The first-generation Bose SoundLink Flex has long sat at the top of our portable Bluetooth speaker buyer’s guide, so it’s fair to say that I was excited to test its successor. Let’s be clear: this is a second-gen, more or less in the same vein as the Sonos Roam 2, which I also reviewed this year. So, there’s not a whole lot that’s new, and in both cases, the most exciting addition is a new button.
Existing SoundLink Flex owners are unlikely to find anything here to justify an upgrade, but when you’ve already built the best Bluetooth speaker around, I suppose it’s hard to make it much better.
Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen)
The second-generation Bose SoundLink Flex doesn’t change much from the first iteration, but, in fairness, it’s starting from a strong position. Snapdragon Sound and a new Shortcut button are the main additions, and neither will justify an upgrade. But for anyone who doesn’t own the original, this offers fantastic sound in a slim, sturdy package — and while it’s not cheap, it still doesn’t feel like a bad value.
- Strong sound quality
- Compact but tough design
- Easy to use
- Few upgrades from the 1st Gen
- Shortcut button doesn’t do much
- Fairly expensive
Price, availability, and specs
The SoundLink Flex is out now for $149, and you can buy it from Amazon, Best Buy, and all the usual suspects. That’s the same price as the first generation, and less than half the price of the $399 SoundLink Max, Bose’s other new portable speaker.
The Flex is available in Black, Blue Dusk (blue), Sandstone (brown), and Alpine Sage (green) — the new color for the second generation, and the version I was sent to test.
What’s good about the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd gen)?
Sounds stylish
The best things about the Flex are the same things that were great the first time around: how it looks and how it sounds. Let’s start with the design. The Flex is rectangular, a little bigger across its face than a large phone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra — but obviously much thicker than that.
Still, it’s relatively slender by speaker standards, which is one of my favorite things. This size and shape make the Flex easy to slip into a backpack or throw in a suitcase — I’ve already taken it on two separate trips abroad while testing it. Even when I’m traveling light, the speaker feels compact and slim enough to include without getting in the way, which alone is enough to give it an edge over rivals like the Roam.
A fabric loop on one end gives you something to hook onto if you’d rather strap the speaker to the outside of a bag; the plastic body feels durable enough to survive a few knocks if necessary. An IP67 rating means it can survive sand and immersion in fresh water, so this is a speaker you can take to the pool or beach without having to be too precious about it—though you should still avoid unnecessary exposure to water as much as you can.
From Bose, you’d hope the thing would sound good at a minimum, and fortunately, the SoundLink Flex delivers. It is crisp but punchy, capable of delivering an impressive amount of detail in the interweaving strings and piano of Patrick Wolf’s Magpie.
That’s helped along by one of the few upgrades in the second edition: support for Snapdragon Sound. This allows the speaker to stream higher-quality sound to compatible Android devices using the aptX codec. In short, if you have a recent and decent Android, stuff should sound a little better.
There have been no other hardware upgrades to the sonics, so in broad strokes, this will sound identical to the first generation, though I never tested that speaker myself. Default EQ settings are clean and simple, with a fairly balanced profile that allows for crisp mids, though the Bose app includes a three-band EQ for some simple adjustment options.
The Flex gets fairly loud for its size, but it is really built to fill a single room or entertain a small group somewhere outside, so manage your expectations. Clarity also drops as the volume is cranked, with a little muddying of the spectrum, so this shouldn’t be your first choice if you expect to often crank it up to max.
Battery life hasn’t changed either, but this speaker is good enough to get away with it. Bose touts a 12-hour duration, and while I haven’t tried a full-day push to test that limit, it sounds about right to me. I could take it on multi-day trips and blast it for an hour or two at a time in my hotel room without ever needing to top it up along the way, which for me is the standard that a compact Bluetooth speaker needs to meet.
One final perk — the Flex can connect to up to two devices at once over Bluetooth, which is an extra convenience if it’s a shared speaker within your family, or if you want to let friends connect while you’re out and about with it.
What’s bad about the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd gen)?
Simple to a fault
I don’t have many complaints about the new Flex, and those that I do are unlikely to be deal-breakers for anyone. First up, the on-device controls are pretty straightforward but impossible to use without looking. The power button is separate from the rest, making it a little easier to find by touch, but the other six buttons are simply indented in one big row.
Confusingly, the play/pause button is textured to help you find it, but none of the others are. More strangely, there’s a textured bar that separates the Bluetooth and Shortcut keys from the playback controls — but this is positioned right next to the lower volume key and, as a bar, feels just like a minus button might. I still get confused by this when I try to lower the volume by touch and don’t understand why Bose has taken such an inconsistent approach to the button design here.
One of the few real additions to the speaker this year is the new Shortcut button I previously mentioned, but so far, it feels wasted. It’s customizable, but only to one of three options: to pair the speaker with a second Bose Bluetooth speaker (how many of you will really do that?); to access your phone’s voice assistant (you could just…use your phone); or to start playing from Spotify automatically. I’m not sure what better Bose could have done with this, but for one of the two major additions to the speaker, it’s a bit of a letdown. Since setting the speaker up, I haven’t used it once.
Along similar lines, don’t expect too much from the Bose app. It’s easy to use but doesn’t do much. You can customize that Shortcut button, use the limited 3-band EQ, and check for firmware updates. That’s it. There’s no Wi-Fi support or built-in voice controls beyond the option to use your phone’s assistant. For better or worse, you’re paying for sound quality and the Bose brand here, not any fancy features.
And the SoundLink Flex 2 is expensive, though it’s helped a little by coming in $30 cheaper than the Sonos Roam 2, one of its biggest rivals. The $149 price tag isn’t outrageous for a portable speaker, but it’s definitely at the premium end of the market. You can probably find something that sounds almost as good for an awful lot less if you shop around a little.
Read our review
Should you buy it?
Yeah, probably. Bose really hasn’t reinvented itself here, so if you’re an existing SoundLink Flex owner, there’s absolutely no reason to upgrade. Similarly, if you own another decent Bluetooth speaker, and you’re happy with it, this won’t change your world. However, this is a slickly built, compact, and sturdy number with impressive battery life and decent sound quality, which covers everything you really need from a portable Bluetooth speaker. Bells and whistles have been kept to a minimum, but that just means the focus is on the audio. And that friendly, flat design that makes this easier than most alternatives to pack into a bag.
Here’s the best recommendation I can give: I have a cupboard full of Bluetooth speakers right now, but this is the one I’ll be grabbing for my next vacation.
Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen)
The second-generation Bose SoundLink Flex doesn’t change much from the first iteration, but, in fairness, it’s starting from a strong position. Snapdragon Sound and a new Shortcut button are the main additions, and neither will justify an upgrade. But for anyone who doesn’t own the original, this offers fantastic sound in a slim, sturdy package — and while it’s not cheap, it still doesn’t feel like a bad value.
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