Mini review: Nokia Mini Speakers MD-6

A quick look at the little MD-6 reveals its intentions in a hard beat: designed to be small, light and equally as portable as your Nseries device. The lack of many buttons also reveals that our subject was designed with simplicity in mind and the red, well yes the red! The red also tells us that our little mobile speakers want to give the impression of having a fun side, a little youth oriented perhaps? When it comes to mobile speakers it’s pretty simple really: it needs to be compact so that it’s easy to carry around, but it’s also needs be sturdy and durable so that it can withstand the abuse that us humans often call “daily usage.” An almost key part of the magic is that a portable speaker should at least sound good to decent, enough to get your friends and family to exaggerate and say something that almost sounds like it came from a Bose commercial, something in the trend of: “OMG they sound bigger than they really are.” A portable speaker should also be well, rechargeable. Who wants the wonderful task of having to constantly buy batteries during the life of the product? So how many of these points did the MD-6 get right?

Design

At first sight most people wouldn’t know even it’s a portable speaker system as it more closely resembles something out of a ladies make-up collection or even some James Bond gadget that conceals some deadly weapon, but speakers are the last thing I would think of. The unit comes in sturdy glossy black plastic that looks good, but based on the usage of other reviewers and how the unit looks now I can bet that your new MD-6’s shiny looks sure won’t last long. The unit is finished with red-colored accents, perhaps revealing its intended push towards the youth market. Personally I’m not really crazy about the red, but I can live with it. Perhaps going for a more traditional (and safer) look of black and silver would be better next time. But as black is quickly becoming THE color in the Nseries line-up I say just stay with an all-black design and drop the shiny material.

 

Components

1)Speaker elements 2)Recess for opening the battery cover 3) release switch of

the speaker cable 4)coil for the speaker cable 5) 3.5mm audio plug

The MD-6 to my surprise still uses not 2, but 4 AAA batteries. This is probably the biggest negative point for these speakers as I find these environmentally irresponsible, especially for a product in this day and age. Due to the hassle of having to constantly buy batteries and the environmental effect, I just don’t like disposable batteries and the MD-6 uses 4 of these! Having a built-in rechargeable battery that uses the standard mini-pin adapter to recharge its internal battery would have been a better solution. I also must say a few words about the process of actually getting the batteries in and out of a unit. Getting batteries in was easy but actually getting the lower batteries out was pretty hard and actually required me to use the 3.5mm plug to push them out. On top of the unit there’s also a release-switch that opens up a hidden compartment on one side of the unit where the 3.5mm cable is hidden. It works ok, but they could have made it much easier to operate. With the current design you can coil or uncoil the cable to get the desired length. When you do you have to make sure the cable comes out of an opening, otherwise the compartment won’t close properly. This can be sometimes annoying:  getting the cable to fit in just right and come at a good-enough angle every so often is a bit tricky. A much better solution would be to use one of the automatic roll-up systems where you pull the cable to get the desired cable length. And a quickl pull on the cable to allow the system to quickly and automatically roll up the cable for you. The 3.5mm jack should than come out from a central place opening of the compartment. The current design works ok, but it feels like an afterthought.

Usage

Using the speakers is pretty easy: no buttons, just open the unit and a white light informs you that the unit is on. All you need to do now is plug the 3.5mm jack into your phone or any device with an 3.5mm output port. For this review I used the N95 8GB. The idea was to see if the MD-6 was a worthy enough upgrade from the excellent (and loud) N95 8GB’s built-in speakers. I wasn’t expecting much by the looks of the tiny drivers and overall small unit. But when the unit actually did start playing I was pretty impressed with the sound coming from this tiny system. No miracle here as the laws of physics still applies and there’s really so much air these drivers can push, but they sure did a good job. The unit sounds as loud as the N95 8GB which is enough for a small room, but does it without feeling tinny or forced and adds bit of reinforcement in the lower tones. No room shaking bass here or anything that even remotely comes close, but the lower tones added by the larger drivers make for a richer and fuller sounding music. Putting the unit on a hard surface like stone or marble or even cornering-loading the system intensified the effect! A nice upgrade from the N95 8GB’s built-in speaker in a fairly compact and portable package.

Conclusion

The MD-6 is portable, sturdy and sound great. The sound was way better than I was expecting and should be a nice upgrade from your Nseries’ built-in speaker.  While I’m not too crazy about the red and the shiny looks, these are small things I can live with, however I do feel that 3.5mm jack compartment looks and feels like it was thought of the very last minute: it works, but they could have done better with an automatic cable roll-up system. But the biggest drawback of the MD-6 has to come from the fact that they use not 2, but 4 AAA batteries. Not only are these environmentally irresponsible, they add up to the overall cost and having to constantly buy new batteries. The MD-6 is a simple and great sounding speaker that could have been much better if they were rechargeable. They get a 7 out of 10.

Pros

Great sound

Portable

Durable

Works with any 3.5mm based device.

Cons

Uses 4 AAA batteries

3.5mm jack cord roll-up system could have been done better 

Comments

[Philip Paz]

I'm in Al-Khobar, K.S.A. where can I buy this mini speaker MD 6?