Sonos Play

Sonos Play hits the sweet spot in terms of portability below the gargantuan Move 2, but the sound quality took a hit, too. Still, it sounds better than the Roam, and the app works now.

The Sonos Play is a triumph of usability. It has just the right design and convenience considerations to make you pick it up and use it more often than other speakers, even great portable ones. To paraphrase a notable camera quote: the best speaker is the one you choose to listen on. The Sonos Play encourages me to listen more, in more places. It doesn't hurt that it sounds better than most portable speakers, too, and can hold its own as a home speaker.

The Play sounds great, has a wide and versatile feature set and won’t break the bank. It’s a welcome return to form for Sonos.

The Sonos Play has good sound and strikes a great balance between portability and at-home listening.

Fitting between the Sonos Move 2 and the Sonos Roam 2, the Sonos Play is there to offer the best of all worlds: it’s a fixed Sonos speaker for the day, but its integrated battery lets you move it where you want, while weatherproofing and Bluetooth let you take it on the road. It’s largely successful, too: easier to move than the larger Move 2 and better sounding than the Roam 2. But, the reverse is also true: it’s less portable than the Roam 2 and doesn’t sound as good as the Move 2. That’s quite a tricky buying decision, but if you want a speaker you can easily move around the house and occasionally put in the car for trips or camping, the Play is a neat choice.

The Sonos Play is a solid portable speaker that fits best inside the Sonos ecosystem. It’s durable, easy to move around the house, and the Wi-Fi features add a lot of streaming flexibility. At $299, most of the value comes from those Wi-Fi features rather than Bluetooth alone. If you already use Sonos speakers, the Play can make sense. If you just want a Bluetooth speaker, there are cheaper options that do the job just as well.

The Play works both on a Wi-Fi connected Sonos system with all of the features that provides, and as a Bluetooth speaker when away from the home system.

The Sonos Play is a $299 portable speaker that blends Wi-Fi multi-room audio with Bluetooth convenience, delivering balanced sound, 24-hour battery life and a design that works just as well at home as it does on the go.