No one has yet to unseat Jawbone’s Jambox from the Bluetooth speaker throne, but the king of the heap is starting to show its age, leaving room for feature-packed competitors to challenge its reign.
Creative hopes its updated Airwave HD might be in line for the throne by offering the citizens NFC capabilities so it’s easy to sync their smartphones with nothing but a tap.
The added functionality does come at the cost of reduced battery life, seven hours compared to twelve for the NFC-less model. But battery life has always been about give and take, and the $160 Airwave HD will still blast your tunes for an entire day’s work, minus your lunchbreak.
It also doubles as a speakerphone which is standard Bluetooth speaker fare these days, and should be available sometime after June when it’s first introduced in Singapore. [Creative via Pocket-lint]