Ultimate Ears Miniroll

Design

• Puck-like shape
• Power/Bluetooth combined into one button
• Rear-facing strap allows for some maneuverability

Structurally, the UE Miniroll brings back more than a few memories of the first Bluetooth speaker I ever reviewed, the House of Marley No Bound. Instead of the upright build of other UE devices, the Miniroll sits almost flat like a puck, with the speaker grate and the volume buttons facing skyward when placed on a surface. It’s a spiritual successor to the UE Roll 2 except it carries a much greater thickness.

There’s a rubberised backing that’s slightly raised thanks to a rear-facing strap that can be used to hang the Miniroll on any number of objects, while the playback buttons overlap the grate and the backing, just off to the side. It’s quite unlike Ultimate Ears’ typical aesthetic, and the more compact nature of the thing means that the buttons for power and Bluetooth connectivity have now been combined into one, but it’s one of the reasons why I’ve really come to enjoy using the device.

At just 279g, it’s very easy to pick up the speaker and move it around from one room to another, and whenever I’ve wanted to travel light but still bring along a speaker to a gathering, the Miniroll has fit the bill perfectly. At a time when I’ve also been trying to minimise the amount of clutter on my desk, I’ve appreciated the Miniroll’s scaled-back profile (and the fact that I can easily fling it in a drawer when needed).

The only thing I would change about its current make-up is the aforementioned strap. It’s structured in a way that’s quite tight and doesn’t have the ability to stretch around most objects, which then usually results in having to use the gap in the middle as a way of holstering the speaker on a hook. Still, the strap can be removed entirely if you find it to be getting in the way, so it’s far from a major issue.

With an official IP67 rating, the UE Miniroll is rugged and ready to face dust and water, so in spite of its smaller build I never found myself worried about its long-term health. However, unlike with other UE speakers, the USB-C port doesn’t have an included cover so I don’t recommend being overzealous in how you handle the Miniroll. 

Features

• Doesn’t connect to the UE app
• No EQ settings
• PartyUp only works with other Miniroll speakers

As much as I love the design, if there’s one area where the UE Miniroll has been scaled back in order to accommodate for a much lower price, it’s in the amount of features offered. Unlike the more expensive speakers sold by Ultimate Ears, the Miniroll is completely unable to connect to the company’s app.

This lack of connectivity means that you can’t access equaliser settings for the device, nor can you take a quick peek at key metrics like the remaining battery life on board. More crucially however, it means that UE’s PartyUp feature, which lets you sync with multiple speakers, is severely limited.

Because you’re unable to instigate PartyUp via the usual method through the app, you can only sync up an available Miniroll with other Minirolls that you have on hand. If you own an existing speaker like the Boom 4 then you can forget about pairing that with its miniature sibling.

I can understand dealing with some degree of compromise in order to get a decent Bluetooth speaker at the lower end of the market, but typically that comes at the expense of some detail in the sound profile rather than a removal of features. As I’ll mention in a bit, the sound quality, as you might expect, isn’t as robust as what you’ll find on UE’s pricier options, but to also see a smaller set of available features feels odd to me.

At the very least, establishing the PartyUp link between two Miniroll speakers is easy enough, as you just have to connect them to your phone and then hold the playback button on each for three seconds, at which point they’ll find one another and sync up. Even with the drawbacks, I do appreciate how simple this is, and it might even be preferable to someone who doesn’t want to have yet another app on their phone to deal with.

You also get a decent amount of battery life considering the stature of the Miniroll. On a single charge, it’s possible to have the speaker run for up to 12-hours at a time which is more than what you’ll get with even some higher-priced options like the Sonos Roam 2.

Sound Quality

• Plenty of bass despite the size
• Can get quite loud
• Places emphasis on the highlight of a track, rather than the surrounding detail

Whenever it comes to testing out the playback on a more budget-friendly Bluetooth speaker, there’s always a moment of needing to adjust your expectations and focus on whether or not the overall sound profile is energetic enough to feel engaging.

Detail is typically reserved for pricier models, and while that remains true here, I was surprised by just how much power Ultimate Ears has packed into such a small device.

Don’t misjudge the Miniroll by its appearance – it carries a generous amount of weight when it comes to bass and percussion. I noticed it immediately when I went for a trip down memory lane and Modjo’s Lady (Hear Me Tonight) came on. The speaker complements the energy of the song really well to the point where I couldn’t help but dance along whilst it played out. When the bass kicks up a notch with a more complex riff at the end of the first chorus, it shone through clearly in the mix.

Keeping the early 2000s vibe going, I shifted gears down to a slower melody with Ashlee Simpson’s Pieces of Me and with that track, it’s the vocals that come through best which makes sense because that’s where the focus has been placed in the production. If anything, the Miniroll does a great job of complementing the best parts of a song, and although you’re unlikely to find a ton of detail under the surface, it won’t detract from your overall enjoyment.

The same sentiment carried over when I popped on the soundtrack for the brilliant Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (which I can’t recommend enough). Monoco, which serves as the battle theme for its namesake character, is pretty much comprised of an epic saxophone solo and it comes through beautifully on the Miniroll, but I’d be lying if I said that I could hear much of what the backing band was doing to accompany the instrument.

Still, for a speaker with this price tag, the Miniroll’s sound profile is exactly where I’d want it to be. If I were paying more than £100 / $100 for the privilege of owning one then I’d expect more, but otherwise it does the job well, and it’s a fair trade-off for the portability at play which is what makes the Miniroll so alluring to begin with.

Should you buy it?