A brand new Beats Pill speaker, an updated version of the old Beats Pill+ speaker that Apple discontinued in 2022, has been popping up on Instagram in recent weeks, as various sporting celebs just happen to be captured waving it around.
Only now, it looks like the speaker will finally be available to the rest of us. A new ad featuring LeBron James and L’il Wayne, posted to the Beats By Dre account on X, finishes with the number 6.25, suggesting a launch or at least some kind of unveiling next week.
The new Pill appeared in LeBron James’ possession in the LA Lakers’ Instagram back in April, and code for it showed up in iOS 17.5 the following month. Images of the speaker have now leaked on X via Arsène Lupin. And a leak at the end of May gave us a pretty good idea of what to expect: it’s going to be very much like the old Beats Pill, but slightly better. And it’ll have a lanyard. A lanyard!
According to the leak, the new Pill will be slightly bigger but slightly lighter, with tweaked buttons and slightly different loudness. It’ll come in at 680g / 1.5lbs and the old USB-A port will be replaced by the obligatory USB-C. Bluetooth will be 5.3.
The big selling point is likely to be improved bass, which the leak says is the result of a “re-engineered racetrack woofer” that’s apparently 28% more forceful and displaces 90% more air volume. In plain language, it should mean significantly better bass from what’s still a pretty small pill-shaped speaker.
Another slight but welcome change is that the tweeters have been moved slightly, in order to prevent objects from blocking the sound: this time they’re slightly angled to point upwards by 20 degrees.
One thing we don’t know about this new speaker is how much it’s going to cost. The previous model had a recommended retail of $230 though, so it’ll be a surprise if the new model isn’t priced somewhat similarly – and that means it could be more expensive than our current pick of the best Bluetooth speakers, the Sonos Roam, and more than twice the price of our third choice, the fun and impressively loud JBL Flip 6.
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Carrie Marshall
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