Bang & Olufsen Beosound 2 Review

Overall Rating

Sound quality is amazing, looks out of this world. Build quality is sky high - as you could expect.

Slightly fiddly controls and software.

I got this on the 31st July, I went halves with it with my parents for a present for my birthday. I had always wanted one of these, and after owning two previous iPods, I wanted something a little uncommon. The looks are fantastic, very small and shiny, made of polished stainless steel, with adjustable hand-crafted aluminium earphones. The device is stylish, and friends have always asked me what it is, and how unique it looks. Sound quality too, is also amazing. The player features a special amplification processor, I believe, which is similar to what B&O use in their loudspeakers. Using the player is quite difficult to start off with, but once you're used to it, you can operate it in your pocket. Even sometimes I do accidentally press the wrong button, as if I just want to turn up the volume, you can easily advance to the next song, again similar to if you want to decrease volume. Because of it's looks, It requires regular cleaning, I personally use a lens cloth with seems to do the job. Build quality is what B&O are renowned for, and this certainly doesn't fall short of expectations in that department. Yes, it can't play video or pictures, and it doesn't have a screen or hard-drive, but I never really used video on my iPod, and the HDD and screen interfere with sound quality as well as draining down the battery. Talking of the battery, the battery lasts for 8 hours, and I can confirm that as it takes an hour from where I live to college, and it lasts 2 times for 4 days before it needs charging. The controls are a bit fiddly, especially when you want to set it to random mode or if you want to lock the controls. Storage is in the form of memory card, and I personally think this is better than HDD, as there is no skipping or jumping. You can also swap memory cards according to the mood you're in. I got supplied a 2GB card from our Heworth branch, and that is another thing, the staff there were really pleasant and took time to understand you're needs, they were friendly, not patronising. Recharging the battery is a simple matter of clipping the player onto its dock, and an amazing light show awaits you. Downloading music is also done this way, although you have to switch it on into computer mode, but putting music on it is done by the Beoplayer software supplied. It is just a case of dragging songs from you're library onto the player memory, and once you've done selecting it will download the music onto it, and the progress is seen on screen, although it does take a while to copy things onto it if it is empty. I would recommend this product and the branch to anyone.