The portable, rollable X-mini II speaker gets a refresh

The kids over at CNET have got their hands on the new X-mini II portable speaker for laptops, PMPs, and the like -- and they've been gracious enough to give us the lowdown. The speaker is an update to the X-mini, incrementally larger than its predecessor and packing a 40mm driver. Powered by a rechargeable battery, this bad boy can be juiced up via mini-USB cable (included) and boasts a pretty impressive eleven hours of run time before it needs to be recharged. And if that weren't enough, several of these guys can be daisy chained together -- so if you should find yourself in your dorm room with nothing to amuse yourself but your iPhone, an acoustic guitar, and some Dave Matthews Band MP3s, you can string up a half dozen or so of these things and have an old fashioned grape jam. Look for the speaker sometime in March, with a probable MSRP of $29.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:53PM]

It would be cool if it was surround sound when all linked together like that.

[Shinigami Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:01PM]

Surround sound on mp3 player?

[SOOPERGOOMAN Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:11PM]

Add Bluetooth and an integrated FM receiver in each and you'd be set. Bye bye to all those wires when setting em up in your place. Neat little things tho'.

[Stereotype Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:45PM]

@ Shinigami

I think that's why he said "if"...

[Denver80203 Posted Jan 22nd 2009 10:10PM]

@Shinigami

You may be surprised to hear that it plays movies, too!

[BigD145 Posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:54PM]

Portable? I don't think I have enough pockets for all of those.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:57PM]

Where doe the iPhone fit into all of this?

[Andr Posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:59PM]

I suppose it had a 3.5mm jack...

[SOOPERGOOMAN Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:13PM]

Maybe someone gets paid a Quarter for every time the "i" word shows up on this site. I dunno, they could have easily said ??

[Erb Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:42PM]

It's in the picture.

[aednichols Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:05PM]

These are always mono, no matter how many you daisy-chain together.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:36PM]

I have the original x mini it combines both channels not mono. im sure these are the same.
By the way you wouldn't believe the sound these put out .

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:54PM]

make it a yo-yo and maybe

[gp Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:16PM]

Sorry for the OT, but hasn't anyone at Engadget realised that there's something wrong with the ratings yet?
A (very) few comments get any rating at all, and the "Highest Ranked" has disappeared.

Plus, you can see the real ratings by clicking on the post's date, like this one: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/iwork-09-trojan-infects-at-least-20-000-machines/comments/16687411/

See all the 'Highest Ranked'? There's none in the 'regular' post: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/iwork-09-trojan-infects-at-least-20-000-machines/

Please fix at least this. We'll wait 2010 for the editing function, we know it's very, very hard to implement.

[Stereotype Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:48PM]

Wow...I didn't even notice it....thanks for bringing that out... :)
And while your at it Engadget, please get rid of the "fading out lowest ranking" thing....it hurts ieyes....I mean, it hurts my eyes....

[gp Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:33PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/the-portable-rollable-x-mini-ii-speaker-gets-a-refresh/comments/16690043/

Pretty please?

[telepheedian Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:55PM]

THANK YOU. Somebody has finally pointed this out, can any engadget editors tell us why the rankings were changed again?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:20PM]

My iPhone has the audio jack located at the top, but this one at the bottom? No one noticed?

or this is a fake iPhone from China??

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 23rd 2009 12:02AM]

ipod touch maybe?

[UnixSystemsEngineer Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:49PM]

I think the touch has the jack on the bottom.

[KR Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:03PM]

its an ipod touch GENIUS

[Riley Posted Jan 22nd 2009 11:27PM]

http://youfail.org

[el Cid 02 Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:33PM]

Speakers look cool.

"I take a sip, sit back, and relax.... smoke my mind, make me fell better for a small time"

DMB

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 10:13PM]

You mean feel?

[el Cid 02 Posted Jan 22nd 2009 8:38PM]

its an ipod touch, 1st gen.

[CheesusCrust Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:17PM]

These are awesome!

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:31PM]

So is this better than the X Mini Max?

http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2008/03/04/x-mini-max-a-mini-review/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw4lUK8J8dk&feature=related

[FILA Posted Jan 22nd 2009 10:47PM]

does anybody know how well they really put out?

[Riley Posted Jan 22nd 2009 11:28PM]

They're total sluts

I'm sorry, I couldn't pass that up

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 23rd 2009 2:03AM]

http://www.x-mini.com/
Cute design, but I can't think of one reason for daisy-chaining these. Besides the fact you don't get stereo sound when daisy-chaining (how retro), you'd think the main reason for this (portability) would be lost when doing so (and in such a case you'd probably have enough room for a subwoofer nearby, plugged into mains). But what's really disappointing... yet again:

1) Another device designed with the battery intended to be a permanent resident (rather than replaceable)
2) yet another device that can't have its battery simply swapped out with almost no downtime when travelling
3) yet another device that will be tossed out when the internal battery no longer holds enough charge for practical running times

X-Mini. No replaceable battery? No sale.

[Ethan Posted Jan 23rd 2009 2:33AM]

Get a channel splitter and you've got a very reasonably priced well-spaced speaker set.