BeoPlay A1 pairs portable Bluetooth speaker, conference phone

The new and portable BeoPlay A1 is edging for a place in the bags of business travellers, combining a powerful Bang & Olufsen Bluetooth music speaker with conference calling capabilities, seeing it at home both in the boardroom and your hotel room after a hard day’s work.

A battery life of up to 24 hours also means you can fly sans charger on shorter trips, as 8 hours of private music listening still leaves up to 16 hours of conference calling before needing a top-up.

Where you sit and speak matters not: you’ll hear exactly the same sound on one side as you would on the other, and with the built-in microphone’s 360-degree uniform sensitivity, your colleagues down the line will hear everybody in the room clearly when they speak.

On your own time, an integrated ‘connect’ button makes music-playing an easy task, re-attaching the speaker to your most recently-paired device and resuming the last song you were listening to at the moment you left off.

Styled by award-winning Danish designer Cecilie Manz, it’s B&O PLAY’s smallest Bluetooth speaker to date: weighing in at just 600g, fitting in the palm of your hand and available in either natural (silver)…

… or green colours. You’ll enjoy full-range music with bass frequencies as low as 40hz, and an included soft leather strap makes for easy carrying or hanging practically anywhere, even on your bag if need be.

Available in Australia from May 2016, the BeoPlay A1 will retail for $379 at Bang & Olufsen stores, Myer, JR/Duty Free, online and at leading independent retailers.

Also read: Bose SoundLink Mini II Bluetooth speaker – sound that's good to go

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Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.