During the week of the 4th of July, Sperry was running their semi-annual sale on shoes. I like Sperry shoes, and I needed some new shoes, so I bought a few pairs. But on the way to checking out, I noticed a promo where Sperry was gifting a free Bluetooth speaker when you spent more than $75!

I mean, it's free, so why not? In the cart it goes.

Everything got delivered, and I really liked the shoes, so I figured we'd check out this free (MSRP of $20) Bluetooth speaker made by a shoe company. What could go wrong?

Design

It's a pretty basic little speaker, although it ended up being much smaller than I anticipated. It was also a little heavier than I expected, which is usually a good sign for speakers. The compact size does seem pretty cool to just toss in a bag for when you want to listen to music on the go without a ton of commitment, so that was cool.

The top speaker grille had the Sperry logo painted on, and the whole speaker had a nifty black and white aesthetic. The bottom even had a grippy texture to keep it from sliding around. Not bad for something free.

Unfortunately, the only port is the charging port on the back, which is a mini USB. Not even a micro USB. Yuck.

The power toggle sits on the front next to the blue LED light indicating that the speaker is turned on.

Sound

I turned the speaker on, grab my phone to get things paired up, and noticed that the device identified itself as “2776.” I'm sure there's no rhyme or reason to that, but a little extra effort in actually naming the speaker out of the Chinese factory would've been a nice touch.

But hey, Sony names all of their stuff really stupid and confusing numbers, so why can't Sperry? I turned on some music to see just how much this little speaker could rock out.

Turns out, a $20 speaker made by a shoe company that you get for free sounds exactly like you'd expect it to. It's tinny and any low-end is just about non-existent, and the whole time there's this weird shrill feedback noise around the music you play. It doesn't do it when music is paused, but you can definitely hear something fuzzing out around your songs. It wasn't because of the volume, either.

Oh, and turning things up really blew out this tiny speaker. Bad idea.

Size really shouldn't be an excuse, because we've reviewed some killer compact Anker speakers that retail for not much more than this speaker. Sperry isn't a speaker company, or even a technology company, so I'm not expecting anything to just blow me away, but I guarantee they didn't manufacturer this speaker, either. They took a pre-made speaker and slapped their own logo on it to throw in shopping carts. Why not spend just a little more extra and give us something positive to talk about?

Worth the buy?

Well, it doesn't actually matter, because the website link to this speaker just 404s. Sperry only seems to sell it as part of their bundle promotions.

But even as part of the bundle, it's really just an extra piece of electronic garbage that you'll probably forget to recycle, and it'll end up in a landfill one day. You're actually probably doing the planet and everyone else a favor by passing on this thing.

I love the shoes, though. So there's still a silver lining to all of this.

Check out this Anker speaker instead.