Creative’s BT-W4 is a USB-C dongle that supports aptX Adaptive, which offers low latency transmissions, high bandwidth ceiling (24-bit/48kHz) and variable bitrate for connection stability.
Wireless Bluetooth transmission offers convenience but there are some tradeoffs involved. One of which is the unavoidable lag when watching videos. While it varies from tolerable to downright comedic depending on a variety of factors – often many beyond your control – it is a bugbear if you are particular about your viewing experience.
This is where the BT-W4 comes in: the dongle was designed to be used on desktops, laptops, Playstation consoles (PS4 and PS5) and the Nintendo Switch.
Granted, the one major caveat is that you need aptX Adaptive support on your peripherals to take advantage of the BT-W4’s best feature, but the dongle does support regular aptX and SBC codecs. The BT-W4 also features a handy LED indicator to denote which codec it’s using. It prioritises aptX Adaptive but will switch to aptX or SBC if conditions are not optimal for transmission.
The BT-W4’s other major feature is a physical button that lets you cycle between devices. It may seem rather rudimentary but anyone who’s spent a lot of time managing Bluetooth devices will know that it takes away one of the pain points of having multiple gadgets connected to one source – sometimes having to disconnect and reconnect to get them to work.
The BT-W4 supports up to four devices and it also comes with an analogue plug-in microphone that supports Hands-Free Profile (HFP) that you can activate by double-pressing the button on the dongle. The microphone works best on laptops and Playstation consoles (PS4 and PS5). Creative did not mention if the Xbox supports the microphone, though they did say that you can use it on the Nintendo Switch for games that support in-game chats like Fortnite and Overwatch.
The BT-W4 is priced at $69 and is available at the Creative online store .
