Apple’s Beats Pill: Back with a bang

Bluetooth speakers are a dime a dozen, but Apple-owned Beats by Dr. Dre’s Pill is worth considering for anyone who has been a fan of the Beats brand and likes the out-and-about form factor. It’s actually capsule-shaped and some may consider it stylish—Kim Kardashian certainly does, promptly appearing in ads to promote the speaker. Small though it may be, the Pill, which has returned after a two-year hiatus, is quite expensive at ₹16,900. That said, it packs quite an oomph for its size.

The smaller the speaker, the more its design matters, because you are expected to carry it around like ‘an extension of you’ as companies are fond of saying. It comes in a grey and a champagne gold (Kim Kardashian’s favourite), a Statement Red which looks very attractive but will be very visible out and about, and a Matte Black which looks minimalistic but will gather dust. The Pill looks like a giant pill but surprisingly doesn’t stand vertically; only lying down and in one particular stable position because of an indent underneath. It’s chunky and weighs 680gms - about three phones’ worth. You can swing it along with a detachable lanyard, as long as you don’t drop it on your foot. It’s been known to survive a big tumble down the stairs still playing but adorned with a dent. It can take a trip to the beach or poolside as it’s IP67 splash resistant, but an outright submersion isn’t advisable. Apple also de-recommends exposing it to steam, detergent, extreme humidity or even the shower.

The design of the Pill makes for upward-firing sound to 20-degrees. The speaker grill is front-facing, not extending to the back. Apart from the plastic grill, the rest is silicon and will ask for a bit of cleaning now and then. The speaker just has four buttons for the most basic functions: power on/off and pairing, pause, and volume up/down. It’s possible to send the device into pairing mode with the power button, so the user needs to get used to just how much to press. Lights guide you to the status.

While it may be an Apple product, the Beats Pill 2024 works with both Apple devices and Android. Ironically, it’s the Android app for the Pill that is the more updated. There isn’t too much to fiddle with though as there’s no equaliser.

The moment you turn on the Pill, you’ll be greeted by a nice thump which somehow surprises every time one hears it. That thump announces the well-rounded bass thanks to a larger, racetrack-style woofer. It gets loud, but sounds better at a reasonable volume of about 50%, when the bass sounds less deliberate and manufactured. It definitely has a sound bigger than its size would suggest, but one should align one’s expectations with the circumstances it will be used in. Outdoors, sound will scatter. And yet it’s a portable speaker so you would tend to take it outdoors. Interestingly, this is a mono speaker, and going stereo with it will mean buying one more unit - which is when it will be less portable but more room-filling.

The Pill turns out to be lovely for personal listening for times when you might want to just pick it up to go out to a terrace, or balcony, or lawn, set it on a table while you sip tea or wine and place the speaker fairly close by. It makes for very nice background listening when you want to take it around to a table or bookshelf. It’s not the right choice for music-blasting for rowdy youngsters who are satisfied with nothing less than glass-shattering and at higher volumes gets unpleasant. The speaker is missing a few things like multi point connectivity, support for codecs beyond AAC and SBC, support for Dolby etc. It does work with Bluetooth 5.3 however.

Apart from the solid bass, the mids are quite balanced and tackle instruments and vocals with reasonable detail. It’s also good with speed such as on podcasts and on calls, for which it does have a microphone. The person at the other end can barely tell even if you switch mid-call between the Beats speaker and your device. High frequencies are tackled adequately but not with finesse. You can improve the sound quality by listening in wired mode using a USB-C cable, although any and all such cables don’t necessarily do the job.

The Beats Pill 2024 is overall a very nice speaker, but it has a lot of competition to cope with from JBL, Sony, Bose and others. Even some of the smart speakers sound as good, though they aren’t portable so are not in the same category. If it were not quite as expensive it would be easier to recommend. All the same, fans of the brand will like it just as it is because “Beats is Beats”.