Ultimate Ears Miniroll review: louder than it looks

Introduction

When shopping for a cheap Bluetooth speaker, you’ve usually got to pick between portability and volume. Pint-sized portables don’t often shout that loudly, while bigger ones require a lot more lugging. Ultimate Ears reckons its new Miniroll sits in the sweet spot. This shrunken successor to the go-anywhere Roll and Roll 2 fits in the palm of your hand, but can belt out playlists like a much bigger speaker.

If it can live up to that hype, the $79/£69 puck looks like a bit of a bargain. A built-in carry strap and UE’s familiar weather resistance also help it stand out from rivals including the ageing Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 and newer JBL Clip 5. But with an otherwise limited feature set, is this more of a one hit wonder?

Design & build: small as puck

Palm-sized and puck-like, the Ultimate Ears Miniroll wouldn’t look out of place on an ice rink. It has all the hallmarks of UE’s other speakers, including the sturdy, stain-resistant fabric up top and a gripper rubber base underneath. Familiar, oversized volume buttons make an appearance, too.

Calming Pink aside, the Miniroll’s colour selection plays it pretty safe: Gentle Black, Majestic Blue and Revive Grey aren’t nearly as jazzy as some of Ultimate Ears’ previous efforts. That’s a good thing if you like your tech to fly under the radar, though.

There’s some serious stretch to the rubber strap at the rear: it easily wrapped around my bike’s handlebars, and I had no trouble fixing it to a backpack. The strap is held in place by an industrial-looking screw, which uses a common 1/4in thread, so the speaker is easily bolted onto a tripod or speaker stand.

The Miniroll is small enough to slip into a trouser pocket, and at 279g won’t weigh you down as much as its Tribit and JBL rivals. It feels reassuringly dense, though, and is built to survive 1.2m drops. It was no worse for wear when my cat knocked it off the kitchen counter and onto a tiled floor.

It’s IP67 dust and water resistant, of course. Pretty much every Ultimate Ears speaker has this level of elemental protection. I like that UE is able to achieve that while also using more recycled materials than the previous version.

Features & battery: just the basics

Given the price, I wasn’t surprised the Miniroll only really offers the essentials. You won’t find any microphone for hands-free calls here, and the USB-C port at the bottom edge is for charging only. It can’t do anything fancy like let the speaker act as a battery bank for your other gadgets, or play music over a cable – and Ultimate Ears doesn’t include one in the box anyway, in the name of sustainability. There’s no 3.5mm auxiliary input, either.

You’ll only find two buttons on the left side of the speaker: play/pause , and power/pairing. The play button can skip tracks forward or backward with a double- or triple-press, which is handy when your phone is out of reach.

Holding down the play button activates the Miniroll’s neatest trick: Party Up mode. It lets you sync an unlimited number of Minirolls together to multiply the sound. It’s a welcome step up from the Wonderboom 4, which can only pair two together for wireless stereo sound. Officially this uses Auracast tech, which is meant to be device-agnostic, but I could only get it to work with another Miniroll speaker. You can’t pair it with any other UE speakers, either.

The one thing you don’t get here is any sort of app-based control or tweaking. That means no EQ presets to choose from, which is a downer if you’re not keen on the bass-heavy default sound (more on that in the next section).

Battery life is very respectable, managing very close to UE’s claimed twelve hours of music per charge in my testing. That’s comfortably enough for all-day excursions, a backing soundtrack to your working hours, or house parties that wrap up in the early morning. I like how holding both volume buttons down at once announces what battery percentage remains, too.

Sound quality: seriously shouty

The Ultimate Ears Miniroll impressed me the minute I started streaming Spotify to it. This is a bass-heavy beast that gets far louder than it should, considering its portable proportions. It doesn’t quite defy physics, but was comfortably loud enough to fill the box room I use as a home office. If you’re looking to properly get the party started you’ll want something larger, but one of these will happily soundtrack a family dinner or game night.

If anything, the Miniroll’s epic volume can work against it. If you’re not careful it’ll vibrate its way off some surfaces, or resonate against whatever you’ve secured its strap to. Sonic composure definitely stumbles when you properly crank things up, so I largely kept to more sensible levels.

Even then, I was surprised by how much low-end was on offer. UE has absolutely prioritised bass, which makes music sound that much more full-bodied when you’re within a few feet of the 46mm full-range driver and passive bass radiator. The squelchy synths on Fox Stevenson’s Got What I Got were present and correct. Move further away (especially when outside) and it doesn’t shake quite so convincingly; there are better outdoor speakers, but none are as compact as the Miniroll.

On the flip side, you don’t get the sort of mid-range and treble detail of other, more neutrally-tuned speakers. Billie Eilish’s whispered vocals on Bad Guy are swallowed by the bassline at moderate volume, while the percussion gets crispy and sibilant when you go louder. It’s hardly a bad showing for a speaker so small, though – and if volume takes priority, you won’t be disappointed.

Ultimate Ears Miniroll verdict

Take-anywhere Bluetooth speakers are more about fun than nuanced sound, and on that front the Miniroll definitely delivers. It’s small yet sturdy, the integrated strap is very useful for travel, and it overdelivers on volume. Rivals might cost slightly less, but they can’t should nearly as loud.

It’s not like compact, rugged speakers are in short supply, though. With no companion app or customisable EQ, you might want to look elsewhere if an extensive feature list matters most. The UE Wonderboom 4 isn’t significantly more cash, either, if you want a more well-rounded sound.

For sheer simplicity, though, the Miniroll still earns my recommendation.

Ultimate Ears Miniroll technical specifications