Majority Move 3 Review

Design

• Comparable in size to the JBL Charge
• LED lighting on the sides
• IP67 rated

The Majority Move M3 is a speaker that’s just about portable enough to throw in a backpack, but not quite so small that I’d put it in a sling bag – and it might feel a little bulky to just haul around by hand.

It weighs 800g, has a design that looks a lot like the JBL Charge models (albeit with a big blue Majority logo on the front), and has an IP67 rating for dust and waterproofing, along with multicoloured LED lights on the sides.

You can toggle these lights via the power button, and you’ll find that, along with the rest of the buttons, slightly awkwardly located at the base of the speaker in such a way that I’ve found you need to pick it up each time you want to use the onboard controls. They’re logical enough, though, and cover all your playback and volume control needs.

There’s also extra connectivity that you might not typically find in this category: the ability to put in a microSD card or a USB flash drive and play tracks directly from those (as long as files are MP3s, the drive is formatted to FAT32, and under 128GB), which may appeal if you don’t always want to play via Bluetooth.

One downside here is the lack of a proper carry strap. Instead, you’ve got thin and not particularly useful shoelace-style attachments that offer almost no functionality when it comes to toting this around. At least the speaker has a grippy surface, but if you were to find it awkward to hold, it’s not like the “strap” is going to help at all.

Features

At its price, the Majority Move M3 packs in a decent feature set. It has a 5,000mAh battery, Bluetooth 6.0 (but only the standard SBC codec, not AAC, aptX, or LDAC), solid connectivity from external storage, and the ability to pair two units together for true wireless stereo.

What’s missing? There’s no high-res codec support, no Auracast, no ability to play audio over USB-C (that port is just for charging), and no power bank function to refuel other devices.

Unfortunately, there’s also no companion app, which most rivals offer to customise sound and settings. There’s also no Bluetooth multipoint, although I don’t think that’s an essential feature in this category. LED lights on the sides will flash while the speaker is on, but you can turn these off by pressing the power button repeatedly (it’ll cycle through solid colour modes and then land at a mode with no lighting).

Despite lacking USB-C audio, you could argue that the inclusion of support for microSD cards and USB-A flash drives sets this speaker apart from rivals. They’re a bit niche, but if you’ve got a lot of music files on external storage, you might find this useful.

I tested this out with compatible songs and found that the speaker auto-recognises when you connect a storage device and switches straight over to playback from the device. It works well if it’s a feature you’re after, but it’s important to remember it’s not going to work with your FLAC, WAV or even AAC files; it’s just for MP3s.

Battery life is rated at 30 hours, and while it definitely won’t live up to that if you play it all full blast, it’s a solid performance for a speaker in this class. In my tests, I reduced the battery by 10% after around three hours of playback (according to the battery reporting in the Bluetooth settings on my phone), so that lines up with Majority’s spec sheet.

Sound Quality

One of my first test tracks for bass was Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation, and the bass just lacks impact compared to the pricier Bose speaker I tested this against side-by-side, the SoundLink Plus (with both at the same volume). The Bose offers much more dynamism and a more immersive sweep to the audio, whereas the Majority comes off as tinny and sharp. I then played Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys and had much the same experience, although this time I found the vocals better separated by the Majority, coming off as muddy from Bose.

There’s clearly more spaciousness on offer from the Bose when I listen to Taylor Swift’s Fortnight, but I once again found the midrange and vocals more present when listening to the Majority. But the bass still lacks impact.

I’m not sure it’s the right tuning for a party speaker that you might want to fill a room, but it offers a good amount of clarity, even if it can be a bit compressed. Critically, though, because there’s no app, there’s no ability to change the sound with EQ. I’ve found it relatively trivial to slightly increase the mids and treble without losing the bass punch on the Bose, something that’s impossible on the Majority unit.

I did the same volume-matched tests with the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd gen), which is smaller but closer in price to the Majority, and found I had the same experience. The Bose speakers can use a couple of EQ tweaks, but it’s doable, whereas the Majority just doesn’t feel all that exciting for most dance, pop or electronic tracks. I think it’s reasonable for casual or outdoor use, and it handles high volume well without obvious distortion, but you can get a more fun sound from most rivals made by JBL, Beats, Soundcore and more.

Should you buy it?