moonshine boost: Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system hands-on

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system hands-on

Remember that Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system we just told you about a few minutes ago? Well, we just got a little bit of hands-on time with the thing. The speaker set was plugged in, of course -- there's not a heck of a lot of natural lighting in the Venetian hotel, here in Vegas. Also, for the record, in spite of the model's rather boastful name, the speaker couldn't really get all that loud, sadly -- though that's sort of the curse of the Bluetooth speaker system, we suppose. It also often comes with the territory for portable systems, and the Ruckus, again, in contrast to its name, is reasonably compact and portable. We fiddled with the volume and bass buttons, but the speaker didn't get all that much louder than the roaring crowd around us.

The decision to include an e-ink display was a pretty novel one -- its uses aren't quite as broad as an LCD, but it's hard to deny that it was extremely readable, as it no doubt would be in direct sunlight, as the company claims. And let's face it, if you use the solar panel as intended, you're gonna have this thing outside in the sun a lot, right? The Ruckus will run you $150 when it drops in Q2, just in time for you to actually want to go outside again.

Gallery: Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system hands-on