Kmart Anko Portable Bluetooth speaker review

These days, it's very easy to find somewhere that sells portable speakers and almost just as effortless to spend too much on one. Let's be honest, sometimes you're looking to add music to a space and not looking to sweat the quality involved. The fidelity of being able to add some ambience to your next backyard BBQ or road trip sometimes matters less than being able to do it at all.

That's where Kmart comes in. From 2018 onward, the budget-friendly department store chain has been selling a variety of products under its generic Anko brand. That includes smaller gadgets and consumer electronics like power banks and portable speakers.

We've decided to give its cheapest effort in the space a run for its money to see if the math checks out. The Kmart Anko Portable Bluetooth speaker might be a dead ringer for the category's finest, but it costs a fraction of the price.

In Australia, the Kmart Anko Portable Bluetooth Speaker starts at $19. That makes it one of the cheapest portable speakers you're gonna find right now. That said, there are a few shortcomings to keep track of here.

Check out the table below for a sense of how the Kmart Anko Portable Bluetooth speaker compares to other portable speakers we've reviewed and recommended.

Kmart's Anko Portable Bluetooth speaker is far from shy about its inspirations. Sit it alongside the likes of Sony's popular SRS line of portable speakers and most people would struggle to tell the difference. At least, until they pick the thing up.

The material design here feels every bit as cheap and plastic as you might expect given the price.That said, portable speakers aren't exactly the most hands-on of tech. Usually, you find a good spot for them and leave them alone to do their thing.

The Kmart Anko portable speaker is poised to meet this brief thanks to single 3W speaker, a 1200mAh battery that promises around 12 hours of playback, Bluetooth 5 connectivity and support for stereo pairing if you opt to pick up a second unit. 

In terms of controls, you've got a standard set of volume keys plus a pause/play key that doubles as a power toggle. Adjacent to these sits a rubber flap. Underneath that is where you'll find the USB-C port that's used for charging.

Other details here include a felt basing, a fabric loop and a set of holes in the frame. These don't seem to serve any acoustic purpose but could be used hang the speaker somewhere, which is not nothing.

That said, all of these accoutrements do distract from the bare bones simplicity of the piece writ large. Despite the cylindrical shape, there's only one speaker here and it points upwards. Don't expect 360-degree or particularly loud soundscapes from this thing. It's the most minimum viable product you could imagine for the category. It'll tick the box, but it's hardly going to fill up a larger space.

While the Kmart Anko portable Bluetooth speaker steals from the best when it comes to looks, that resemblance is rarely more than surface deep. 

The hardware inside this particular white cylinder can't compete with the more advanced arrangements of tweeters and subwoofers available in other entry level or more modestly priced options available through dedicated audio brands like Bose or Ultimate Ears.

Cranking things up to max volume, I was surprised at how loud the Kmart Anko Portable Bluetooth Speaker managed to get. At the same time though, the flatness of the sound involved did become more noticeable as did the distortion. This pint-sized portable speaker may able to eclipse the volume of your the loudspeaker on your phone but if you've bought a flagship any time over the past five years then those drawbacks make the case for using this instead a little murkier than you'd expect.

It doesn't help that the design is very much windows dressing and 100% of the sound that the speaker produces is shooting out the the top of the unit in a more-or-less straight line.

The pairing also proved surprisingly finnicky. If I lost connection or waited too long, the speaker would automatically shut down to conserve battery life. Absent any sort of LED or LCD light to indicate whether the speaker is powered on or not, this quickly led to confusion.