Love the ease of transportability. I am a children’s entertainer, so I thought that this would be perfect instead of always finding a long extension cord for my outdoor parties and block parties. I listen to it around the house, radio only, and haven’t even come close to running the battery down. Or gyms that are loud and I really need the extra boost. Here’s the problems that I found:

1) The wheels are convenient, but really should be larger. When walking with it any distance it tips.
2) Bluetooth is terrible and useless. It looses it’s range when you are about 6 feet away. What’s the point?
3) The bass isn’t adjustable. When the volume is cranked on current songs, the bass overpowers it. I do like bass and volume, but this is bad.
4) The microphone is worthless. My little portable waist PA system is much louder. This doesn’t even give me enough volume to use for anything.
5) There are no presets for the radio, so it defaults back to the lowest numbers. Great for NPR since it’s a low number.

Here are the positives:
1) You can charge your sound system while it plays, as long as you aren’t using Bluetooth.
2) It’s pretty sturdy and durable
3) Love that it has an expandable handle for moving around.

Bottom line. If you don’t care about adjusting the bass, want something portable and want something with a long internal battery life, then this is for you.
If you need bluetooth to work, really good volume and a microphone to work with it, this isn’t for you.

I went back and forth trying to decide whether to rate this with 2 or 3 stars, I picked 3 stars because for the right person it may be perfect. It just isn’t right for me. I need all of the functions to work for my needs.

I work at gm and have bought 4 bluetooth speakers before this one for work use, All of them lacked volume loud enough for noisy shop environment and had poor battery life.
I’ve read alot of bad reviews on the ION block rocker stating things like it has poor batt life and the battery stops holding a charge after a few weeks or months, Built poorly, ect… I must have got lucky because mine has been without Fail for 2+ months might I add “The Shop Rocker!!!”.

Ok so on to the pros-

This speaker is a beast, I think its very solid and well built. It also looks great while getting the job done! The sound is loud and clear at nearly top volume I mainly keep it at 70-75% and can hear it from quite a ways away. Bluetooth is easy to connect I use my phone and 7th gen Nano but mainly direct connect with a retractable AUX cable to spare battery life in both devices. Battery life for me has been great and with no problems. There are 3 green charge level lights and 1 red low batt light, 3 green is full charge and there’s a separate charging indicator light that will stay lit green until fully charged. I charge it over night and unplug it when I leave for work, My shift and music starts at 6:35am and usually ends between 3:30-4pm. It will only drop 1 out of 3 bars of batt life by last break which is around 1:30pm and thats with it at 75% volume!!! Today was the second day I ran it without charging and it lost all bars towards the end of my shift so rough estimate taking powering down for breaks into consideration it ran around 13 hours on one charge. I can also charge my phone of Nano thanks to a built in USB charging port while I play music! Battery life does depend on how you use this speaker though so here are some tips.

1)Follow the directions on the unit!!!
-Recharge the battery after each use.
-Use and recharge the battery at least once a month.
-Avoid completely draining the battery.

2)Music itself plays a big role in battery life from my experience!!!
-Whether using your phone or a mp3 device the more bass the faster battery power is used, I turn my nano volume to max with the EQ setting on bass reducer the ION at 70-75% volume and achieve great battery life (I mainly listen to rock and metal).

3)Bluetooth, It’s a cool feature that I like to use at home where I could plug the device in if need be. It turns my phone or Nano into a wireless music remote I can keep in my pocket m/ But….
-Using bluebooth will drain the ION as well as the device your usings battery almost twice as fast from my experience so if you want the most bang from your battery then get yourself a AUX cable and direct connect, The retractable one is great for travel.

Ok so overall im very happy and the ION Shop Rocker at 5.00 on amazon blows the Altec lansing 725 I paid 9.00 out of the water in both sound and battery life!!!

Now for the cons and there are very few.

1)The weight!!!
– The company rates it at 35lbs but my floor scale puts it at around 27lbs. For big sound and long batt life you pay in size, it can be a pain to carry around but does have wheels and a expandable luggage like handle as well as two built-in handles which makes it a breeze to pull behind you.
-Lol nothing else so good job ION!

Buy it now if you need big sound that blows away bose docks and others on the go and dont forget to pimp it out with stickers!!!!!!!!!

This is an excellent product that performs it’s function very well for me. Using the Bluetooth connection on my Galaxy S3 I have walked over 50 feet away from the unit with my phone with no loss sound or connection whatsoever. The sound is rich and full with plenty of volume. Extending drag handle and wheels are handy; just like pulling your luggage at the airport! easy to lift (very light!) with convenient recessed handles. USB port to charge your device (sorry IPhone snobs!) and aux input with cable for your non-apple device. The battery lasts forever, but take care of it. I ran it for 12 hours straight and used less than 1/3rd of the charge. Follow the instructions for the care of the battery which are conveniently written on the side of the unit near the power switch and battery life indicator.

It seems some of the negative reviews here are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the product.

Essentially, this is only a speaker. That means that the sound you get out of it will be equal to the sound you put into it. Bass, for example, is a function controlled by your music player (if you bought home stereo speakers you wouldn’t bellyache that the speakers didn’t have bass controls!). The instructions recommend having the volume on your player and the unit at zero when you connect. Then slowly raise both in varying increments to achieve the best sound.

The handle and wheels are not heavy duty; they are for sidewalks, parking lots and other smooth surfaces and perform quite well. You’re not going off-roading with the wheels and common sense should tell you that you shouldn’t go bashing it around. ION makes another unit for that. […]

For patios, bbq’s, the beach, camping, in the garage, basement, etc I highly recommend.