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Sonos Play: two-minute review
The Sonos Play is one of the few products I’ve tested recently that really converted me to its cause over time. It’s a product that Sonos pitches as a home speaker that’s also portable — the one speaker you can use everywhere.
But over time, I realized that the Sonos Play excels in subtlety. Despite Sonos’ claim, I don’t think of it as a home speaker first and a portable speaker second. I see it as a portable speaker that’s good enough to justify a place out on your furniture all the time, rather than being relegated to a drawer when you’re not using it. And as a result, I started using it as both a home speaker for the room its in, and I started grabbing it to take with me to other rooms simply because I could, and it sounds good.
The charging cradle is vital to this. With no cable to fiddle with, you can just grab the Sonos Play and go without pausing your stride. It lasts for ages once it’s away from the cradle (24 hours, and it turns itself off when not in use to keep going over days), so you don’t need to be precious about returning it for a charge. It’s solidly waterproof so you can use it anywhere without fear — It’s a great shower karaoke companion.
And the Sonos Play does sound good — better than most portable speakers of its size. It’s really well-rounded, with solid mids, clear treble and plenty of bass. It lacks some dynamic edge (though improves as the volume goes louder), but is still a really enjoyable listen.
It’s become my speaker buddy — the one I’m using most, because it’s so versatile. It’s ready to go anywhere, to play in the house on Wi-Fi or out of the house on Bluetooth. You can achieve everything it does from other speakers, and arguably in a way that’s better value — but not with this efficiency.
Sonos said it wanted to make a speaker that could be the one you need — powerful enough to fill nearly any room, and easily portable to take to nearly any room — and I think it nailed it.
Sonos Play review: price and availability
- Released on March 31st, 2026
- $299 / £299 / AU$499
The Sonos Play’s $299 / £299 / AU$499 price is a fine balance. When it comes to Sonos’ portable speakers, it sits neatly between the Sonos Roam 2’s $179 / £179 / AU$239 and the Sonos Move 2’s $449 / £449 / AU$799.
When it comes to Sonos’ home speakers, it sits neatly between the $219 / £199 / AU$289 price of the Sonos Era 100, and the $449 / £449 / AU$749 price of the Era 300.
The difference, of course, is that the Play’s performance sits correctly between the two portable speakers, while it doesn’t perform any better than the Era 100 — what you get instead is a smaller design and a battery.
There are tons of competing speakers at this size, but few that offer the combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and battery portability. Portable competition includes the Bluetooth-only Marshall Middleton II, which is similar in price at $329.99 / £259 / AU$499, or the JBL Charge 5, which costs $199 / £169 / AU$229.
On the non-portable side, there’s the JBL Authentics 200, which is $349 / £299 / AU$449 officially (but can be found for a lot less these days) or the BlueSound Pulse Flex for around $349 / £279.
Sonos Play review: specs
|
Speaker drivers |
2x tweeters, 1x midwoofer, 2x passive bass radiators |
|
Amplification |
3x Class H |
|
Dimensions |
4.4 x 7.6 x 3 inches / 113 x 192 x 77mm |
|
Connectivity |
Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C (3.5mm line-in and Ethernet via adapter) |
|
Streaming support |
Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2 |
|
Other features |
Sonos multi-room control, Sonos home theater option, stereo pair option, 24-hour battery life, Automatic Trueplay, Amazon Alexa support, audio sharing over Bluetooth, IP67 waterproofing |
Sonos Play review: features
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C line-in connectivity, 24-hour battery life
- Charging cradle included, but no power adapter
- Stereo pairing option, or share over Bluetooth with other Sonos speakers even when not on Wi-Fi
The Sonos Play is the company’s most versatile speaker to date. It works as a normal Sonos home speaker, complete with Wi-Fi connectivity and support for Sonos’ network and app, which support Hi-Res Audio playback from compatible services. You can play to it directly over Apple AirPlay 2 or Sonos Connect as well.
There’s also Bluetooth support to play from any other device, and the USB-C port on the back can be connected to an adapter to offer a line-in port for a turntable or other audio source, which then becomes available to all your other Sonos speakers on the network.
Sonos also has a new feature that enables you to group portable Sonos speakers when you’re out of the house, so you connect to one of them over Bluetooth, and the sound is shared with the other speakers. There’s no Auracast support, though.
The speaker setup consists of two angled tweeters facing slightly left and right, a single midwoofer facing forward, and then two force-opposed bass radiators on the left and right.
You can use a Sonos Play on its own, or you can put two into a stereo pair. You can also use a pair as rear speakers in a Sonos home theater setup.
But it also has a built-in battery, which can last up for up to 24 hours, and the speaker can still play over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth when it’s running from battery power alone. The Sonos Play comes with a little battery charging cradle, which you just slot it onto to charge, and you can grab it straight off at a moment’s notice without fiddling to unplug.
It’s a small thing, but I think it makes a difference to its perceived versatility compared to it being plugged in to charge — I’ll dig into that more in the Design section.
Be warned, though, that the cable just has a USB-C connector on the end, and no plug to connect to an outlet. Any USB-C port with 20W of charging power should work, so it could be connected to a device like a computer, or to a power adapter.
The Sonos Play can also be charged using its USB-C port, so you don’t need the cable if you take it away for a weekend. You can also charge another device from the USB-C port, if you like, so it can work as a power bank for your phone.
The exact battery figure you get will depend on how you use it (Wi-Fi is more battery-consuming than Bluetooth), but I think Sonos’ estimate is about right. I took it off its cradle for three days, using the speaker on Wi-Fi by my desk while I worked during the day for intermittent periods, without charging it at all. At the end of that time, it had 21% battery left.
You can get better battery life from the Marshall Middleton II (30 hours), but only over Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi. I think Sonos has found a good balance of longevity compared to size here.
The one thing about portable use that annoyed me a little was that it turns itself off a little faster than I would like, despite me making sure that the option in the settings to turn off faster to preserve battery life was off. To turn it back on, you need to use the on-off button on the back, and it takes a moment — I’d much prefer a button on top to make this feel less like a hassle.
There can also be times when the flexibility of the speaker conflicts with itself. For example, I put my two units into a stereo pair to test the sound, planning to live with the setup for a few days. But once they’re in a pair, the Sonos app (and AirPlay) only want to treat them as a pair, meaning that the idea of grabbing one to take into another room on a whim no longer works. Take them both, or don’t bother.
I ended up doing a more intensive stereo audio test, and then switching them back to individual speakers because I was enjoying them more in their most flexible form.
I’ll finish this section by touching briefly on the Sonos app. It remains one of the best when it comes to streaming service support, and I’ve had no problems when it comes to reliability testing either these speakers, or with my current Sonos soundbar/home theater setups.
Setting the speakers up was absolutely seamless, and it was then easy to activate Automatic TruePlay tuning, in which the Sonos Play speaker listens to its own sound output and adjust the sound to better fit the space it’s placed in.
The Sonos app can be a bit slow to load new music or screens, though, and there are some design issues that seem needlessly confusing. Sonos CEO Tom Conrad identified some that he plans to fix in an interview with me ahead of the launch of the speakers, though my own gripes are that it’s silly that if you tap the cog icon in the top corner to be taken to the Settings screen, the cog icon stays in the corner, meaning it’s possible to open the app, tap that because you want to go to the Settings screen, and nothing happens because you don’t realize you’re already in part of the Settings screen.
I also hate Sonos’ design for its on/off switches. They go from black with a white dot, to white with a black dot, depending on whether they’re on or off. But which is on and which is off? It’s a terrible piece of user communication, you have to play to figure it out. (Black with a white dot is on.)
Now, a lot of other streaming device apps are equally flawed — some have better interfaces, but worse streaming support, for example — so at this point I find the app far from a dealbreaker, but I’m looking forward to seeing it get better. I actually nearly always use AirPlay for playing music anyway, so after setup, I don’t interact with it much.
For those who don’t want to use an app at all, the Sonos Play support Amazon Alexa and Sonos Voice Control options — but its mic can also be disabled using a switch on the back (which also disables Automatic TruePlay, since it fully disconnects the mic from the system).
Sonos Play review: sound quality
- Bass is powerful, but a little heavy handed
- Very well-rounded sound, but best with the volume over 40%
- About as good as speakers of this size sound
The Sonos Play sits in a slightly odd position when it comes to judging its sound quality, because it’s a hybrid home and portable speaker. I’m going to mostly judge it based on comparisons with other portable speakers, rather than home speakers, because the design constraints of being portable affect what sound quality you can reasonably expect from it — but I will also compare it to the Sonos Era 100.
As is standard from Sonos, there’s a really well-rounded sound with a fair amount of heft across the whole frequency range. The thing that immediately jumps out is the amount of bass depth there is for something pretty small, thanks to its dual passive radiators.
Much like the Era 100, the bass is controlled a little more loosely — a little more heavy-handedly — than I’d like. As with a lot of passive radiator-based speakers, it can feel boomy depending on what surface you place it on, too, but that’s situational. It’s a trade off in exchange for the punch it provides, and I’m quite happy with it on balance.
The second thing that jumps out is the overall power, which the bass only helps emphasize. This speaker can fill any room in my house without coming close to breaking a sweat or over-stretching itself — in fact, as I’ll come back to, it’s at its best once you dial up to a certain volume.
The two angled tweeters serve up high frequencies that sound clear and well elevated out of the rest of the mix, with this likely aided by the use of two angled tweeters pointing left and right.
Sonos has also claimed that this set enables stereo sound from a single speaker, but this is, alas, a fantasy. Firing up Crooked by Smilk, the opening of which is basically ‘Now That’s What I Call Stereo Imaging’, reveals only the most minimal stereo effect even from a song that really push separation to the max.
The mid-range is able to find a good amount of detail and solidity in different elements, so that even complex mixes still feel like that have all their constituent parts, rather than getting mushed together in the way that some portable speakers are prone to.
The mid-range and treble are both relatively tame and a little softer on dynamic attack than larger and more expensive portable speakers, or non-portable home speakers. That’s a compromise here compared to the Sonos Era 100, for sure — that speaker just has the extra edge in enough areas of sound reproduction to feel like a slightly more robust, more gripping, more revealing listen.
However, compared to the JBL Charge 6, the Sonos Play is a significant step up in the overall reproduction of a song, with the mid-range the clear area of difference. On the JBL Charge 6, it’s simple way too thin, lacking in expression, presence within the sound balance, and really limited in range — in particular, the Charge 6 really struggles to ramp from mid-range down through to bass, compared to the Sonos Play.
Young Blood by The Naked & Famous relies on a foundation of lower-mid synth in its verses, and without this, the song is unbalanced. The JBL Charge 6 just doesn’t have this balance in its register, but the Sonos Play is able to add the weight.
The Charge 6 also has less deep bass reach than the Sonos Play — it handles its bass well, but there’s just less lower-frequency grunt going on.
I should note here that we have highly rated the JBL Charge 6 for its sound reproduction compared to other portable speakers — this is just what spending the extra on the Sonos Play gets you.
That said, the JBL Charge 6 has a slightly more dynamic treble than the Play, though, with a little better handling of transients (ie, handling the sudden start of a sound) that make it feel more detail-rich. I still prefer the Sonos Play overall, for sure.
However, I mentioned above that going above a certain volume opens things up for the Sonos Play. Pushing past the 40% mark leaves the bass working in the same way that it was before, but suddenly the upper-mids and treble get a boost — a subtle but clear change in profile when ticking up.
This adds to the expansiveness of the sound, and where certain songs that should be thrilling could feel tame at times at lower volumes, they all really wake up past 40%. The Sonos Era 300 had this trait as well, when I tested it.
The only question is whether you want the Sonos Play that loud all the time — in my bedroom, 25% was the volume where I mostly wanted to use it, for example. But again, I still think the sound is very good for a portable speaker even at the lower volumes. It’s just that when you can let it off its leash, it improves further.
Speaking of letting it off its leash, I also tried the sound in a stereo pair. As is often the case, it gives the speakers room to do a little more by sharing the burden, and in particular I noticed that the bass felt like it was able to be a little more controlled at the same level of power, but the mids came across weightier, again improving on the lower-mids particularly.
I don’t think it opened up more detail in the treble or anything like that, but two of these are really good at filling even a large room with well-rounded, well-dispersed sound, without pushing themselves hard in a way that can affect the sound quality. You’d rarely need to push them even as far as the 40% volume mark — a pair of Plays is such a powerful system consider how small they are.
For my last sound comparison, I broke out the Sonos Roam 2. This comparison actually made the Sonos Roam 2 look impressive, because it’s remarkable how close its sound signature comes to the Play. But the Play’s audio is much bigger, much deeper, and more refined in all areas.
- Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5
Sonos Play review: design
- Home-friendly design, but still IP67-rated and drop-proof
- Great size, weight and charging design to grab quickly
- Buttons aren’t as clear as they could be
The design of the Sonos Play sits very much in line with other Sonos speakers. It has a hard dotted grille like most of its designs, with a rubbery top and bottom, like the Sonos Roam 2. The rubberized portion has a hefty lip at the top where it overlaps with the hard grille, and this makes me thing more of older Sonos speakers (like the Sonos One) than the Era 100, in a fond way.
I like the size of the Sonos Play a lot. I can grab it easily in one hand from the side, thanks in part to a smart concave groove on the back that’s also rubberized, giving you a little grip aid.
It’s weighty, but not too heavy to happily grab and carry around. It’s about a third heavier than the JBL Charge 6, but is nearly a third lighter than the Marshall Middleton II, so finds itself in a good balance.
It has a flexible hook on the top of the back, which can use to carry it around or to hang on a bathroom door or something. This feels nice and sturdy.
It’s IP67-rated, so should be able to handle all but the worst of water-related accidents. It should be able to handle complete immersion for a short time, so it’s no risk for baths or for pool parties.
The charging cable is a little oval of plastic with a lip, and there’s not much to it, but it holds on surfaces well enough when you’re removing or replacing the speaker, and the charging points always line up perfectly.
I really think Sonos has nailed it with the core physical design here, and not just in a physical sense. Yes, it’s durable, it’s got a hook, and perhaps most importantly it looks nice — you’ll happily have this thing out on a shelf, whereas a lot of people would choose to hide the JBL Charge 6 in a drawer.
But the design also make a different to my mentality, I’ve found. It’s about how its size, weight and charging cradle lodge into my mind that this is a speaker that I not only can grab to take with me for a music blast, but that I should grab because it’s so easy. There’s no downside.
The Sonos Move 2 has an identical setup — durable, powerful, portable, easy charging cradle — but it’s too large and heavy. You have to reach around to carry it from the back using its carry handle. If I’m taking that anywhere else, it’s because I’m committing to being there for a while. I plan ahead.
And I have small portable speakers already in my house (shout out to by beloved B&O A1) that I could grab and take anywhere with me easily — but they’re stored in a drawer upstairs, because I don’t have them out most of the time.
But the Sonos Play has become my new kitchen speaker, so it’s always out on the side, ready to grab. And it’s so grabbable because it’s about the thickness of a drink can, and I don’t need to fiddle to unplug it because it uses a charging cradle, so I can just swipe it one-handed as I walk past. And it’s already turned on and ready to play, assuming it’s not already playing, because it’s the main speaker in that room.
These are small, subtle design elements that add up to me feeling quite differently about the Sonos Play than almost any other speaker I’ve had, from the many Wi-Fi options to many portable Bluetooth speakers. As the weather where I am improves, the Sonos Play has quickly become my buddy that I take with me more; I grab the one from my kitchen to take outdoors when I sit out there, and I grab the one from my bedroom to take to the bathroom to blast tunes while I shave.
There must be a ‘however’, though, and it’s the controls. I already mentioned that the on/off button is on the back, and while it’s large and easy to find, I would prefer that you could get it to turn back on just by pressing something on top.
But the top buttons are also annoyingly disguised. They’re distinguished only by symbols, not any kind of actual raised button element. And ‘distinguished’ is far too strong a word, because they’re the same color and matte material as the rest of the top, so they’re genuinely hard to see in some lighting conditions.
They also don’t feel super distinct under the fingers. You get used to it, because you’ve only got four controls — volume down, play/pause (which also skips tracks with a multi-press), volume up, and voice assistant activation — but they just seem unnecessarily disguised.
Sonos Play review: value
- It’s pricey for a portable speaker…
- But few things are as versatile for the same cost
- It’s priced in line with competitors at the same audio level
The Sonos Play is not cheap. For only a little more than the Sonos Play, you can get both a Sonos Era 100 SL and the JBL Charge 6, providing you with the core versatility of the Sonos Play — a powerful home speaker and robust portable speaker. But that’s two devices, and part of the draw here is one device that can do both — simpler and more efficient.
But the price is also right in line with other powerful speakers at a similar level of audio quality, like the Marshall Middleton II — and it does things the Marshall doesn’t. The JBL Charge 6 is a five-star portable speaker that’s nearly half the price, so if the portable side is your priority, it makes sense to get that and save so much money… but the Sonos does sound better, offers more versatility, and looks way nicer to have as a home speaker.
When I look at other options at the same price, is anything ticking as many boxes as the Play? Pricey, yes, but more than justified. I’m not sure I’d buy a stereo pair over other wireless options you can get for $600 / £600 though, such as the Kanto Ren, since you lose some of the versatility in a pair.
Should I buy the Sonos Play?
|
Attribute |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
Tons of connection options, great streaming support, nice charging cradle — some won’t like that it lacks a plug in the box, though. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Sound quality |
A bigger, more well-rounded sound than most portable speakers of this size can deliver. Not the most detailed, and the bass is a tad heavy-handed. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Design |
Supremely well thought-out, from its grab-able size and weight to its durability and charging cradle. Only the subtle buttons are a bit annoying. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Value |
It’s not cheap, but nothing else offers so much versatility for the price. |
4 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Sonos Play review: also consider
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Sonos Play |
Sonos Era 100 |
Marshall Middleton II |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Price |
$199 / £199 / AU$499 |
$219 / £199 / AU$289 |
$329 / £259 / AU$499 |
|
Speaker drivers |
2x tweeters, 1x midwoofer, 2x passive bass radiators |
2x tweeters, 1x midwoofer |
2x woofers; 2x tweeters |
|
Amplification |
2x Class H amp3 |
3x Class D amps |
60W Class D amplification |
|
Dimensions |
4.4 x 7.6 x 3 inches / 113 x 192 x 77mm |
4.72 x 7.18 x 5.14 inches / 120 x 183 x 131mm |
9.1 x 4.3 x 3.9 inches / 230 x 110 x 98mm |
|
Connectivity |
Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C (3.5mm line-in and Ethernet via adapter) |
Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C (3.5mm line-in and Ethernet via adapter) |
Bluetooth 5.3, aux-in |
|
Streaming support |
Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2 |
Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2 |
N/A |
|
Other features |
Sonos multi-room control, Sonos home theater option, stereo pair option, 24-hour battery life, Automatic Trueplay, Amazon Alexa support, audio sharing over Bluetooth, IP67 waterproofing |
Sonos multi-room control, Sonos home theater option, stereo pair option |
IP67 waterproofing, 30-hour battery life |
How I tested the Sonos Play
- Tested over three weeks at home
- Compared with other Sonos speakers, and options from other brands
I had two Sonos Play units at home to test, over the course of three weeks. They were updated with the same software that the products will launch with, including all the various features.
I tested over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and using the Sonos app and Apple AirPlay 2. I mainly listened to music on Apple Music.
I’ve been reviewing speakers for 15 years, and I test audio products of all kinds, from Bluetooth speakers to floorstanding passive speakers.
Read the full article here
