The Home Pod mini was my favorite cheap wireless speaker — but Apple’s price hike has now handed that honor to the Sonos Era 100 SL | Tech Radar
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The Home Pod mini was my favorite cheap wireless speaker — but Apple’s price hike has now handed that honor to the Sonos Era 100 SL
More connectivity, better sound, better futureproofing
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Apple has just announced major price rises on a huge range of its products, and among them are its two Home Pod models. The price of the Home Pod mini is rising from
The full-size Home Pod 2 is also getting a price change, but it's a more palatable 17%, meaning that it's changing from costing
I think the Home Pod 2 can take that price rise, even though I'd obviously rather we were still in an era when products came down in price over time; the big Home Pod is already a more premium product, and still sounds very good for the price.
But I think this change is devastating to the Home Pod mini. I reviewed it when it came out, and I was so impressed by the dynamic range of its sound and its detail, bearing in mind not only the price, but the size. For ages, I had a pair as my desktop speakers out of choice, even though, as an audio editor, I can get my hands on pretty much any stereo setup I want to try.
As a result, I've been strongly recommending the Home Pod mini since it came out, and advocating for its position as the best 'cheap' option in our list of the best wireless speakers. Being a Home Pod, it's very limited as to who it's ideal for (all-Apple households, basically), but it's been in a totally different league to anything else when it comes to value since it's launch, in my opinion — yes, even five years later.
The problem is that the gap has very suddenly closed between it and the next-best cheaper wireless speaker, which is the freshly released Sonos Era 100 SL.
The Sonos speaker has much bigger sound, Android and i OS support for all streaming services, Bluetooth as well as Air Play and direct app control, and the ability to connect analog devices via an adapter — it's way more capable, but it was fair enough that the Home Pod doesn't do all that considering its lower price.
At the start of this week, there was
We gave this speaker 4.5 stars in our Sonos Era 100 SL review, based largely on it being a great low price while having impressive audio and connectivity. And now it's even cheaper — it's my top pick for a small wireless speaker.
The Era 100 SL is an even better deal in the UK — for just £12 more than the Home Pod mini, you're getting something that's way more futureproof. There's no contest between them any more.
Now, that's a slightly unfair comparison — I'm comparing full price to the Sonos' discounted price — but it's a very practical one, because it's the real choice most people will face when they buy.
The biggest sales for something like the Sonos Era 100 SL happen during sales events. Right now, it's Amazon Prime Day. Soon, it will be the July 4th sales. And obviously Black Friday is huge for selling this stuff — the Era 100 SL will be discounted to this kind of level at all these times, and more besides.
The Home Pod mini was very rarely discounted, by comparison, and usually only by a couple of bucks. So once this price rise settles in, and at the times most people are actually thinking about which one to buy, the comparison of the
And despite being the Home Pod mini's strongest advocate since its launch, I'm just not going to be able to recommend it any more.
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