On those long days of playing games that are less than great, sometimes a break is needed to clear one’s mind of all the negative review thoughts that have built up during the reviewing process. There has to be something to loosen your brain goose up a bit. I mean, there’s only so much bad gameplay you can take in a short amount of time before you need to walk away, get out of it, and clear your mind. It’s akin to tasting a bad wine, where you must spit it back in the glass, swish some water, then find something else, or otherwise carry the taste with you everywhere. No one needs that taste.
So, what is that water, you ask? Stay with me here, Digitalchumps readers, as I know we review electronics all the time, but most of what we dive into is somehow related to gaming…until now. A good way to unwind, have some laughs and remember simpler times is to go find yourself a good Karaoke machine to scream into for a little bit. Now, instead of going to find a local bar here in Maryland that features drunk renditions of Welcome to the Jungle or something else that is keeping someone’s 80s/90s solo dream alive, the Sway Minioke LED Go is the best way to take out some frustration without rubbing elbows with the wrong drunk person.
The Sway Minioke LED Go is a simplified and multi-use way to get the most out of a karaoke experience. Featuring a single microphone and an LED-driven speaker that is small in stature but powerful in delivery, it’s the little engine that could be in the karaoke world.
So, pick up that mic, load up that Youtube instrumental with lyrics, and let’s get this going!
Comfortably Numb…with its setup
Five minutes out of the box is all it took to get the Sway Minioke LED Go going and the first song sung. The speaker is about the size of a beer can (roughly six inches) and the controls are simple to navigate. You have a plus/minus symbol for volume, a play button that interacts with YouTube (playing and pausing it), and a circle button that turns it on and makes it Bluetooth searchable. I mean, getting this thing connected and going was such a short experience that I was sure I might have forgotten a step…but I didn’t.
Once the glowy speaker is on and connected, and it will tell you that it’s connected, you just need to whip the mic out, turn the power on, and you’re ready to go. The first song sung on this sucker was Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb and all of it went off without a hitch. Despite the speaker size, the speaker delivers when it comes to sound quality, bass, and even the microphone sounds solid, though it’s not going to be a replacement for a standard studio XLR cardioid anytime in the near future. The directional quality of the mic is tightly knit, so don’t avoid some creativeness with the mic is recommended, but it does the trick when it comes to 2.4G delivery without the hassle of a cable.
Ultimately, this simple machine checks all the boxes when it comes to HCI. The engineers that put this together knew their audience and built it for them. And that’s not a slight towards anyone, rather it’s a truth when saying that people just want to get connected and start singing. The lack of an engineering degree or complicated controls/instructions isn’t necessary for this. It’s intuitive right out of the box and you’re ready to sing. Once you connect it to your Bluetooth device (computer or otherwise), you can load up instrumentals and lyrics from YouTube and get your music going immediately. The only limitation in this process is searching for songs, which, as we all know, are readily available on YouTube. Whether the copyright holder likes it or not.
Longevity and charge
While its six-inch stature might fool you into thinking it takes batteries like a basic karaoke set, the speaker and the mic hide a USB-C connection on each device that allows them to be recharged. This means that you can get constant power running to the speaker and enough life out of the mic to get what you want sung sang. There is a six-hour battery usage for both, and I can confirm that it’s truly that long. I have had the Sway Minioke LED Go for about three weeks now and haven’t had to charge it once. While I’m not throwing parties and watching friends make beautiful fools out of themselves by singing that song they have always wanted to shout at the world, the fact that I can turn it off, turn it on, and leave it alone for a few days, come back to it, and still get a healthy amount of charge is a little bit astonishing. For a speaker this size, you don’t really bet on its longevity or quality. But it achieves both categories beautifully.
Adding a USB-C port also makes the charge quick, which helps keep the music rolling. It was a good charging port design decision when it came to engineering this little marvel. These days you can’t go wrong with USB-C solutions. They are quick chargers.
Not breaking the bank
The total cost for this mini karaoke to go is around $69.99, which is reasonable. While you could download software, snag a microphone, and use pre-existing speakers to do your karaoke, the portability, flexibility, and connectivity of the Sway Minioke LED Go make it an easy sell. I’m planning to take this to Africa with me in the next week for a spare speaker, as this is a perfect secondary usage. Because it is so tiny and easily portable, it won’t take up too much space in my carry-on bag. It’s going to be a useful tool when doing production and watching footage from my editing suite. I’m going to bring the microphone as well for those nights of tomfoolery. Anyway, the asking price and the usefulness of this set match up perfectly.
On that note, let’s wrap this up so that I can go sing more.
Conclusion
The Sway Minioke LED Go is an easy-to-understand karaoke solution for someone who doesn’t want to drop money on a professional rig. While it may not have a two-microphone option for that duet of the Barenaked Ladies’ One Week song, you could get around that with some clever software (VoiceMeter ftw) and a good, wired mic. The option to be creative is there, if you need it, and feel comfortable doing it, but for solo use this is a great buy at $69.99.
