Soundcore Motion X500 Review: A Big Bluetooth Speaker Punch In A Small Package

Portable speakers aren't a new thing. Decades ago, people were wandering around with full-blown boom boxes on their shoulders. Now, things are compact, handheld, and simple to use, and there are a lot of great speaker brands that specialize in Bluetooth audio. Anker subsidiary Soundcore has a few options on the market and is further expanding its list of options with the Soundcore Motion X500 portable Bluetooth speaker.

On paper, it has pretty much everything you need from a Bluetooth speaker. Simple functionality, style, high-definition audio, good battery life, and a significant amount of volume. But nobody parties on paper, and real-life performance is all that counts.

Anker provided a Soundcore Motion X500 Bluetooth speaker for the purposes of this review. Despite the cooling weather we managed to put it through its paces both indoors and outside. Initial impressions centered around the aluminum grille Soundcore has adorned it with. There's a lot of plastic at its sub-$200 price point, and it's nice that the company has taken somewhat of a luxury angle on its construction. But looks will only get you so far, and speakers are all about the sound.

While a grubby hobgoblin of a speaker may be fine if it's hidden away in the corner of your bedroom or basement, portable speakers are going to be seen. So they have to look good. Soundcore has done a great job here, creating something modern and visually pleasing without going too wacky.

You have three color choices: black, blue, or pink. The form factor itself is visually appealing, and the light ring on top adds a bit of pop when you're using it in a darkened room. The texture underneath the handle, and on the front of the grille is a nice touch. There's an overall feeling of quality about the speaker too. It's heavy, mostly due to the battery, but that gives it a well-constructed feel. There are no bits of cheap feeling plastic, no sharp parts. No little gaps that scream lax quality control. It looks and feels like a high-quality piece of kit. While it's capable of looking discrete, the speaker will also look great by the pool or in the corner of a room.

This is a speaker at the end of the day, so we can talk about things like styling, connectivity, and weight all day — but they're not anywhere near as important as the actual audio output. Luckily for Soundcore, this little speaker sounds a lot better than it has any right to.

You get high-def audio at a rate of 24-bit/96kHz which is more than many Bluetooth speakers are capable of providing. Beyond that, spatial audio makes a big difference and this sounds great indoors.

The sound comes through three speakers, two of which are on the front with the third being on top. This third speaker also plays with the styling to some degree, being ringed with light and hidden under a porous panel displaying Soundcore's logo.

There's also a surprising amount of bass from something so small, and some of the EQ presets play into this. We won't go as far as endorsing dubstep, but it is safe to say the X500 has enough about it to handle bass-heavy tasks in a contained environment.

Ignoring the app for a moment, controls on the Soundcore X500 are incredibly simple and go through six buttons — five of which only really do one thing. In order, from left to right, there's a power button, a Bluetooth button, an equalizer control, volume down, play/pause, and volume up.

Most functions, including skipping songs, can be achieved by tapping or holding the power button in several ways. This is convenient when you're used to it, but will require some time with the manual to get everything down. Of course, it's connected to your phone via Bluetooth so you can just control it all through that. If you're using Spotify, Tidal, or Apple Music — anything you do to that particular app will reflect through the speaker itself. We found ourselves lamenting the lack of a remote briefly before remembering that the remote we were looking for was remote was the multi-functional device we have in our pocket.

Yes, Soundcore could have tacked things on here. But after actually using the speaker, you realize that'd just be a case of adding expense and complexity where it isn't needed.

Where the Soundcore X500 is lacking is in the connectivity department. There's no AUX port and you're pretty much stuck with Bluetooth. Arguably, the world has been shifting away from AUX ever since Apple decided to ditch the headphone jack a few years back, but fewer options are rarely a good thing.

People with well-stocked older (wired) MP3 players are likely to miss out, though they will be relatively few in number. The X500's big brother, and many of its biggest and best Bluetooth speaker competitors, still come with the 3.5mm port — so while its exclusion could be seen as forward-thinking in some ways there are clear alternatives for those who still want it.

As far as the Bluetooth connection itself, things are very straightforward. If you already have the Soundcore app installed and running in the background you'll actually receive a popup when the speaker is trying to connect. The app is in no way mandatory and you're free to connect to the X500 as you would with any other Bluetooth speaker.

If you don't want to mess around with your equalizer, aren't using the app, or going that deep into the settings is beyond your skillset, then don't worry. There is a nifty little button on the top of the speaker that will flip between three pre-sets for you. We found that, while there isn't a display to tell you what you've selected, this still works well. You can just tap the button until the sound is somewhere near what you wanted and leave it at that. The three modes are distinct and completely cover most regular people's needs.

If you're a dedicated audiophile who loves to fine-tune everything, the app adds more options with the most significant being a highly customizable nine-point equalizer. So you can take your time and get things just right for the song you want if that's your kind of thing.

There are a few audio devices on the market that seem somewhat diminutive but manage to pack a surprising punch. Soundcore's X500 is a fully paid-up member of that exclusive club. If you've moved past the stage of life where you're determined to give yourself hearing damage, half volume is enough to be considered "loud" in a fairly large room. It can also be heard clearly from adjacent rooms while at this volume. Crank it all of the way, and you have a scaled-down Rammenstein gig in the immediate vicinity, and "we're upstairs at a house party" volume throughout the rest of the house.

While you can't quite crank it up to 11 — there is a reasonable use for its actual maximum setting. Everything needs to be a bit louder outdoors because nothing is bouncing back at you. While you couldn't stage an open-air concert with Soundcore's latest portable speaker — it is loud enough for a small gathering like a BBQ or a pool party.

The Motion X500 is a very compact and immensely portable speaker. You can easily carry and store it without any issues. It's actually compact enough to just shove in the car and take out when you're in a situation that requires a bit of loud music, like an impromptu beach trip. It's also small enough to stash away in the house without cluttering up the place. This is a somewhat underrated aspect of smaller speakers, as you don't really think of what you're doing with things when you're not using them until you're tripping over stuff in your hallway. The Motion X500 can easily live on a shelf or in a cupboard, and it won't bother anyone until it's party time.

In terms of weight, it's pretty hefty for something of its size. This is mainly due to the batteries, but a significantly lighter unit with a far shorter battery life probably isn't the best option in this case. And ultimately it isn't that heavy weighing in at just over 3.5 pounds. The handle is very comfortable, so that weight won't bite into your hand if you have to carry it over a long distance.

The brand suggests that the X500 speaker has a 12-hour battery life, though that's more of a specific case thing. To hit that maximum, you'll need to restrict the volume to 25% and jump through a couple more hoops. Still, in our experience, you can absolutely crank it for several hours before you'll be told to connect it to some kind of power source. At around 50% volume, the batteries will last a lot longer than most normal humans can party for. In short, relying on this to get you through a day of music is perfectly fine in most circumstances.

Charging times aren't bad either. We didn't exactly time our charging with a stopwatch, but half an hour with a USB-C cable plugged in will be enough to give it a significant amount of charge. The speaker is also capable of playing while plugged in, so it's possible to supply it with power and keep it going indefinitely, or at least tack on a power bank if you want to keep the party going in the short term.

We can wholeheartedly recommend the Soundcore Motion X500 speaker to most audiophiles who like to take their music with them. It's small and light enough to cram in a backpack or bag. If someone's throwing a party, this is enough to fill a room, a floor, or even a small house. Connectivity is simple, sound quality is good, and just about anyone should be able to learn how to navigate its buttons.

It also seems pretty ideal for outdoor use in the summer. There's enough battery life in the speaker to get you through a day-long party or enhance a couple of nights of a camping trip. Those batteries add weight to the point where it's likely to be unpleasant on a long hike but will probably be fine for something camp-focused where a vehicle will be taking on most of the load.

While there are some things we'd have liked, such as multi-point Bluetooth, backup connectivity options, and maybe some kind of smart integration, we can't really complain about the Soundcore Motion X500 not having those in its price bracket. It'll end up costing approximately $170 in the U.S. and it absolutely nails it at that price point. You'll find this speaker available in the Soundcore store first, then in the Soundcore store on Amazon by the end of 2023.