Tribit PocketGo Review

Design

• Tiny, almost pocketable design
• Tactile on-board controls
• Convenient port selection

The PocketGo doesn’t stray too far from Tribit’s other compact speakers in design, being a tiny, rounded cuboid shape that’s very easy to sling into a bag or put wherever you need it for its duties of bringing the tunes to a party.

Its chassis is mostly fabric, with the grille covering virtually all sides, barring rubberised portions on the top or bottom of the unit. As with the StormBox Micro 2, it also has a neat strap you can hang the speaker from, such as clipping it to your jeans, a backpack, or even a nearby tree branch if you’re having a picnic – I don’t know, maybe you can get creative with it?

You also have a choice of how to place the PocketGo, with it either standing up or, thanks to four rubberised feet on the rear of the unit, flat on its back. This can provide a more dampened sound if you’d prefer, and the speaker is equally happy in either configuration.

Controls are big and bold on the top side for power, pairing and volume control, and remind me a lot of those found on dearer Ultimate Ears speakers. The buttons themselves are rubberised but have pleasant tactility to them, and feel virtually identical to those on more expensive Tribit options, such as the Tribit Stormbox Lava.

Owing to its IP68 water and dust resistance, the port cover is rubberised and sealed away from the elements, housing a USB-C port for charging and a microSD card slot that can support cards up to 128GB in size for local music playback.  This speaker can also float on water, meaning you won’t have to worry if it gets accidentally knocked into a pool when you’re movin’ and groovin’.

Features

• Surprisingly advanced Bluetooth support
• Basic codec support and app control
• Excellent battery life

Where the PocketGo excels is mostly with its feature set, with this small and mighty Bluetooth speaker upping the ante to Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity from the older Bluetooth 5.3 standard found on other speakers.

As with other iterations of the Bluetooth ‘standard’, the latest 6.0 variant adds niceties such as lower latency, longer range, and theoretically better sound quality thanks to the new LC3+ codec, although that is licensed and will likely only be on devices from manufacturers that pay the fee.

It is only in its infancy, as there’s also only a handful of phones and devices that support it, too – my Honor Magic V3 isn’t one of them.

The real benefit of Bluetooth 6.0 for a cheap device such as the PocketGo is in range, and Tribit says it’ll have a stable connection at distances up to 50 metres. I didn’t notice any real stutters or dropouts in placing my phone at one end of the house, and walking to the end of my garden with the speaker, even if it got chilly outside. It is winter after all, but the testing never stops.

As with other Tribit devices, this speaker supports TWS pairing, so you can grab another speaker and have a stereo pair for even more noise for parties, outdoor gatherings and the like. This speaker doesn’t have any multipoint connectivity, though, so if you want to pair a different device, you’ll need to turn the PocketGo off and reconnect every time.

Codec support is more basic with AAC and SBC, although I wouldn’t have necessarily expected anything more at the cheaper end of the scale. You’ll have to pay a bit more to get any form of aptX or LDAC.

There is a companion app for the PocketGo with the Tribit app that’s downloadable from both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store on Android. The app provides six preset EQ modes and some customisation with them, plus this speaker has a built-in microphone for calling up a smart assistant from your host device, such as Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri.

Tribit rates this speaker to last for up to 20 hours on a charge at half volume from its 2400mAh internal battery, which is fantastic given its more budget-oriented price. That puts it ahead of the StormBox Micro 2, and pulls away from much more expensive choices like the Sonos Roam 2. 

Sound Quality

• Flat sound by default
• Surprisingly decent bass
• EQ presets bring out the best

The PocketGo features seven watts of power behind it, making it slightly less powerful than its contemporaries from JBL and Edifier, although it still has a good amount of volume for filling a moderately sized room or outdoor settings. With this speaker, I elected to use a blend of Spotify and Tidal, as folks using this unit are likely to spin up tunes from streaming services for convenience.

By default, the ‘Tribit Signature’ EQ setting in the Tribit app lacks a bit of pop and energy, sounding a little flat and almost tinny, and it’s only when poking around with the preset (or a custom) EQ settings that this speaker shines for its lower price.

The Rock preset helped the busy Luminol from Steven Wilson out by bringing its prominent low-end and drums forward to provide more atmosphere. The general sound out of this Tribit speaker is surprisingly clear, and the low-end doesn’t drown out the track’s other elements.

Moving over to try the ‘Outdoor’ preset with Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer (an ideal party track), this pushes up the lower-end bass frequencies and heightens the treble at the expense of the mid-range. It seems to increase the general volume of output at the touch of a button, while pushing the song’s prominent cymbal and drum work over the vocal to create a busier sound in a small box. There isn’t much in the way of soundstage.

In spinning up Wolf Alice’s Giant Peach with the app’s ‘Popular’ preset, it seemed to make more subtle adjustments to the bass and treble, electing to push the drums forward in the box for a little more atmosphere. In addition, it made Ellie Rowsell’s seething vocals more prominent, working well with her higher register.

In a general sense, the PocketGo’s sound signature is likely to work well for parties and such, as long as you’re willing to fiddle with the EQ on a track-by-track basis. It’s got a fair bit of low end for such a compact unit, while configuring the sound properly reveals decent vocal handling, although at the expense of a lack of width in some instances.

Should you buy it?