Upon unboxing the speaker, it didn’t look like anything special. Just a soft, “rubbery” plastic shell like the material on the previous models and the Motion+ and a normal metal grill on the front, with a usb-c port on the right side of the speaker.
I turned on the speaker, and was met by the startup sound that all the newest Soundcore speaker models have.
I then got the speaker paired to my phone, quickly, with no issues.
I started some music - Christmas Saves the Year by Twenty One Pilots - “Wowwwww” was my immediate reaction. Shockingly crystal clear and detailed sound and shockingly rich and even somewhat deep bass came out of the speaker, filling my living room with ease.
I would say the sound is comparable to the Motion+, just not as much bass. From a speaker half the size and price. What more could a speaker enthusiast like me want?
The Soundcore 3 is quite loud, deafeningly loud in small and medium sized rooms, loud enough that you have to shout to talk over it.
The app works well. It quickly connects to the speaker, and enables you to install any future firmware updates on the speaker, turn the indication sounds on and off (max/minimum volume sound, startup and shutdown sounds) enable and disable BassUp, switch between some EQ presets, and set your own custom EQ settings (as many as you want) which can be named to whatever you want, and you can easily switch between them in the app.
Pushing the bass on the Custom EQ will cause the speaker to distort a bit, but there’s plenty of bass without adjusting it.
PartyCast worked seamlessly as well. I paired my phone to the Soundcore 3, then held down the bluetooth button until it began slowly blinking white, indicating it is in “transmitting” mode. I then turned on my Rave Neo speaker, held down the PartyCast button on it, and once it began flashing white slowly I short pressed the button once again to put it in “receiving” mode. It quickly connected to the Soundcore 3. I started some music, and it worked perfectly.
I would easily recommend this speaker to anyone looking for a small, durable, low priced, fairly loud, and high quality sounding speaker.