JBL Charge 6 review

Full review

The JBL Charge 6 is a mid-size portable speaker built for outdoor use. JBL rates it IP68 for water and dust, with the footnote basing this on submersion in up to 1.5 m of fresh water for up to 30 minutes. It has a 53 x 93 mm woofer and a 20 mm tweeter, with 30 W RMS for the woofer and 15 W RMS for the tweeter.

Battery life is claimed at up to 28 hours, made up of 24 hours of playback and about 4 hours extra from Playtime Boost. A full charge takes about three hours, and ten minutes on the charger gives up to 150 minutes. The built-in power bank can charge a phone, though JBL notes it does not support laptop charging.

Bluetooth is version 5.4. For group listening, Auracast lets several compatible JBL speakers play the same audio, and two Charge 6 units can be paired in stereo. Lossless audio is possible over USB-C, but needs an over-the-air update in the JBL app and a compatible source.

The main compromise is size. At 1.37 kg on JBL's page it is not a pocket speaker. JBL's page does not list codecs, a microphone or an aux input, so those are marked not stated.