Bose announces the new and improved Soundlink Mini II

The first Soundlink Mini was a huge success for Bose. Though many didn’t find the price all that appealing, it had a solid build quality and great sound for it’s size. Bose hopes to keep that going with the newest addition to the their speaker line-up, the Soundlink Mini II. The second iteration of the speaker keeps what everyone liked about the first and even adds a trick or two.

Physically the speaker dimensions are exactly the same measuring roughly 2.0-inches x 7.1-inches x 2.3-inches and both models weigh 1.5 lbs. As easy as it is to mistake one for the other, the Soundlink Mini II does appear to have a slightly sleeker design and a few changes to the buttons up top as well. The mute button that was present on the original has been replaced with a new multifunction button and the aux button on the original has been removed entirely, which makes the top end appear a lot less cluttered.

Fans of the aux cord do not fear, you can still plug into the speaker with a 3.5mm cable and play your music from non-Bluetooth devices. The new Soundlink Mini II maintains the standard Bluetooth range of 30 feet but also now includes voice guided pairing and can even remember up to 8 devices by name using text-to-speech. One of the downsides of the original was that it lacked a microphone which was available in a number of other speakers in that price range, even the Beats Pill. They fixed that this time around and even took a swing at another issue that was plaguing the speaker, the battery life.

Though the weight of the devices are identical, they somehow managed to pack in a slightly beefier battery into the Soundlink Mini II bumping it’s battery life from 7 to 10 hours of constant playback. We haven’t yet tested this, but judging by their past products Bose seems to give fairly accurate estimations in this regard. While we’re talking about charging, Bose decided to stick with the charging cradle that was available on the first model but also included a micro USB port to the speaker for added convenience.

The new Mini II will be available to ship on June 21st but you can pre-order right now for $199. It now comes in two minimalist colors (carbon or pearl) and if that’s a little too bland for you there are also soft covers that you can purchase for $25. They come in gray, charcoal black, navy blue, deep red, energy green, blue, red, pink, and mint. Though it won’t change the color entirely, it does add some nice accents to the edges and somewhat protects against the average drop.