White Portable Foldable Speakers for Mp3 Players - Travel Size Folding Foldable Stereo Speaker for Apple iPhone 3G 3GS,itouch, iPod,iPod Touch, iPod (video), iPod nano, iPod Photo, iPod Mini

I was looking for a portable set of speakers that can be powered by USB for my laptops, & run on batteries for my mp3 players, tablets, & phone. As long as it sounded better & got louder than the lousy speakers they put in modern laptops these days, I'd be happy. They say laptops & thin TVs sound bad because there's no room to put decent speakers in them. That's all bull. Any tine phone I ever owned, & a couple real cheap 7" android tablets all have better sound than I hear from any modern laptop. And these very small speakers sound better than the built-in speakers of my modern Sceptre, Ocosmo (also by Scepter), & Vizio TVs. They just don't WANT to put any nice sound in TVs & laptops. They want you to spend more on extra speakers. I originally was looking for some small speakers that run on AA batteries & USB or an AC adapter, even it it made them a little bulkier with AA batteries. But I couldn't find anything to suit my needs that wasn't total garbage. So I accepted these speakers the run on 4, AAA batteries. AAA batteries on average, only have 1/3 the power as AA batteries. So with AA batteries you're getting more power & a longer runtime. Fortunately these speakers are very efficient, because they don't go very loud or have lots of bass -- which requires more power. But they do get plenty loud enough for small speakers as long as the output from your device isn't too low. At a moderate easy listening volume, the AAA batteries ran continuous for 11.5 hours. At that point though, the batteries were so low it wouldn't even go louder when i turned the volume up. But that was still loud enough to hear it across the room & hum to the tunes. It was also still louder than any of my laptops would play their internal speakers. I imagine playing it loudly or loud enough to hear across a large noisy room, battery life would be much shorter. It also includes a USB cord to power it from any standard USb port or charger -- nice feature to run on batteries, USB, charger, or AC adapter (adapter or charger not included). The power jack on the unit that accepts the USB cord is a standard round AC adapter jack that you can plug any 4-6 volt AC adapter into as long as you observe that the polarity is the same (it is clearly marked so you get it right) For the size & price, it has remarkable sound quality & gets rather loud. Not much bass at this size, but bass isn't completely missing either. For the price, I should have given it 5 stars. I took off 1 star for the incredibly short audio cord. Only 6-7 inches long. It makes for awkward placement with a laptop, always yanking & stressing the connector (and risk breaking it). Even for an mp3 player or tablet, you'd be constantly yanking & stressing the audio cord trying to fiddle with your device. A better design would be to skip the permanently attached cord & just have a audio plug/port like they have for the power. The included USB cord is long enough for most uses. They could have done the same for the audio cord with a jack, or a least give us a foot of audio wire for what's there, instead of 6-7". Fortunately they do make audio cord extensions, for around 2-3 bucks. Highly recommended so you don't break the short cord yanking & stretching it all the time. Many reviews I read about this speaker failing are related to the connection breaking inside the audio cord from constant yanks & stress of a way too short audio cord. I opened mine up & pulled the cord out through the top rather than the bottom. That gained me a little over more 4" on the cord. Even that extra 4" made a world of difference. If they don't want constant reviews about failures within weeks or months of purchase, they should just put a longer audio cord on it or install an audio jack/port instead, like that have for the power. Other than that, I'm so happy with these little portable speakers, I'm buying 2 more! Mis-matching the unit: Some mp3 players, portable devices, & laptops have an audio output rated for 8-32 ohms impedance. Some odd ones may be even up to 300 ohms. The has nothing to do with the power but is the audio frequency resistance. The standard audio earphone impedance is supposed to be 8 ohms. Although most players will play through any 8-300 ohm earphones, for the best performance the impedance of the earphones should match the impedance of the audio jack coming out of the device. Check your manual or you device's website to find out what it is. Low impedance units (8 ohms) will deliver a lower voltage to earbuds, but a higher current (power=voltage x current). High impedance units (16 or more ohms) will deliver a higher voltage but less current to get the same power. If you plug high impedance headphones into a low impedance device, the sound will be weak, & muddy, muffled, or too bassy. If you plug low impedance headphones into a high impedance device the sound will also be weak, but sound thin, tinny, or shrill. On my 8 ohm mp3 players, I had to turn everything up all the way to get these speakers just loud enough. on my 16-32 ohm tablets, laptops, & phones, I didn't have to turn anything up more that halfway to get the volume really loud. So these speakers are more sensitive to voltage rather than current. A weak player with only an 8 ohm output may not give enough voltage to drive these speakers best.