The laptop speaker market is a strange one as, despite the products being supposedly intended for enhancing the tinny squeaks you get out of most laptops, the main reason anyone would buy a them is for things like phones or iPods.

As such, there's a few critical functions they need to be able to perform:
a) They must be better than the inbuilt speakers they are replacing
b) They must either be self-powered or able to be powered by the device they are attached to.
c) They must strike a balance between output and power usage.

Bearing this in mind we took a look at the new Kratos Neso 04 from Bitmore.co.uk and were both surprised and disappointed by what we found.

First and foremost, as you can see from the pictures above, the Neso are a relatively swish looking set of speakers and they're also pretty well built. Having said that, as with any speakers there's always a worry about poking a finger or a pen through the speaker membrane, and although it's usually a pretty small one, it gets a lot bigger when they're constantly being hoofed about. Like these will. Hoofed.

In terms of power, the Neso 04s have a 5W rating, which isn't exactly going to blow the doors off, but it's certainly suitable for outside listening. A lovely picnic with close friends or a lover perhaps. Very little in the way of bass (unsurprisingly) but the general sound quality is crisp and clear, without any of the characteristic tinniness.

So now to the problem. If you're using the Neso 04s for a laptop they're absolutely perfect. Cheap, clear and about as powerful as you'll need. On the other hand, if you're looking to use them for iPods, iPhones or even non i-devices then you might have a bit of a problem as they're USB powered. Yeah, we kept that quiet, didn't we? What this means is that they can pretty much be used anywhere inside. Which is great. But only on laptops outside. Which is less great.

Ok, so admittedly the Kratos Neso 04s have never claimed to be anything but a desktop speaker, and for the price (£14.65 on bitmore.co.uk) you really can't go wrong as long as that's what you use them for. On the other hand, if you are looking for a set of mobile speakers, while the Kratos are still good, the inconvenience of having to find somewhere to power them from is a bit of a deal breaker.