Bonaok Karaoke Microphone Review

In a previous post, I had said I would be reviewing a USB mixer board. However, when we got this microphone to review, I couldn't wait to try it out. I promise the review of the USB mixer board is coming soon.

Bonaok Q37 Karaoke Microphone is a top selling (and rated) karaoke microphone on Amazon.  

I'll have to admit that I hoped that this would be a game changer by the fact that it has Bluetooth support. When we finally received the device, I was hopeful. After spending some time using it, I decided to develop a 3-factor review for karaoke devices going forward.

Karaoke Device Review

For devices that I review in this blog, I will follow a format that should be easy to grasp where the device excels and where it falls short.

Factor 1 - Solo Karaoke

Can you karaoke with it? I think that this category will mostly receive a yes. However, there may be some nuances that are worth talking about.

Factor 2 - Full Party

Can you throw a great karaoke party using the device? The main factors here are:

• sound
• connectivity
• battery powered? battery life is a factor

Factor 3 - World Party

Will it work for a World Party? As we have mentioned before, World Party has some requirements that are sometimes difficult to fulfill. Can the device work well enough in this scenario to make it a recommended purchase?

Bonaok Karaoke Microphone Review

The Bonaok Q37 karaoke microphone is a Bluetooth device with an onboard speaker. The Bluetooth aspect allows you to connect with your phone (or laptop/tablet) and stream music onto the microphone to be output by its onboard speaker.  

The build quality seems really good. Much of it is metal and it is rechargeable. The microphone cost around $30-35, which makes it an appealing device if it fits your needs.

Factor	Review	Grade
Solo Karaoke	The microphone has an on-board speaker and mixes incoming sound (via Bluetooth) with your voice speaking into the microphone. You can apply some voice effects (echo/reverb) to make it all sound smoother. There is an overall volume control and a music volume control to give you control over the mix.  Once a person starts singing, this sounds great to the singer since they are standing very close to the microphone speaker. Assuming you are streaming the karaoke from a device that outputs music to the microphone while showing the lyrics on a screen (on some screen), you probably would do well with this device.	A-
Karaoke Party	The microphone struggles in this situation for a couple reasons: 1. It does not transmit your voice to a connected device 2. Battery life may be an issue Duets can happen by sharing the microphone, but the experience may be a bit clunky. World-class karaoke setups allow a microphone per performer for a song (ex. 2 mics or sometimes even 4 mics). Transmit Voice Although the microphone is Bluetooth capable, this is limited to an incoming signal. Your voice won't be sent to the connected device. This means that your voice will be limited to the onboard speaker. Although this is workable, it is also not ideal: it is not practical to have everyone crowd around while the singer sings.  The microphone does have a headphone jack that you can connect the microphone to a stereo or another device to hear the sound. Having to run a wire is a bit of a pain and possibly a Bluetooth transmitter might keep it a cordless microphone while still allowing you to leverage your sound system. Battery Life The battery life is rated at 5-10 hours. I tested the mic transmitting via its own speaker and it around 40-50% volume and it easily lasted well over 5 hours. I think if your party is going strong and it is getting low - just strap a small USB charger like this one to it and carry on. My testing through the headphone jack (out to a stereo), the battery life was even better since it didn't need to power its own speaker. It easily exceeded 8 hours and was still going strong.	B-
World Party	World Party is a bit of a different situation. Since normally you might try using your laptop built-in microphone or a microphone plugged into your laptop. The issue with this is that in the video conference software: it will take a configured input - which would be the microphone. However, that would be the only signal sent over the wire - no music (video conference software typically does not mix sound sources). This does not work well for World Party. Because this microphone does the mixing on board, if you use it for karaoke and the laptop microphone for the entire performance then it doesn't sound bad to participants in other houses - they will hear both music and voice. It loses a few points because if you had several people over singing (a karaoke party) then each performer ends up singing to the laptop instead of enjoying the freedom of performing in general.	B

Other Notes

The microphone seems geared toward using it with a phone - streaming karaoke content from the phone after it is paired with the microphone. The microphone also advertises that it supports recording via an adapter that is included. However, this is limited to your voice - it won't mix the incoming music together with your voice. When the adapter is plugged in, it automatically disconnects from the Bluetooth source. An additional note is that the adapter is designed for a phone (4 pole 3.5mm audio jack) - so it is a bit unclear what use case this is trying to cover. As further insult, modern iPhones don't even have a 3.5mm headphone jack so this functionality may not even be compelling.

It also takes an optional microSD card that can have MP3s loaded and it can play these songs. Although karaoke MP3 files do exist, I am not sure how common they are. Plus, an additional detail is that part of the magic of karaoke is having the lyrics on a screen (so that performers are more daring with their song choices) and the mic can't do that. It seems that this feature might be more geared towards using it as a portable speaker as opposed to karaoke.

The user manual is nearly nonexistent - it won't be much help if you have questions. I found more information on the Amazon product page, and then watched some YouTube videos reviewing the product to find out if I was doing something wrong.

The microphone does come with a nifty carrying case to keep it protected and easy to carry with you in all sorts of occasions. Given that it can be paired with a phone - carrying this with you means you would always be ready for karaoke.

Conclusion

For the situation where you are simply using the microphone to mix voice with the music from a Bluetooth source (phone/laptop/tablet), the microphone works great. Also, it has enough features that if you know your way around audio systems, settings, and various adapters then you can make it do a lot more (with tradeoffs).

For the price point of $30-ish dollars and 11 color options, this is an excellent device to bring you into the world of karaoke, and an excellent gift for child and adult alike. There are some limitations that I noted above but there is no denying the value. Starting off with this microphone to see if you are interested in karaoke is a great first step. If you decide that you want to get more control and options, there is no shortage of other karaoke equipment that will allow you to accomplish anything you can imagine. Plus you can gift this to a niece or nephew when you have decided to go to the next level.

At the start of this review, I had said that I was hoping that this mic is a game changer. Despite some limitations and functionality that may never be used, I do think this mic is in that class. It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted to dabble in karaoke you would spend hundreds of dollars on equipment and then buy more karaoke discs every month or two to help build your library. Now, for less than $50 you can have a great experience with access to a vast library of songs (kara-party.com has over 8000 songs, last I checked). Karaoke is becoming mainstream entertainment, and this mic will help usher in a new era.