Like all things Beats, the Pill XL is a bass-heavy affair (so purists can stop reading now). Also like most products in Dr. Dre's audio gear lineup, it's well-designed. At $299.95, the Pill XL isn't an inexpensive portable Bluetooth speaker, and is significantly larger than most portable options. It still manages, thanks to its oblong shape and cleverly placed handle, to be very easy to both carry around and pack away, and offers a more powerful bass experience than most speakers this size. The tiniest hint of distortion crops up at absolute maximum volume on the most challenging tracks, but for the vast majority of music, the speaker provides a powerful, clean response even on tracks with deep sub-bass. It provides a bass lover's alternative to the Editors' Choice Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Speaker III($214.99 at Amazon).

Design
Like its predecessor, the smaller Beats Pill, the Beats Pill XL is shaped like, well, a pill. It's an oblong cylinder with rounded edged measuring 13.3 inches long and 4.1 inches in diameter and weighing a fairly hefty 3.3 pounds. It's black, with a metallic grille covering the four drivers (one midrange and one tweeter for each of its two channels), with a lowercase red "b" logo that acts as a combination Play/Pause Track and Call Answer/End button (a built-in microphone gives the Pill XL speakerphone functionality).

Along the back of the speaker, the rounded contour becomes hollowed out for a built-in handle that also serves as a stand, and houses all of the connection ports and other controls. On the left end of the handle, a rubberized cover protects a 3.5mm Aux input, a 3.5mm Aux output, a USB connection for charging mobile devices, and a micro USB port reserved for firmware updates. A connection port for the included power adapter, as well as a Bluetooth status indicator, sit next to the other ports but unprotected by the rubber cover. On the right side of the handle, a battery status indicator sits next to controls for Volume (which work independently of your mobile device's Volume controls), and Power, along with an NFC button you tap to pair NFC-enabled devices.

The Pill XL automatically appears on your phone's pairing list, so there's no need to press and hold a button to put it into pairing mode. Thus, the pairing process with an iPhone 5s, which is already simple, becomes even more quick and painless with the Pill XL.

Beats estimates the Pill XL's battery life to be roughly 15 hours, but your results might vary and will depend mostly upon how loudly you play your music. The speaker ships with a red 3.5mm audio cable for the Aux in/out, but no USB cable for charging your mobile devices with its built-in battery.

Performance
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Pill XL delivers a very powerful low-frequency response. At maximum volume on both the speaker and sound source, this track begins to distort a tiny bit, but lowering the volume just slightly eliminated any hint of distortion without weakening the powerful output's deep lows.

Big-bass speakers can sound quite exciting on electronic music, pop, and hip hop, but often other genres tend to sound a bit unnatural and muddy when the lows are too intense. Bill Callahan's "Drover" is often a victim of this, but the track sounded excellent and balanced on the Pill XL. Sure, the drums sound a bit heavier than they might with a flatter response, but not in any significantly unnatural way. His baritone vocals also get some extra unnecessary help in the low-end department, but it doesn't sound muddy. It sounds more like the kind of exaggerated boosting you often hear through a PA system at a live show (where deep vocals often get added depth and kick drums suddenly sound thunderous), but not nearly as loud. The high-mids and highs have enough of a presence that there's still plenty of definition in Callahan's voice, and the guitar strumming stays prominent.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop's attack highlights just how much high-mid presence the Pill XL offers, allowing the loop to slice through the dense mix despite the intense bass and low-mids the speaker produces. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate this track lack the kind of firepower a subwoofer would provide, but are delivered with more rumble than most portable Bluetooth speakers. The vocals also managed to stay well-defined and in the forefront of the mix.

Classical tracks, like John Adams' "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," showcase just how much sculpting is going on with the Pill XL's sound signature. Typically, the lower-register instruments have a more subtle presence, and the lower register strings sit quietly below the higher register strings and vocals in the mix. With the Pill XL, they all seem to occupy equal parts of the spotlight. This makes the mix sound notably more boosted and powerful than a typical classical track would, but just like with the Bill Callahan track, the added power is complimentary and not ridiculously unnatural.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker with serious bass presence, you've found it. Your only qualm at this point might be the price (the minor and rare distortion shouldn't be a deal breaker); as with most Beats products, it's a tad expensive. Still, the Pill XL delivers something most of the competition does not: big bass in a to-go form. It's also a better buy than the smaller Beats Pill, which underperforms even considering its smaller size and lower price.

If you need to spend a bit less, the Bose SoundLink Mini($129.95 at Amazon), and Jabra Solemate Mini($24.99 at Amazon) are both solid portable Bluetooth speaker options with varying levels of solid bass response, but nothing quite like the Pill XL's. And if you really just need an affordable Bluetooth speaker to tote around, the Panasonic SC-NT10($23.99 at Amazon) is a conveniently portable option, but its smaller size means it has very little presence in the bass department. Minor distortion holds the Pill XL back only slightly, and while audio purists will likely hate it, this is a big bass lover's portable delight. Yes, you pay a slight premium for the celebrity branding, but otherwise, the Beats XL is a winner.

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