Flip 4

i dont dislike anything, i was just giving a benchmark for the kind of size i wanted. i think a while ago ichad a flip 4 and there wasnt much you could do in the app, but i havent had a speaker for quite some time. so maybe theres some new stuff i havent checked out. would you reccomend a flip?

In 2025, you're not getting something that last years. To put on perspective I still daily drive a JBL Charge 1. And prefer it over my Flip 4 that's battery decided to kick the bucket after 3 years and had to replace 2x and my brother's Flip 6. There's even the Xtreme 4 still having battery issues. You want something to last get an older speaker find a way to replace the battery with Lithium Solid State batteries and add fans and Sensitive speakers. In short DIY as if a part breaks then you can replace that part.

I have owned the JBL flip 4 and 6. The Flip 4 was miles ahead of the 6. The sound signature has changed a bit. The Flip 4 developed battery issues after 3 years. It still works when plugged in.

JBL Flip 4 JBL Xtreme 3 SONY Ult Field 7 The performance overall in each one, has been more than satisfactory.

Get the 4 bro if u gonna be paying retail

That’s wild. My JBL flip 4 died after 5 years and expanded inside the damn thing. I couldn’t get it out. So I had to recycle it and replace it. 😆

i bought a JBL flip 4 in 2017, and used it to listen to music / announce my presence to motorists / deter unwanted interactions while i was cycling (we're not litigating that choice here, i'm just providing context). the flip series is almost the perfect size to fit into a bike water cage. _**almost.**_ needless to say, she's taken multiple tumbles over thousands of miles, year-round. "dozens" would not be an understatement. almost all of them just bouncing off onto asphalt, at-speed. i once hit a sharp bridge lip and the flip bounced off of a bridge beam into a ravine. luckily it was easy to find because i could hear it echoing up through the creek water when i bumped the volume up to max lol in 2020, i took the Flip 4 back into bestbuy to swap it for a fresh replacement, because it had a no-questions-asked warranty attached to it, back when those were still cheap. it still worked fine, the battery still lasted as long as it did when i bought it as far as i could tell, but the ruggedized outer shell had no shortage of scrapes and the speaker meah had a fair number of tears from taking a few too many headlong cartwheels across the bike path at 20-odd mph. by then, they only had Flip 5's, so that's what i queued up for the swap. I expected the associate to take the old 4, but they didn't. i walked out with both. i bequeethed the battle-hardened Flip 4 unto my younger sibling's commuter bike and took the fresh Flip 5 as my own. Both of them are still going strong to this day. the 4 is approaching 10 years old. My sibling also subjects the speaker to much more perilous outdoorsing than i ever did. Despite a storied history of battle scars, sticker residue, DIY speaker mesh darning--and being so thoroughly sunbleached that it's now roughly the shade of grey the toddler is wearing in this pic you used--it still works. my aib has felt no desire to replace it. My Flip 5 is also still going strong, but she is generally subjected to much less danger on any given day lol i'd say get a used Flip 4 in this particular use-case. 1, because it's used, so if it wnds up failing the toddler test it's not a huge loss. and 2, i genuinely believe one of the reasons that my/my sibling's Flip 4 has survived so long is because JBL had the presence of mind to include a ruggedized silicone port cover that shields the charging port and the aux cable from debris and mousture/liquid. if i hadn't gotten it for basically 20$, i never would have traded it for a Flip 5 (i would have just gone and found another 4), because the 5's ports are fully exposed to the elements at all times. so you have to be a bit more tedious with it. whereas whenever the Flip 4 took a dive into silty/muddy runoff water, i was always reasonably confident that the delicate parts were still undamaged and dry. and i was never disappointed on that front~ hope that personal appraisal helps!