I've had the Sonos Play in my hands for nearly a fortnight at this point, which has been more than enough time to test it in-depth, and it's become more and more clear as I've used it that this piece of hardware might represent the future for Sonos. While that's obvious in some ways, given it's the company's latest launch, I think it does represent a big change from how Sonos was orienting itself a few years ago.
I'm one of many tech journalists who spent a couple of years writing about rumours and leaks concerning Sonos' now presumed abandoned effort to make a streaming box, and that was one of a few initiatives that seemed like quite a bold play for a company based in the world of speakers.
That period of uncertainty was crowned by the disaster that was the great Sonos app update, and for quite a few people, it might have felt like a tipping point for a previously highly-trusted brand.
Speaking only for myself, though, I always had a suspicion that Sonos would, or at least should, be able to right the ship. After all, its brand identity is so strong, and its hardware has a great reputation for a reason.
Now, under a new CEO, it seems to be making the right decisions at last, culminating in the Play. Again, I can't speak for every Sonos user out there, but on my end, this has felt like the speaker I've always wanted Sonos to make, which is no mean feat.
By marrying its multi-room home speaker experience with a design that can be lifted off its dock and taken on days out, trips and holidays, with a far smaller footprint and weight than the chunkier Move 2, Sonos has basically hit the ball outta the park.
I love almost every part of the speaker, from its design to its extremely impressive sound, with basically the only hangup being its chunky price. That's an equation that's been familiar to Sonos reviewers for generations of speakers, though, and a far easier one to square away compared to the threat of app redundancy and abandoned support that hung over the last couple of years.
Sure, I'd love the brand's decision-makers to heed my calls for an included charging plug in the box (given this is a £300 speaker at launch), but other than that, I really don't have any quibbles with the speaker from a user perspective.
Now, though, the test continues – one great bit of hardware doesn't necessarily wipe away all the missteps that came before it. Sonos needs to demonstrate that it can continue to make decisions that foreground what its users actually want, and build itself back up to the industry-leading position it could arguably occupy.
