The new Atlantic Technology Nexa 1 is a Bluetooth speaker with a useful difference: it has a microSD card slot to expand your audio options and enable you to listen to music without having to stream it to the speaker. Although, naturally, you can stream to it too.

As you can see above, it's a good-looking thing, and it's sitting by a pool because it has the confidence that comes from IPX5 water resistance. We wouldn't recommend chucking it in for a swim, but it's more than capable of resisting splashes and the odd bit of rain.

Atlantic Technology Nexa 1 Bluetooth speaker: key features and pricing

The Nexa 1 has twin 2.5-inch aluminum full range drivers and a rear passive oval radiator for bass. The amplifier can put out 60W of power, which is a lot for a mid-size speaker – the JBL Charge 5 is 40W, and that's no slouch. In addition to the microSD port, there's also a 3.5mm aux connector and the obligatory USB-C charging port. If you have a second Nexa, you can use that USB-C port to charge one speaker from the other.

The Bluetooth version here is 5.3, and battery life is a claimed 15 hours between charging. There's support for one-touch stereo pairing with a second speaker, and there's a built-in mic for hands-free calling. Frequency response is 20Hz to 20kHz.

The Nexa 1 has an RRP of $199 but there's currently an introductory offer that brings the price down to $149 on the Atlantic Technology website, although right now there appears to be a glitch that means the product page disappears after a few seconds. Hopefully that'll get fixed quickly. 

The discounted rate is significant because the market for the best Bluetooth speakers is incredibly crowded and incredibly competitive: when you're buying in the  $150 to $250 price bracket you're also looking at some of the heaviest hitters including our current favorite, the Sonos Roam 2. At the time of writing, that's currently also on promotion, taking it down from the usual $179 to $143.

You might also like

• JBL Go 4 review: a fun-size budget Bluetooth speaker, just don’t expect big things
• Marshall’s new portable speakers drop the bass with louder output and smarter features
• JBL Clip 5 review: an affordable portable speaker with fantastic sound