t want to use Google assistant, we have the power button that you can press and hold to bring it on, we also have a new little battery indicator bar panel down there and that’ll show you exactly how much the speaker is charged, how much battery life remains, and then our USB-C port. On the top of the speaker, we have the Google assistant button as well as two input microphones on either side there as well as the volume plus or minus buttons there. If you want to use Google assistant, you can push and hold the button in the middle for two seconds and Google assistant will come on. Otherwise, you can enable it in settings in Google assistant will always be on. It really does feel nice, a nice cloth, kind of speaker cover here, some good weight to it, and I think this is gonna be nice and durable with some great sound.

JBL Link 10

It’s got a really good feel to it it’s not super heavy either which is great. On the back of the speaker is where we have the power button to turn on and off a speaker above the power button there are some LEDs that shows you the battery percentage left in your speaker, and we also have the mute button there that we can use to enable or disable the microphone. On the top of the speaker, you have got your Google assistant button, then you have got the volume up and down buttons, play control, and then your Bluetooth button up there as well. On the back of the speaker, at the down, there is where we’re going to find our charging port under the flip open and that is the USB Type-C port. As far as the first impression, it feels really great.

FEATURES:

JBL Link Portable

I bought the black model of this speaker but this also comes in blue and gray. Right out of the box, it’s a really good-looking speaker, it’s got some heft you can really feel the weight to it. It’s got a 360-degree speaker radius, so you got sound on all sides. You can see on the top of the speaker that it’s Google Assistant included, so you can speak to it. What’s nice about these speakers is they’re portable, so we can bring them outside with us so if we’re doing a workout, we can bring them in the trailer for camping, all sorts of good things like that. This is rated waterproof for up to a meter for 30 minutes and that’s kind of nice, so you can get a little bit wet again don’t go drowning this thing because it is compromised, if you really bring it down to any kind of depth. We also have a QuickStart guide as well as some warning guides that come with and the new thing that was not included in the old Link 10 is a little charging dock.

You’ve got the little USB-C cable that comes with it, it’s got that nice JBL logo on it and this is going to go inside your little dock and this is gonna really help with that charging port integrity that JBL was struggling with on the Link 10. You can see there’s a little charging dock on the bottom there, the connectors and that’s just going to set right down on top of the dock and then once that USB-C cable is connected to that, again the connectivity is going to automatically start charging this speaker. With a full charge, it’s rated up to eight hours of portable playtime. Meaning you don’t have to have it plugged in and you’ll get that eight hours of playtime before it needs to be recharged. It does support AirPlay 2 as well as hands-free help from the Google assistant. It’s also got wireless streaming via the Bluetooth function on the back, so that’s kind of nice if you don’t want to connect it to the internet you can just connect via Bluetooth again if you’re out camping somewhere and don’t have internet connectivity.

As far as the setup process, one of the things you will need to do in preparation for being able to use either Apple home or the Google assistant is downloaded those specific apps for your mobile device. The first thing we need to do is get power to the speaker, this can be done in two ways either we can set the charging cable directly into the USB-C port on the speaker or we can use the charging dock. I chose the charging dock because again pulling the speaker in and out of that USB-C port from the Link 10 really ended up messing that up, so I’m using the dock this time. You just need to plug the cable into the dock and connect the other end into an adaptor. Unfortunately out of the box, the speaker does not come with the little power adapters, it just comes with the cable. When you set the speaker down on that dock, it will start initiating power, you can see the lights kind of coming on in the Bluetooth connectivity mode. What’s cool about this dock is you can actually have this in any direction, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s seated down in there, so you can have it either four ways there.

JBL Link 10

Because we use Google for so many other things, so this connects very easily with the Google Calendar, so you can ask it about your tasks for the day as well as its do list all those things that we keep information on for Google versus Amazon which really the only major benefit is the shopping features. This is a comparable version for Google with a Google assistant. The Google Home is what people are going to be used to the major speaker that Google has come out with not the Mini but the major larger one. The problem is it’s not portable, the home is not portable, and Google really doesn’t have a good portable version which is why we are really excited to find this JBL Link 10, there’s also Link 20 that’s double the size of this but this speaker really looks like it’s going to be perfect for us.

The back of the box gives some of the features that this thing comes with and get help from your Google assistant, enhance your voice control, simple setup with all your smart home things, you can cast as long as your TV or other things are enabled or if you have a Chromecast enabled on your TV which is awesome, this thing it’s got a little bit of waterproofing too which is really cool meaning we can take it out on a boat or something like that, if we’re using it it’s got Wi-Fi support as well as Bluetooth, so there are some really cool features there. On one of the side of the box, there are a few things you can see you can do with the Google assistant as well as all the things that it very easily connects up to but only the other things we would like is that it connects with Spotify. When you open the box up you are getting really cool nice packaging and then we get to our main Link 10 area. When we open up the box, we get a small box inside it, that contains our cords, and then there is also another box that contains some other instruction portions initial setup instruction, manuals, warning, etc. Then below all those boxes is where your main speaker will be.

It’s an IPX7 rating meaning that it can be immersed up to one meter for 30 minutes which is great but again you need to have it basically it can’t be plugged in and then you have to have the little flap on the back of the speaker has to be closed in order for it to actually be waterproof, so just be aware of that. As far as the setup process on this speaker, it is really simple and easy. The first thing we’re going to do is actually turn the speaker on and basically, right out of the box this still has a little bit of power on unless it’s been sitting for four months or even years. But actually, you need to press and hold the power button for about three seconds and you can see the battery life immediately. After turning on the speaker, you need to go into the Google Home app. If you don’t have it already downloaded, go to the Google Play Store or the Apple Store for using an iPhone to download it. From the app, you can set up the speaker very easily.

SOUND QUALITY:

JBL Link Portable

As far as the sound quality of the JBL Link Portable, already it sounds actually really great for a small little speaker. In my opinion, this speaker sounds perfectly fine for medium and small-sized rooms. It can fill the room at 75% volume still having full clarity and no distortion. At max volume, you still can get a little bit of distortion, the bass kind of fades away in the background with the harshness of the highs but that still being a little bit nitpicky but it will still sound just fine when you are listening to it below 80% volume.

JBL Link 10

Compared to the Amazon Tap this speaker is much larger, so again hopefully we’re going to get a larger bass, a larger spectrum of sound out of this speaker, and a little bit higher volume. while the speaker is supposed to fire a 360 degrees sound it does have only a right and left woofer that is actually a full range, so it is responsible for high notes as well as low notes. It also has a passive woofer on the front and the back both, which is just gonna give you that extra bass. 

WHICH ONE IS BETTER FOR THE PRICE?

In my opinion, the JBL Link Portable is better for the price than the Link 10 because for the same price both of these speakers sound the same have the same features but the battery life and performance on the Link Portable are better than the Link 10. Overall, for those of you who already have a Google ecosystem in your house of assistance and so on, I think this is a really good way of getting another Google assistant in your house but a Google system that can also be used for other things.

Expert Reviews of JBL Link Portable:

By PC Mag
The JBL Link Portable speaker offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity along with AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and hands-free Google Assistant support in a waterproof design with solid audio performance for its size.

By What Hi-Fi?
For a great, affordable, durable home smart speaker, you’ll be hard-pushed to find a product that can match JBL’s Link Portable

By Pocket-Lint
The JBL Link Portable is a lovely, compact speaker that’s a perfect size for delivering decent sound (from what we have heard so far), whilst…

By LB Tech Reviews
JBL Link Portable is both a portable speaker and a smart speaker. It is easy to use and the sound is perfectly OK. But you pay extra for…

Expert Reviews of JBL Link 10:

By PC Mag
The JBL Link 10 smart speaker offers Google Assistant voice control in a portable, rugged, and relatively affordable package.

By Phone Arena
The JBL Link series provides some formidable competition for its third-party Alexa-endowed counterparts, and even gives the Google Home series itself a bit of a run…

By Good Gear Guide
With the Link 10 and 20 JBL leverage their strength in the portable speaker space to deliver a product that sounds great and pushes the smart speaker category…

By cnet
While the JBL Link 10 may not deliver as rich sound (or have as much battery life) as the Link 20, it’s still one of the better voice-enabled portable Wi-Fi speakers out there.