Testing and Usage

 

The Cera arrived to me charged somewhat but as with anything I get for review I charged it with the included USB cable. For me it only took about an hour to charge, but it should normally take 2-3 hours and for that you’ll get between five and seven hours of play time. The battery life you’ll get depends on volume level you’re playing it at, the higher the volume the more battery power it needs. I think 2-3 hours of charging is pretty good for 5-7 hours of usage.

 

Here’s a picture of the Cera without flash so you can see the blue lighting a bit better, yes it’s fairly bright and it looks really nice I think.

 

For Bluetooth testing I used the Cera with my PS Vita and my HTC One cellphone, and I also used it with my ZuneHD with the 3.5mm audio cable.

 

 

The Cera uses Bluetooth 3.0 but of course it’s backwards compatible so you can use it with most any BT device I would think.

 

Usage:

The Cera talks, it says three things to let you know what’s going on, ‘Power On’ when you turn it on, ‘Pairing’ when it’s pairing obviously and ‘Pairing Completed’ when it’s paired to your device.

I had no problems pairing with either device and I didn’t have to use a pin code but some device might and it’s just 0000 if needed.

Bluetooth 3.0 has a range of about 33 feet and I found I could walk all around my house with my phone or the speaker and still have clear sound. I could walk into the other room on the other side of the wall and still have a signal and sound. Range and signal will all depend on your home or office and what’s in the walls that might interfere with the signal.

 

Controls:

The Cera has a touch enabled controls and they do work just fine, the panel is sensitive enough that it will easily control the functions of the Cera.

The controls worked fine with my HTC One Android phone, I could skip forward and back and control the volume with no issues.

The only complaint I have is the lack of a control for play and pause like you’d find on most Bluetooth speakers. Not sure what they were thinking by omitting such a basic media control.

 

Audio:

The Cera has what Tego Audio calls a 360 degree expanding sound chamber so the sound is not directional as it just comes out all around essentially so you can have the Cera placed anywhere and the sound is the same.

The Cera does only have one speaker inside but it sounds exceptional with just that one speaker thanks to the sound chamber, it does provide very full and clear sound.

I love the PS Vita but it’s not exactly loud enough for me, at least most games aren’t, and often I use an external speaker with it if I’m at home and the Cera worked perfectly with the Vita providing and extra boost to the sound. I don’t have music or movies on my Vita, it’s just for purely gaming for me and the Cera is a great pairing with the Vita I think as it will improve the sound.

I listened to various types of music on my Zune and HTC One with the Cera and everything was very clear and just sounded great.

The Cera does have bass, but not a lot, it’s not overly full of bass which is fine by me, it’s just right I think. You can hear the bass and feel it too if you touch the Cera while it’s playing. I found that there’s little to no distortion at high volume levels, there was very slight distortion with very bass heavy music at maximum volume but that’s sort of to be expected with a such a small speaker.

Overall the sound quality is excellent, it’s very clear and full sounding, much better sound than I would have expected to come from a single speaker.

On the Tego Audio site the Cera is called the Cera Wireless Portable Speaker and yes it’s small, but not exactly what I would call portable. Portable to me is something you could just put in your pocket really, and the Cera is about the size of a baseball which might not fit in most people’s pockets. Sure you could toss it in your bag and it would be fine, the included carrying bag will protect it from most damage surely.