Marshall’s first smartphone is a beauty designed with music lovers in mind
London is a midrange device with high-end looks. Photo: Marshall
Marshall, the British company famous for its amplifiers and headphones, today announced its first smartphone. It’s called London, it’s powered by Android, and it sports a beautiful design that boasts a bunch of unique features — including two headphone jacks for enjoying music with friends.
The London is very much a midrange smartphone with an attractive form factor that’s designed with music lovers in mind. Let’s get its internals out of the way before we move onto the good stuff.
Beneath its 4.7-inch 720p display, the London packs a quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. It also has an 8-megapixel camera on its back, a 2-megapixel camera on its front, 4G LTE connectivity, and a 2,500mAh removable battery.
No, those aren’t exactly exciting specifications in 2015, but before you go running in the other direction, you should know there’s lots more to the London that might interest you — especially if you’re into music.
The London has two front-facing speakers for great sound, and two headphone jacks, so you can enjoy music with friends while you both get stereo sound — and individual volume controls. There’s also a dedicated “M-button,” which gives you instant access to your music.
The scroll wheel on the side of the London, which is somewhat reminiscent of the wheel on early Sony cellphones, gives you tactile control over music volume — while the embedded Wolfson WM8281 sound card ensures that it always sounds great.
There’s also dual microphones for stereo recording, and Bluetooth aptX, which promises to deliver high-quality audio to wireless speakers in real-time.
The London comes bundled with a set of Marshal Mode in-ear headphones worth $70, and a number of pre-installed apps, including Loopstack, a 4-channel recorder, and a DJ app. It’s powered by Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.
Aside from its somewhat disappointing specifications, the only downside to the London is that when it makes its debut in mid-August, it will initially be available only in London, Scandinavia, and the Baltic States.
