Kindle Paperwhite

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A really good Kindle

Just to add my praise to the thousands of reviews: I'm really pleased with my Paperwhite.  Bought to replace an old Kindle Touch, the screen and new font are excellent for reading, the internal light is a really good feature, the battery lasts very well, it's light and comfortable in the hand and it's just a pleasure to use.  I'm a very happy customer.

(I paid the extra so I didn't get the "Special Offers," by the way.  I figured that as I'd be using it regularly for years, I'd regret not spending a extra few quid now to avoid constantly dealing with ads.  So far, I'm very glad I made the decision, but that's just personal preference.)

Ultmate Ears Megablast Speaker with Alexa

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not as good as I'd hoped

The Megablast is a well made speaker, but for me it does have some serious weaknesses; principally, there is no AUX jack input and I'm not all that impressed with the sound.  The Alexa functionality is also slightly limited at this stage – it won't access Spotify, for example.  I would expect that to be updated later, although there is no guarantee.

The speaker is very nicely presented and looks great.  It is plainly very solidly made and looks stylish.  Pairing with Bluetooth was very easy and it has a very good range.  I found the Wi-Fi set-up more tricky even when I'd downloaded the app, partly because of an almost total absence of written instructions.  That may just be because I'm a bit of an old git, but I do have a fair amount of experience in speakers, wi-fi and the like.  The voice controls work well, as does the limited Alexa function.

The lack of an input jack socket is a big drawback for me.  I still carry a lot of my music on a Sansa mp3 player and I want to be able to play it through the speaker.  No chance – nor can I plug in a CD player.  This may make me a dinosaur, but a small addition of an AUX socket to make this compatible with a lot of devices still in use would make the Megablast much more useful to a lot of people.

The sound is pretty good.  It certainly goes very loud without distortion and tops and middles are good and distinct, but at the normal volumes at which I want to use it I find the bass a bit weak.  I've tested this with a lot of music in different genres and Things like Hey Now by London Grammar, Leave A Trace by Chvrches or The National's Sorrow lack that real bass resonance they really need, and a viola da gamba or the basses in choral classical music sound rather thin, for example.  In a unit at this price I'd expect better.

For me, this rates about 3.5-stars.  At the moment, with no access to Spotify along with the other reservations I have, I can't round this up to 4.  Some other reviewers like it very much, but I can only give the Megablast a pretty qualified recommendation.