Creative MUVO 2 Bluetooth Speaker Review with MUVO mini comparison

For this past year, the MUVO mini has been my go-to Bluetooth speaker for travelling and outdoor trips. It strikes the perfect balance between weight and sound quality. The only thing missing from the design is a place to tie a lanyard to secure it to my backpack. So when I first put eyes on the new MUVO 2 my heart skipped a beat “A LANYARD ATTACHMENT YES!”

If this was the only improvement over the MUVO mini, I’d be content. However, there’s  a load more stuff to get excited about, so let’s get stuck in.

I’ve said it before guys, Creative do an amazing job with their packaging. The MUVO 2 comes in a top notch display box. The clear outer shell shows off the entire speaker in all its glory. The subtle angled edges and tapered chamfers that featured on the MUVO Mini are still present on the MUVO 2.

There are a couple of obvious design changes. The honeycomb front grill of the MUVO mini has been replaced with a plain pin-hole metal mesh featuring the Creative logo. The branding looks fairly visible in the picture above, but it’s actually quite subtle in natural light. Then there’re those gorgeous lanyard nostrils on the side – and yes, I am possibly a little more excited by them than most would be, but I have my reasons….

As you can see from the comparison table above, the MUVO 2 is slightly taller and heavier than the MUVO mini. The core reason I always take the MUVO-Mini on outdoor trips and holidays is how amazingly lightweight it is considering the sound quality it puts out. For the MUVO 2 to take its place in my backpack, those extra 55 grams need to be justified. Let’s take a look at the new features and see what we’re getting.

Before I jump in and tell you all of the new features and improvements on the MUVO 2, I’d first like to mention a couple of areas where it’s taken a small step backwards. Firstly, the battery status indicator on the MUVO 2 is an LED light, activated my double tapping the ‘M’ button. A flashing green light means the battery is 75-100%, yellow is 50-75%, blue is 25-50%, and red when it’s less than 25%. This is fine as long as you’re not visually impaired and able to remember what each colour signifies.

In contrast, the MUVO mini has the best battery notification of any Bluetooth speaker I’ve come across. When you double tap the pairing button on the mini, you get vocal notifications, eg. “Battery is about 50%” – I really don’t understand why Creative haven’t used it on the MUVO 2?

The other missing feature is NFC ‘tap to pair’. This really doesn’t bother me much, as once you’ve paired your Bluetooth device, it reconnects almost instantly anyway.

Now on to the good stuff!

The MUVO 2 portable speaker now features the latest Bluetooth 4.2 version. It has a 250% improvement in transfer speed over Bluetooth 4.0. When using the speaker wirelessly as the audio source for movies or games, there’s going to be barely any audio-visual sync issues.

If you are intending to use it for movies and gaming and you have some extra cash to spend, it might be worth buying an additional speaker.

The MUVO 2 can be linked with another unit to create left and right speakers. This will provide a better soundstage and a far more expansive audio experience.

Although I’ve only got a single unit, It won’t be long before I’ve convinced my hiking buddy to buy one and bring it along on our next adventure.

Additional Playback modes

The MUVO 2 has a total of four different playback modes. Each mode can be activated by pressing the ‘M’ button and the LED indicator will change colours to identify it’s current state.

When using the Muvo 2 on a PC or laptop in USB mode, you’ll need to install the driver files from Creative’s website. It’s all pretty simple, once installed the speaker will appear on your audio devices list. You’ll also have the opportunity to customise the audio tuning using the SoundBlaster control panel.

The addition of the MicroSD card slot is a great feature for taking the MUVO 2 on outdoor trips. It’s compatible with lossless FLAC and WAV, WMA and MP3 file formats and will accept cards up to 128gbs in size.

Bluetooth speakers are always subject to the weight vs audio performance rule. The Creative MUVO Mini was one of the few speakers that somehow defied it. It’s why I’ve taken it on every single trip I’ve had this year. I’m happy to say that the MUVO 2 performs just as well. The dual drivers deliver a crisp sound with enough weight from the passive bass radiator to easily fill a moderately sized room.

The volume is good and it holds clean throughout its range and with the capacity to link another speaker you can effectively double its output

If you’ve read my review, you’re probably fully aware that I’m about to highly recommend this Bluetooth speaker. The question is, do I prefer it to the MUVO Mini and which one will I be slipping into my backpack next weekend?

The short answer is yes, it’s my new favourite portable speaker for hiking. The addition of the lanyard holes sealed the deal and if I can convince my buddy to get one, the linking of the two speakers will be awesome. The MicroSD slot will allow me to conserve my phone battery meaning I can take a smaller Powerbank. This easily offsets the small amount of extra weight when compared the MUVO mini.

I hope you found this review useful.  If you did, please share is socially or leave a comment below – Thanks!