These days, listening to music is all too often a solitary affair. The earbuds are in, the playlist is loaded and it’s time to yourself. On the other hand, there are situations where the music needs to be a shared experience with friends and family: here the EarFun Go portable Bluetooth speaker can help out. Let’s take a look.

The EarFun Go is a portable Bluetooth personal speaker with 24 hour battery life and IPX7 water resistance. It’s a roughly cylindrical unit with flattish parts for the buttons along the top and the speaker grille on one side. It’s about 17 cm long and 6 cm tall. There’s a hanging loop at one end, and round the back there’s a rubber plug covering the USB C charging port and 3.5 mm aux in. Covered in a soft touch rubber coating with four little nubbin feet, the Go is black. All black.

For those uninitiated in water resistance ratings, IPX7 means that the device will survive immersion in up to 1m of water for half an hour. In reality, this means it’s perfect for pool parties or going to the beach where there is a risk the speaker’s going to take a dunk, but it’ll be fished out in fairly short order. Weighing in at 430 g, it does initially float but I get the feeling that once the air has escaped from behind the grille, it’ll be heading for Davy Jones’ locker. I’d be inclined to attach a small float to the loop for activities on open water. If you want to see the EarFun going in a bucket, check out the YouTube video.

In the box, there’s only the EarFun Go itself, a 60 cm USB C cable and instructions. What else were you expecting? Ok, a carry pouch or bag might be a handy little addition.

Pairing with a range of smartphones and tablets was faultless and once connected up, it was time to crank out the tunes.  The Go supports Bluetooth 5.0 which is in most high-end phones from 2018 onwards e.g OnePlus 6, Pixel 2, LG G7, iPhone 8. To be honest, I’ve no idea why Bluetooth 5 is better than 4…

The EarFun Go has two 6W speakers and it is surprisingly loud and clear but it’s not going to get a beach party going. Remember, it’s only a little over 6″ long. The Go is perfect for tables, sun loungers, picnics and beach towels. Audio quality is good for something this small, though it’s relatively easy to pump up the volume to distortion levels.

It is possible to pair two EarFun Gos together for wider stereo separation. I wasn’t able to try this as I only had the one speaker. Sorry.

Battery life is phenomenal. The manufacturer states “Up to 24 hour playback” and I don’t think they’re far wrong. I used the Go for over a week listening to music and podcasts for a couple of hours a day, and I still had 27% battery life remaining. Charging the battery takes about four hours from flat. I’m not going to disagree with that, either.

And for the EarFun Go’s final party tricks….there are five embossed buttons along the top: power, Bluetooth connection, multi-function, volume down, volume up. All the buttons do what’s expected of them, though the multi-function does a whole lot more. To start with, pressing the button once, twice and three times will respectively play/pause, skip forwards and skip back. Pressing the multifunction when there’s an inbound call will pick up the call, and pressing it again drops the call. And finally, holding the button down for 2 seconds will launch your digital assistant of choice, such as Alexa, and allow it to answer questions. I haven’t seen this feature before but I can see it being handy at times.

Any downsides? Well, there can be a bit of distortion at higher volumes, but my main gripe is that it’s only available in boring black. The EarFun Go deserves to be in bright colours, like red, blue and orange.

Here’s the full spec from the website
– Bluetooth Version: V5.0
– Bluetooth Profile: A2DP , AVRCP , HFP , HSP
– Transducer: 2 x 40 mm
– Output Power: 2 x 6W
– Signal-to-noise ratio: >=80dB
– Battery: 3.7V, 4400mAh
– Play Time: up to 24 hours – varies by volume level and audio content
– Charging Time: About 4 hours
– Dimensions: 58x171x62 mm
– Weight: 430 g

If the EarFun Go needs to be in your life, it’s available from both Amazon.com for US$39.99 and from Amazon.co.uk for GB£35.99. There are some special offers so check those out to save some extra cash.

Overall, the EarFun Go is a fun little portable speaker perfect for keeping you and your buddies entertained, even when it’s wet.

Disclosure: The EarFun Go portable speaker was sent to me for review at no cost.