It has an advertised battery life of 24 hours and an advertised battery life of 14 hours. Now the XB33 has 2 advertised battery lives. But just keep in mind if you were to use this speaker at a higher volume than its battery is going to drain faster. But regardless like I said, both of these speakers are mid sized speakers that you can easily throw into you back pack and take on the go with you… and you’re not going to have to worry about either of these speakers cause they’re both very durable thanks to their most fabric bodies, and since they’re rocking IP67 ratings they’re both water proof and dust proof.īut now lets talk about tech specs regarding battery life the Charge 5 has an advertised battery life 20 hours… but that 20 hours battery life is for when this speaker is playing at 50% volume, real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume the Charge 5 is good for about 10 hours of playback time. And from Sony’s app you can select from a few different lighting modes and you can even use Sony’s fiestable app to somewhat customize the color of this light feature. Now this isn’t the best light feature out there and you can barely see it when you're outdoors… but it is something. Now even though the XB33 doesn’t feel as premium as the Charge 5… something that it does have going for it is this light feature. Now this shouldn’t be a deciding factor for a speaker but it is an observation.
So the charge 5 does feel more premium in your hands. However I do gotta point out that the fabric weave on the Charge 5 feels more premium and much more tightly woven than the fabric on the XB33. They both have these exposed passive radiators on either side with these hard plastic end caps, they both have their control buttons up top and they both have a mostly fabric wrapped body which should be able to stand up to constant abuse without any problems.
Now minor size difference aside, the Charge 5 and XB33 still share the same design characteristics. However I can’t help but notice that the Charge 5 is a little more compact than the XB33. Now first lets talk about the designs of these speakers… like I mentioned earlier these are both mid sized speakers so you can easily throw them into your back pack and take them on the go with you. But regardless if you want to pick either of these two speakers up they’ll be linked down below. Now even though the Charge 5 is a little more expensive… it does feel more premium and has a better real world battery life than the XB33. Where as the Charge 5 has a retail price of $180 but I do expect it to go on sale for $150 on a regular basis. One of which is going to be their pricing… the XB33 has a retail price of $150 but you can routinely find the XB33 on sale for $130. Now both of these speakers sound good but if you’re looking into getting a mid sized speaker lets see which’s ones right for you cause the Charge 5 and XB33 do have some crucial differences.
JBL CHARGE 5 VS DRIVERS
Specifically the Charge 5 is rocking a new tweeter over the Charge 4 where as the XB33’s speaker set up is drastically different from its predecessors cause it has new triangular drivers and passive radiators that shoot out its sides. Both the new JBL Charge 5 and Sony XB33 are rocking all new speaker set ups from their predecessors.