HomePod Mini is one of the cheapest products by Apple. It is a smart speaker that costs less money than Apple AirPods. But there are so many features in this smart speaker to talk about. HomePod Mini has a better sound quality than any other compact speaker. Apple added more value to this product by integrating their virtual assistant, Siri.
Let’s take a look at the new HomePod Mini.
Build and Design
The Apple HomePod Mini is a compact version of the Apple HomePod. It is really small and the size is smaller than its biggest competitor, the Amazon Echo Dot (5th gen). HomePod Mini comes in five different colours. space grey and white are the original colours but Apple added some fancy colours such as blue, yellow and orange.
Note that there are no physical buttons in the HomePod Mini. There is a touch-sensitive glass panel on the top. It shows a beautiful animation when Siri is active and two buttons to raise or lower the volume when you are playing music. This touch panel works like a touch panel on an earbud. You can pause the music by tapping the middle of the panel, double tap to skip forward or triple tap to go backwards, and long press to activate Siri. It is simpler than having physical buttons to do these various tasks.
Features
HomePod Mini is powered by the Apple S5 chipset. This is a powerful processor for a mini smart speaker like HomePod Mini and it can do almost any task of this speaker without any complaints. There are four built-in microphones in the HomePod Mini and they work seamlessly to detect your voice when you are speaking to Siri even in a noisy background.
The built-in Siri integration is one of the best features of this smart speaker. If you have an Apple ecosystem or if you use Siri daily as your assistant, you’ll fall in love with the HomePod Mini. You can use the HomePod mini to speak Siri without waking up your iPhone. You can play music or listen to a podcast by asking Siri in HomePod Mini. If you don’t like the first track that Siri suggested, just say “Play something different”.
HomePod Mini supports Spotify, which means you can play songs or podcasts from Spotify directly by asking Siri. It will be a valuable feature to die-hard music fans because Spotify is more popular among them than Apple Music. You can use the HomePod Mini as a Bluetooth speaker. It means you can play anything you want from it by connecting your iPhone via AirPlay.
Sound Quality
Apple HomePod Mini has a decent sound quality. It is clear, detailed and loud. The sound quality is much better than other smart speakers in this price range. The sound is enough for a standard-sized living room. It can fill the room with 360-degree surround sounds, as Apple promises. You can play Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music or Movies in the Apple TV app with the HomePod Mini. The surround sound experience is better than other smart speakers in this price range.
The HomePod Mini also supports lossless audio. It enables you to play high-quality audio up to 24-bit/48kHz quality. It is useful for Apple users because there are plenty of lossless soundtracks and Dolby Atmos tracks in Apple Music. Overall, The Apple HomePod Mini’s sound quality is really good. It is a $100 smart speaker, but it offers so much value for this price from sound quality.
Conclusion
As I mentioned above, this is a US $100 product. This is one of the cheapest products by Apple. But the features are not that cheap. Apple gives more features to this price from build quality to sound quality. Surprisingly, we can play lossless and Dolby Atmos music from a $100 speaker. If you already have an Apple device, the HomePod Mini will be a good choice for you.
