The Sonos Move is one of the most portable speakers from the manufacturer. Its design is sleek enough to blend into your home decor, and since it's battery-powered, you can also take it with you when you listen on the go. It has a built-in handle for easy transport and an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance. You can easily pair this speaker with other products in your Sonos ecosystem. It has to downmix stereo sound into mono, unlike the next-generation Sonos Move 2.
Our Verdict
The Sonos Move is decent for music. It comes with a room correction feature called Trueplay, which automatically optimizes its audio reproduction based on your room's unique acoustics. With it on, its sound is even and balanced, so voices and lead instruments are clearly reproduced, and there's plenty of punch in the bass range. Plus, you can adjust its bass and treble in its companion app and pair the speaker with other Sonos devices to spread your favorite tunes throughout your home.
- One-hand carry.
- Good directivity.
- Bass compression at max volume.
- No real EQ, only bass and treble adjustment sliders.
The Sonos Move is fair for videos and movies. It reproduces dialogue with clarity, and you get an adequate rumble in the bass during more action-packed scenes. However, the speaker has fairly high latency over Bluetooth, so you'll want to watch over an Apple AirPlay connection to ensure there aren't any lip-synching issues.
- Good directivity.
- Low Apple AirPlay latency.
- Bass compression at max volume.
- High Bluetooth latency.
This speaker is a great choice for podcasts. Right out of the box, it reproduces voices and dialogue accurately, so you can easily follow along with the narration in podcasts and audiobooks. At home, you can stream wirelessly from your phone over Wi-Fi; when you're on the go, you can stream over Bluetooth easily. Plus, if you own other Sonos devices, you can pair them up with the speaker through the S2 app to spread audio throughout different rooms in your home.
- Great wireless connectivity options.
- One-hand carry.
- Good directivity.
- Bass compression at max volume.
- No real EQ, only bass and treble adjustment sliders.
With built-in support for Alexa and Google Assistant, this speaker is an excellent choice for voice assistant support. It hears your commands clearly, even if you're further away from the speaker. You can even mute the microphone when not in use.
- Great wireless connectivity options.
- Great voice assistant distance performance.
- Good directivity.
- Bass compression at max volume.
- No real EQ, only bass and treble adjustment sliders.
The Sonos Move is good for outdoor use. It's a portable speaker with a built-in handle to transport it wherever you go. With an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance, it's certified for protection against direct contact with water for up to three minutes and dust for around two to eight hours. It lasts a little over ten hours off of a single charge, too, which will be more than enough to last through your next adventure.
- Solid build quality.
- Great wireless connectivity options.
- One-hand carry.
- Good directivity.
- Bass compression at max volume.
- No real EQ, only bass and treble adjustment sliders.
Changelog
- Updated Jan 03, 2024: During our tests for the next-generation Sonos Move 2, we identified an issue in our results. Multi-Device Pairing changes from 'Up to 2 Devices' to 'No', which drops the Bluetooth score from 7.4 to 6.6.
- Updated Nov 22, 2023: Updated review text for clarity.
- Updated Nov 17, 2023: Added market comparison with the Sonos Move 2 in the Style box.
- Updated Apr 21, 2023: Added market comparison with the Sonos Era 100 in the Soundstage box.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We reviewed the black variant of this speaker, but it's also available in white. We expect our test results to be valid for both color variants.
You can also check out our results for the next-generation Sonos Move 2.
If you find another variant of this speaker, let us know in the forums, and we'll update our review.
Popular Speaker Comparisons
The Sonos Move is a fairly versatile and sleek-looking portable speaker. It's one of the manufacturer's only battery-powered speakers, so it offers more flexibility if you want to listen outdoors. You still find lots of premium features typical of Sonos speakers, like Trueplay room correction and multi-room abilities. It's not a true stereo speaker like the Sonos Move 2.
See also our recommendations for the best Bluetooth speakers, the best smart speakers, and the best home speakers.
The Sonos Move 2 is the next generation of the Sonos Move, and it has some noticeable improvements. Namely, the Move 2 can playback stereo content without downmixing it to mono. Both speakers have a similar design, and while the Move 2 is advertised to have a longer battery life, it performed about the same as its predecessor in our tests.
The Sonos Move is a better speaker than the Sonos Roam/Roam SL. The Move can get louder, and it has a more extended low bass. It also has a longer battery life, though this can vary slightly depending on usage. However, the Roam has a smaller, more portable design, which some users may prefer.
The Sonos Move is more versatile than the Sonos Era 100. As its name implies, the Move is built with portability in mind, and since it's battery-powered, you can take it on the go with more ease than the wired-only Era 100. It's even rated for dust and water resistance in case you run into the elements, which the home-only Era 100 doesn't require. Both speakers support Bluetooth, and they both have built-in voice assistants. However, only the Era 100 supports stereo audio, resulting in a wider sound with better instrument separation between the right and left drivers.
The Sonos Move is a portable alternative to the Sonos Era 300. They're both premium smart speakers with built-in Alexa support for hands-free control. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, pairing both speakers to your mobile devices is easy. The Era 300 is a stereo speaker, though, and it has Dolby Atmos capabilities, unlike the Move. It's especially helpful if you want to listen to compatible music or pair the speaker with a soundbar to watch Dolby Atmos video content. The Move is battery-powered, so it's much more portable, and its IP56 rating for dust and water resistance is ideal for outdoor use.
Test Results
The speaker has a very sleek and simplistic design that's very similar to the next-generation Sonos Move 2. It rests on its wireless charging base but is battery-powered, meaning you can move it around easily. If you're looking for a Sonos speaker that can blend in even better with most home decor, check out the IKEA SYMFONISK Speaker lamp.
As its name indicates, this speaker is extremely portable. It isn't very big and can be used wirelessly with its built-in battery. There's a hollow part at the back of the speaker that acts as a handle for one-hand carrying. If you're looking for a smaller Sonos speaker that's even easier to bring along with you when you're out and about, check out the Sonos Roam/Roam SL.
Its build quality is great. It feels solid and well-built, and it's certified IP56 for dust and water resistance in case you plan to bring it outdoors. That said, it doesn't have the most premium feel. The plastic on the top feels a little cheap, for example.
The control scheme is very straightforward. The four-dotted touch-sensitive buttons can be tapped for volume control or swiped to skip tracks. You can also mute the microphone, and it has a dedicated play/pause button. Also, it features physical buttons to switch between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections and power the speaker on and off.
This speaker comes with a built-in room correction feature that automatically optimizes its audio reproduction based on the acoustics of the room you're in. Sonos calls it Auto Trueplay. Unlike most other Sonos models, when you move the speaker, it recalibrates itself on its own, so you don't have to worry about running room correction yourself.
Overall, its frequency response is good. The speaker's balanced and even sound profile makes it suitable for listening to lots of different types of audio content. Voices and lead instruments are reproduced with accuracy, and you get plenty of punch in the bass to bring genres like EDM and hip-hop to life. You can customize its output by adjusting its bass and treble in the app. That said, compared to the Sonos Era 300, it doesn't have any extra features for Dolby Atmos content like Dolby Atmos Music.
Unlike the next generation Sonos Move 2, this speaker has to downmix stereo content into mono to play it. If you're looking for a stereo speaker, other options include the Sonos Era 100 and the Sony SRS-RA3000. On the upside, this speaker's directivity is good, so you get consistent sound from all sides.
This speaker can get loud enough to fill larger and more open spaces with sound. However, as you crank up the volume, you notice more pumping and compression artifacts, especially in the bass range.
This speaker lasts for around 10 hours off a single charge. You can use the charging dock or a typical USB-C connector for recharging, although no cable is included. It goes into sleep mode after being idle for a while, or you can force the sleep mode with a single press of the power button. The manufacturer also sells replacement battery kits for this speaker if its original battery wears out.
The speaker's voice assistant functionalities are amazing. It has both Alexa and Google Assistant built-in and has no trouble understanding you at a great distance. You'll need to be connected via Wi-Fi, as the voice assistants don't work via Bluetooth. On the upside, if you don't like knowing that the speaker's always listening, you can easily turn off the microphone with the press of a single button. However, its ambient noise performance isn't as impressive as the Amazon Echo Dot Gen 4 or the Amazon Echo Gen 4, so it may have trouble understanding your commands if you're in a noisy setting.
The Sonos S2 app is fantastic. There are bass and treble sliders you can use to tweak the speaker's sound to your liking. You can use the app to pair this speaker with another compatible speaker to create a stereo pair. There's also a multi-room feature to listen to different audio in different rooms of your home simultaneously. Unfortunately, it lacks more robust sound customization features like a graphic EQ. However, you can still use the app to toggle the automatic room correction feature called Auto Trueplay on and off.
There's a USB-C port for charging the speaker, but there aren't any AUX or USB Audio ports you can use to wire older devices to the speaker.
This Bluetooth-enabled speaker has excellent range but won't be suitable for playing videos as its latency is too high. Some apps compensate for this, so your experience may vary.
This Wi-Fi-compatible speaker allows for easy multi-room setup. Like the Sonos One Gen 2/One SL, it features very low latency via AirPlay, but unfortunately, it doesn't have Chromecast built-in.