B&O Play’s palm-sized Beoplay P2 is its most affordable speaker yet

Bang & Olufsen’s more fun and hip B&O Play brand has a new addition in the form of the Beoplay P2 Bluetooth speaker.

For those of us wanting some serious Scandinavian design in our lives, but perhaps without the budget for the likes of Bang & Olufsen’s seriously cool BeoSound Shape, there’s its B&O Play range. This is the Danish audio company’s slightly more budget-friendly, lifestyle brand with a focus on portable audio.

The new Beoplay P2 is B&O Play’s most affordable speaker to date at £149/€169/$169, undercutting the previous Beoplay A1. But even without an eye-watering price tag, you’re not sacrificing what the company is known for.

One of the company’s mantras is that if a material looks like metal, it’s going to be metal. Lo and behold, that’s the case here with the continued use of anodised aluminium and real leather that gives the P2 a premium feel.

The Beoplay P2 is also now the most portable of B&O Play’s speakers and comes in a palm-sized pebble shape. The design has been stripped right back so that the only physical button is a discreet power button on the bottom, hidden away behind the logo. The rest of your interaction is consigned to taps at the grille and shakes.

As B&O Play states: “We decided to remove all switches and buttons for a beautiful exterior and a simple and magical user experience that can be customised in the Beoplay App.” This means you have your standard media controls as well as access to your digital assistant of choice, be that Siri or Google Now.

You can also interact by shaking the speaker. I was told the latter will only work in a specific way as to avoid any accidental inputs when the speaker is in a bag. You wouldn’t want tracks skipping while out on a hike after all – unless you want to relive your youth spent with skipping Discmans, that is.

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You can expect 360-degree sound dispersion with the same 3/4-inch fabric soft dome we saw with the Beoplay A1, but paired with an improved mid-woofer made from an anodised aluminium cone structure. Two 15W RMD Class D Amps are there to provide the oomph.

Like with the Beoplay A1, there’s a microphone tucked away on the bottom edge, angled to pick up your voice as it bounces off a surface, making it perfect for handsfree calls. Listening at moderate volumes, you should expect about 12 hours of battery life on a single charge. As with the A1, there’s USB-C charging for when it comes time to top up.

As is the norm with B&O Play, you’ll have a choice of different colours, including Black, Sand Stone and Royal Blue. The Beoplay P2 is available from today.

Let us know what you think of the Beoplay P2 in the comments below.