The Edifier R12U speakers are small enough to be discreet and portable!
I use my laptop most of the time for everything from work, music and video and always find the volume not loud enough or too tinny, especially with online streaming of films. The Edifier R12U 2.0 speakers are a great addition to my laptop giving quality sound and are fairly portable due to their small size and no need for an external power source as they are powered directly from my laptop’s USB port!
For review I was sent the Edifier R12U 2.0 Multimedia Speakers in black (also available in red and white). They look very smart in their glossy black shell with grey facia. The speakers are wired together with approx. 95cm of cable, the 3.5mm jack cable to plug into the speaker jack on the laptop is approx. 145cm and the USB cable to power them is also approx. 145cm, this gives plenty of room to position the speakers on the desk around the laptop without stretching the cables. My only gripe with the cables in that they are white and I would prefer them to match the speaker colour, in my case black.
The speakers themselves measure approx. 12cm high, 8cm wide and 7cm deep so do not take up much space and they produce 2w x2 (total 4w) output, more than loud enough for personal use of listening to music, watching your favourite YouTube channel, watching films or playing games.
Connectivity is very easy, plug in the USB cable to an available USB socket on the laptop (or tablet, PC, etc.), the 3.5mm jack in to the speaker socket and you are ready for sound. Volume control is by a knob on the front of one speaker.
Now the sound that is produced is clear and crisp with no distortion, even at the highest volume level set on the speakers themselves and the laptop sound levels.
One speaker even has a headphone socket on the front which for me using a laptop is redundant, but if permanently connected to a desktop PC this would be a handy feature.
Overall these speakers are small enough to be discreet sitting on a desk or shelf, are portable because of their size and no need for carrying more power adapters, they produce a quality sound and they also look great.
The only things I would like to see as an improvement would be the cables colouring matching the speakers and possibly a little bag to carrying the speakers in to protect against damage if using them as portable speakers.
With Christmas coming up these would make a great present for all those teenagers that live their lives on their computers.
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: £14.99
Available to buy in black, red or white from Amazon here.