Remember the Bose Portable Home Speaker, which combined the size and power of tabletop home speakers with an onboard battery and a carry handle for easily moving around the house? It’s awesome, eliminating the need to equip every room with its own speaker, as you can simply bring this one anywhere you want to listen to some tunes. The LG Xboom 360 RP4 uses a similar design but adds 360-degree lighting, allowing it to pull double duty as a handy lamp.
Designed for home use, it’s not a small speaker, measuring in at 20.2 x 9.8 inches (height x diameter) and weighing nearly 13 pounds. That means, it’s portable enough to take from the living room out to the backyard up to the bedroom and back, but probably a bit too much for a day out at the local park.
The LG Xboom 360 RP4 is an omnidirectional speaker designed to blast sound through its entire surroundings, filling the room with expansive, full-circle sound. Not only does it direct audio the full 360 degrees, it’s designed to direct each frequency evenly at every angle (as opposed to varying spatial coverage with traditional 360-degree speakers), so you hear the exact same sound quality, regardless of where you are in the room. That means, every spot is a sweet spot for enjoying your playlist. This makes it ideal as a party speaker, as everyone should be able to hear the music crisp and clear, although it also helps the portable function, as you should be able to position it anywhere with no loss in sound quality.
All that sound, by the way, is produced by a 4.25-inch woofer and 2-inch horn tweeter, with a 29Wh battery keeping it running without being hooked up to a wall outlet. According to the outfit, it can support up to 10 hours of playback between charges. When plugged in, though, it can supply up to 120W of power, so this thing can get pretty loud if you want it to do just that.
The LG Xboom 360 RP4 has an integrated light that’s meant for accent lighting, with three basic settings, namely ambient (for indoor lighting), nature (for the backyard), or party (which, we imagine, involves changing colors in a strobe pattern). You can, of course, do more in-depth customizations to the RGB light via the companion app (iOS and Android). And yes, LG intends for this to be your go-to speaker for parties, with various DJ modes, onboard effects, and even the ability to create samples.
Despite the party-focused functions, the speaker comes in a refined-looking enclosure that will look perfectly suited in most any grown-up home, especially with the added lamp function. We love the wide base that tapers towards the top, as it ensures it stays stable when set down on any surface, while a carry handle on top makes it easy to move from room to room. Other features include the ability to pair with other LG speakers for creating an even bigger sound, AUX and USB inputs, and a selection of colors for the fabric cover.
The LG Xboom 360 RP4 is available now, priced at $399.99.