Unless you’re speaking to an American panel beater or drag racer, mentioning the word ‘Fender’ in conversation instantly brings to mind rockstars on stage, standing in front of stacks of speakers and amplifiers, causing as much mayhem as they’re legally permitted to (and sometimes, ever so slightly more). See Fender is synonymous with music. Normally of the played-live variety. But not exclusively. It turns out Fender wants to play in the burgeoning and lucrative Bluetooth-speaker market, too.
Which is where the Fender Newport comes in. Nope, it’s not a new addition to the Stratocaster or Telecaster families of guitars. Instead, the Fender Newport is a small, portable Bluetooth speaker with an internal battery, retro Fender amp stylings — complete with witch-hat knobs for adjusting treble, bass and volume — and the raddest start-up noise we’ve ever heard from a device like this. Flip the very-pleasing-to-the-touch power switch and instead of being greeted by a robotic voice, you get a short guitar lick. It’s awesome.
Even more awesome is the fact that we’ve got one to give away! The Fender Newport is valued at R3,999 and yes, we’re definitely giving away the red one. No, you can’t have it in any other colour. The red one’s the best one. Great, glad we settled that.
The Fender Newport portable Bluetooth speaker has a sweet-looking metal grille that hides two full-range drivers plus a tweeter that generate 30 watts of great-sounding audio playback power. It offers a minimum 10 metres of wireless freedom and even features a built-in mic with echo cancellation for making and receiving phone calls. The Newport has guitar amp-style volume, bass and treble controls and an internal lithium-ion rechargeable battery that can run for up to 12 hours. There’s even an integrated USB port for charging smartphones or tablets, as well as a 3.5mm auxiliary input for wired operation.
Go and check out Fender South Africa for more info on where you can buy Fender gear in South Africa and to sign up for product updates and other exclusive info. Welcome to the Fender Family.
Now, there’s something that we need from you before you’re allowed to enter. Stuff Magazine is creating a speaker-and-headphones-test playlist, one that we can use in the office to test speakers (obvs) and headphones (also pretty obvs), annoy the neighbours and, in the not-too-distant future, even share with our readers. And we’d like you to help us create that list — rather than just use the same collection of classic rock, indie rock, death metal, Queen numbers and that one drum ‘n bass song we usually use. So that’s the entry condition: You’re going to have to nominate one artist and one track from that artist in order to qualify for this giveaway. Got it? Good. Right, we’re almost done…
Click through to the Terms and Conditions for the bits where we lay out all our strange requirements (our competition rider, if you like) and then you’re set to pop on down to the entry form and get your entry in. Or, you know, don’t, but entering means that you agree to be bound by the Ts&Cs, unless you work for Stuff Magazine. Sorry, office team (and immediate family) — No Fender goodness for you.
If you’re not part of the relatively small list of South Africans not allowed to enter, you can dance those fret-calloused fingers over to our entry form and get your digits to work winning you that Fender Newport Bluetooth speaker. The winner will be announced on 3 August 2018. Good luck — we’re looking forward to your tunes suggestions.
