The best Bluetooth speaker for $129 or less

The portable speaker market is flooded with all sorts of contraptions—some float, some link up, some hover, some can cook… OK, not those last two, but the point stands. There are a ton of speakers out there, and not all of them are worth your time.

But Lifeproof's new line of speakers is worth checking out. Lifeproof, which is known for its rugged phone and tablet cases, just released the Aquaphonics line of portable Bluetooth speakers. The three products pump out high-quality, powerful sound, and are waterproof (submersible to 1 meter for 30 minutes), snow-proof, dirt-proof, dust-proof, and drop-proof. Two of the models even float. They're do-it-all speakers that can take you from tailgating to the trail to the beach and everywhere in between.

For portable speakers that means waterproofing, loud audio, bass, and linking up with multiple speakers. The GGMM E5 offers all of those things, in a speaker that's slim enough to fit in a cupholder. With its well-established brand name, can GGMM entice consumers away from the Ultimate Ears, Denon, Sony and other alternatives out there of best bluetooth speakers? 

If you're looking for a decent and relatively affordable speaker that you can throw in your bag, take to the beach, or wherever, then the GGMM E5 is a convenient solution. At the right volume it delivers decent sound that can fill small/medium size rooms without much hassle. It'll survive anything you throw at it and the on-board battery will survive a whole day.

We feel it would be nice to have a quick pairing option via NFC for Android phones, and an equaliser built into the app to make the sound a little more customisable. What's more, because the speakers only fire one way, that means those who might be behind it don't enjoy anything close to the optimal sound offered by the speaker. For a portable speaker these days, 360-degree audio should be standard, which is what Ultimate Ears has been offering for years now.

Despite that, the GGMM E5 is a great combination of versatility, portability and convenience all wrapped into an attractive package. Its main issue is the strong competition, of which there is a whole lot.

General performance is good. So long as the connected device is in the same room as the speaker, the Bluetooth connection remains solid and, in our testing, never dropped out. Only when we moved the music source into the next room, say more than 10 metres away, did the audio start to drop out and be inconsistent.