We are checking out the creative Halo LED Bluetooth speaker. Now you guys know I don’t usually do dedicated product reviews on things like Bluetooth speakers. But Creative was nice enough to send this out to me for review. And after using it for the last few days I thought that not only was it so good the price was also just right and it certainly warranted its own dedicated review. In the realm of Bluetooth speakers, I would say that something like the JBL Pulse would be a direct competitor to the Creative Halo given that they both offer similar features and have that unique LED lights package. But while the Pulse retails for $199, the Halo is only 69 bucks and at that price this thing really got my attention. If you’re interested in learning more about the Creative Halo or want to check out the most up-to-date prices and where to buy one, I’ll leave some links down below but let’s go ahead and get into the review.
Creative Halo (Amazon Link)
JBL Pulse 3 (Amazon Link)
So as far as the halos size, it’s about 7 inches across and just under 4 inches tall. It’s definitely compact and portable. You can carry it around if you need to or stick it in a bag or backpack without taking up too much space but it’s still a nice chunky size. It’s obviously not like a tiny little pocket speaker that’s gonna whisper out a little bit of sound. Most of the speaker is covered in this soft fabric like material, kind of like what you might find on a lot of braided headphone cables. And I really like the look and feel of the fabric. It’s high-quality and makes everything look pretty nice. The only thing I’m not a huge fan of is this little strap on the left side. It’s convenient I guess but you can’t take it off at all. You can’t even adjust it or tuck it away, it just kind of always dangles there. It’s something I can live with but I figured it was worth noting. Around back you get an axillary port as well as a USB port for charging the speaker. And as far as battery life goes Creative advertises up to 8 hours of playback time and I was getting about that and then some. The battery life really impressed me.
Up on the top of the speaker you’ll see a whole bunch of different buttons and controls. You of course get volume up and down and let me just say that as far as the volume goes the speaker is loud, like really surprisingly loud. You’ll also see the play and pause button in the middle there. You can also take phone calls by the way with a built-in microphone. The power button and a little indicator light off to the left and on the right is where you have your LED controls. Clicking through all the LED light show options, you’ll see that there are a whole bunch of different modes, patterns and styles to choose from you’ve got a lot of simple pulses and blinks. You can make the lights do laps around the speaker, you can have it synced to the beat of the music if you want. And while some people might consider the LED lights to be a little gimmicky; I personally find that it adds a fun element to the speaker and makes it stand out in the room. But if you aren’t satisfied with the preset led options, Creative also has a free app in the App Store and Google Play Store called Xspectra. And inside the app, not only can you flip through and select all the different modes but you can also edit the light colors in that specific mode to your liking. A lot of the different modes have two or three or four different options and the app gives you basically a full color wheel. So you essentially have an infinite number of colors and combinations to choose from across a lot of the different LED modes to customize everything exactly how you want it.
Now the most important aspect of any Bluetooth speaker obviously is how it sounds. If the sound quality is trash, the speaker isn’t worth a damn no matter what it does. And in the case of the Creative Halo, the speaker sounds really really good. I mentioned that it got loud which is great. But just casually listening to the speaker, my music sounded, really clear, really balanced, nothing was over exaggerated, there wasn’t any obnoxious bass or anything like that. It’s just a good clean crisp simple sound that delivers your music in a nice way. It’s kind of hard to give a good sense of sound in a YouTube review because everyone’s audio comes out differently. But here’s just a quick sound clip so you can get an idea.
All in all, the Creative Halo is a surprisingly good Bluetooth speaker at an exceptional price. It’s cheaper than most of JBL or – offering while still being just as good and maybe even a little better. At 69 bucks, the price is right, the features are there, the sound is good and it’s something I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a good speaker at a great price.
