Though it’s one of the smallest speakers we’ve ever seen, the Anker Soundcore mini blew us away with its functionality, connectivity, and volume. Just like many Anker products, the metal outer reminds you that you haven’t just bought another piece of plastic junk. In a fight between the Soundcore Mini and Creative Muvo 2C, we’re tempted to side with Creative now their prices are very similar online. Slightly deeper bass makes it a shade more fun than the Mini, and its Bluetooth is a little more reliable. The sound comes out of the top, so you can put the Anker Soundcore Mini more or less anywhere. And there’s a rubber foot on the bottom to stop excessive vibration wobbling anything nearby too much. The downside is that the painted aluminium is likely to scratch easily, but if that really bothers you, all you need to do is take better care of it.

This baby is loud & sounds way better in a box or underneath something so the sound has barriers to bounce off of. So to speak. There’s a powerful 5W driver to give you some extra volume output, and a 66 ft Bluetooth range. On top of all that, you also get an FM radio built-in. At its heart, the Anker Soundcore Mini is the definition of a pleasant surprise. Despite a ridiculously low price tag, it comes with access to both Bluetooth connectivity and aux input, as well as the option to play your music via MicroSD. There are a handful of products out there that have delivered surprising value for their size, like the UE Wonderboom, or the Bose Soundlink Mini. However, most of the time, downgrading size also means compromising on everything from sound quality to performance. Even the extra features like FM radio and SD card functionality wouldn’t save the Anker Soundcore Mini if it sounded just as tinny as terrible as most mini speakers. However, that doesn’t seem to be a problem.Another thing to note is that the Anker comes with FM radio built-in. This is a nice extra connectivity touch. You plug the MicroUSB cable into the device so it can act as an antenna, then you press the play button until you start scanning for stations. The Mini 3's nine-band EQ is far more effective for adjusting higher frequencies than the lower ones that the speaker can barely muster, which isn’t surprising. I tested the Soundcore Mini 3 with the EQ set to the Soundcore Signature setting, which is the default. At max volume, the Soundcore Mini’s mids and bass can distort a little with some music. But we don’t expect perfection at the price, and sometimes you just need that ambitious extra hit of volume. The sound comes out of the top, so you can put the Anker Soundcore Mini wherever you like, and access great volume. There’s even rubber feet on the bottom to keep it stable.

The Anker Soundcore app for Android and iOS lets you update the speaker's firmware and adjust an impressive nine bands of customizable EQ (or select among the preset options). You can argue that this feature is overkill for a single-driver, 6-watt speaker and that you might not even be able to detect a major difference most of the time, but as I discuss in the next section, the customizable EQ can be useful in some cases.The Bluetooth connectivity in the Anker SoundCore mini isn’t the best. It’s the thing that let us down most when we were conducting this review.