Ikarao Karaoke Machine for Adults, Built-in 13.3-inch Screen, Portable Bluetooth Speaker with 2 Wireless Mics for TV, Music Party

Guests arrived and the machine was already going in the corner. Easy to start, nobody needed instructions.

Our apartment building has a roof deck with no power, which has made every previous party a phone-speaker situation. This solved it completely. We carried it up seven flights using the strap — it is manageable but I will not pretend it is light — and ran it for an evening on battery with the screen on, which is the setting that uses the most power. It lasted about five hours, close to what they claim. The sound carried across the deck without needing to be at maximum, and the mics stayed connected even when someone walked to the far railing. The light modes are a gimmick I did not expect to enjoy and did. Only real limitation: no real app store, so you are using what is installed plus the browser. We have only ever needed YouTube.

Just the two of us, a bottle of wine and this thing. The on-screen lyrics meant neither of us fumbled the words.

Portable enough to bring to a friend's, battery made it through the night. Bought it for the holidays and the whole family jumped in. The mics feel decent, not flimsy like some I've tried. Vocals come through clean even when the kids are yelling the lyrics. Five stars, zero regrets.

I drive regional routes and this lives in my truck. I am not using it for parties — I use it at truck stops in the evening, in the cab, singing along to whatever. It is a way to spend an evening that is not a screen. The battery is the whole reason this works for me: I charge it while driving and it is ready when I stop. The mics charge in the unit, so there is nothing to lose in a truck cab, which anyone who has tried to keep track of small items in a vehicle will understand. Two years in, it has been through winter cold and summer heat in a parked truck and still works fine. The strap has a permanent place on it from being hung up. This is the most used thing I own that is not my phone.

I approach purchases like this by checking whether the specs hold up in use, so here is that version. Claimed six hours with screen on: I get close to five at moderate volume, which I consider honest. Claimed wireless range: I walked a full two rooms away and around a corner before anything wavered, well past what I need. Claimed microphone battery: I have genuinely never charged them separately in seven months because they live in the unit. Claimed power: yes, it fills a large open room, and the bass boost is an audible difference rather than a gimmick. Where it falls short of a real PA: it will not cover a genuinely large outdoor crowd, and the screen's interface is a tablet, not a dedicated karaoke OS, so it occasionally lags. For a home machine, those are acceptable trades.

We used it for a school gym fundraiser - concrete walls, terrible echo. It was audible across the court, though I would keep the vocals drier in a room like that. Two mics let us run a teachers-versus-students round that got the biggest reaction of the night.

Our soundbar died and instead of buying another one I got this. Movies actually sound better than they did before, and the bass boost does more than the soundbar's night mode ever did. Then we discovered the karaoke side of it, which was not the plan.

Two teenagers, one machine, no complaints about being bored. They have taken it to three friends' houses and brought it back with the mics still in the slots. Surviving being hauled around by teenagers is the highest praise I can give.

I love this machine and cannot wait to start my private hobby!