Can you ever really have too many sets of earbuds?  Right, I didn’t think so.  I mean, you need some in your office, car, and all over the house.  What I don’t like about earbuds is that they are always falling out of your ears.  So the $24.99 QCY Wireless Sport Earphones intrigued me because of their over-the-ear design.  But would the sound quality pass muster, and would that cord not get in the way?  Let’s find out.

Before we get into the review, let’s look at the specs from the manufacturer:

Weight:  .5 oz

Speakers:  10mm speakers built-in (other buds mostly use 6mm or 8mm speakers) to deliver the Deep Bass as well as the accurate midrange and treble frequencies for real HD quality.

Battery:  90mAh lithium polymer battery can deliver you a max 8 hours at 50% volume. Standby up to 8 days, while only needing 1.5 to 2 hours to get a full charge.

Controls:  Built-in control buttons on the earbuds.

Warranty:  1-Year Manufacturer’s Warranty and 30 days no-questions-asked return policy.

Bluetooth 4.1

Included in the box:  QCY earphones, a USB power cable, and some extra tips for the earphones

What I liked

These earphones sound great!  In fact, I can’t listen to them on max volume because they are simply too loud.  They paired quickly with both my cell phone and my tablet.  The buttons on the earbuds are great and work really well.  I love not having to fumble to find the in-line controls that a lot of other earbuds have.  And the over-the-ear design is awesome.  These earphones have never fallen off, or even come close to falling off. Finally, the battery life is pretty much what QCY says.  I do use them a little louder than the recommended 50% level though, so I don’t quite get 8 hrs of use.  But I did test it at the 50% level and did get about 8 hrs.

What I didn’t like

They do function as a Bluetooth headset to answer your phone calls, but I wasn’t that impressed.  My wife told me that it sounded like I was in a tunnel, so the sound quality isn’t that great for phone calls.  But really, that is pretty much what I have experienced with other earbuds that are promoted as being able to answer calls.  Answering calls is really secondary to what they are made to do, which is listen to music. So I am not that worried about this feature.

I am disappointed that there wasn’t something in the package to help with storing the earphones.  The over-the-ear design is great for wearing, but they are a nightmare when you have to store these or transport them somewhere.  The cable gets tangled up in the earphones and I have yet to find a way to not spend 2 minutes untangling the cord.

I usually use the earphones with my cell phone when I am walking the dog.  And I have found that I need to hold my cellphone in my right hand when walking or I get skipping in my music.  I can’t put the phone in my left pocket or it just skips too much.  I imagine that if I had one of those straps on my arm to hold my phone it would be fine, but I don’t.  So that is kind of annoying.

Bottom line

I love these for the sound and ease of controlling the music with the buttons on the earbuds, and they are so light you already don’t know they are there.  And for the price of $24.99, it is hard to complain.  But I don’t like the struggle of keeping them untangled and the skipping when my phone is on the left side of my body.  So I only use them in certain situations when I don’t have to deal with the possibility of skipping, like sitting in my office or at home at my desk.  I can recommend these, as long as you can deal with the downsides.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by QCY. Please visit Amazon to order.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Bluetooth earbuds

QCY Wireless Sport Earphones review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 27, 2017 at 9:00 am.

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With all the wireless headphones and earphones coming out, it really is becoming a wireless world—finally. However, what really excites me about the near future is the advent of what are known as True Wireless Earphones. You may be asking, “Aren’t all wireless earphones wireless?” Well, yes—and no. While wireless earphones are (usually) Bluetooth and not connected to your smartphone, they are connected to each other by—you guessed it—wires. Which brings us to the “True” kind of earphone. These little wonders are truly wireless. They are two separate earphones—one for each ear. As this market matures, the earphones are getting better, can do more and are becoming affordable. Case in point: the E’NOD Mini Ring wireless earphones.

The E’NOD Mini Ring (the name makes no sense) are petite earphones that fit easily into my ears. They’re a bit thick and protrude outside the ear, but not too much. Since they have a plastic shell, they’re light which helps keep them comfortable. There’s no included ear-lock, but they still stay in place for walking or exercising. Plus they are sweat proof and IPX4 water resistant due to a protective nano-coating. Keep in mind that they are not waterproof, so treat them with care.

The Mini Ring earphones are not what I would call a name-brand product—they look suspiciously just like the SmartOmi ACE Bluetooth Wireless Earbuds reviewed recently by our own Andy Jacobs. But the build quality is impressive. Everything fits and seams are smooth. They look and feel more expensive then their cost. There are three included silicone ear tips; small, medium and large. I would rename them tiny, small and medium. Maybe I have big ear holes, but the large-sized ear tip was not big enough to give me a good seal. And as I’ve said before, “No seal = no bass”—more on that later.

Pairing with my iPhone was easy as soon as I removed them from the box, but I had issues pairing with my iPad for this review. The earphones kept wanting to re-pair with the iPhone. The manual was no help at all (the manual had tiny text—I literally needed a magnifying glass to read it). I had to do some research online to find an answer. Once paired however, the pairing with my iPad remained in place. However, later when I tried to re-pair back to the iPhone, I continually had to disconnect and reconnect before the earphones would work properly. Often, only one earphone would pair and not the other. I ended up having to shut them off and retry which finally worked on the third try. It became very frustrating, but once re-paired they worked great. This won’t be an issue if you want to first connect to your smartphone and leave it that way. The Mini Ring earphones use Bluetooth 4.2, so they will work well with the latest devices.

Speaking of connecting, when you remove the Mini Rings from the case and put them in your ears, you will first hear prompts that the pair has connected to each other last/right channel (this happens before any Bluetooth pairing). When Bluetooth does pair, there are voice prompts for that, too. These prompts are quite helpful since there is nothing to see when they’re in your ear. There’s also a voice prompt when they’ve reached low battery power.

Each earphone has only one button. Pressing the button (left or right—it doesn’t matter which one) will pause music; twice to skip forward and three times to replay the previous song. Holding the left button for one second will pause music and set up for a phone call. If you receive a call, music will pause automatically until the call is terminated; then music will resume. A long press on either button will power the earphones off. It’s recommended to leave them in the charging case when not in use. The case will recharge the earphones 3 times before the case itself needs charging.

The Mini Ring earphones will play music for 2-3 hours between charging. That’s not a long time, but if they lasted longer, they would need to be larger and heavier or much more expensive, so compromises must be made. This situation should improve in the years ahead as battery technology progresses.

Call quality was iffy. I could easily hear the person I was talking with, but they said that I sounded distant, as if on a speaker phone. I had to talk a bit louder to be clearly heard, which I should not have had to do.

Musically, the Mini Ring earphones sound accurate, but as I said before, bass is weak at best due to the smaller ear tips. When I physically pressed the earphones deeper into my ears, the bass picked up immediately and sounded good (if a bit muffled)—until I let go. Actually, this is a good test that the problem is in the seals and not the earphone itself.

I sampled many songs and albums across a few decades of music to get a good sampling. Because of the bass issue, I discovered what works best are older songs such as classic rock, standards or even talk radio or sports. If you’re into hip-hop or bass heavy music, look elsewhere.

The E’NOD Mini Ring earphones belong in a category that hasn’t quite matured as much as I would like. They are well made, fun to use and sound good. If you plan on pairing them only once, aren’t a bass-head and will only use them to make an occasional phone call, then these earphones won’t let you down. But the pairing issues and lackluster call quality prevent me from giving them a full recommendation.

Source: The sample for this review were provided by E’NOD. The Mini Ring sells for $79.99 US. Please visit enodaudio.com for more info and Amazon to order

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Bluetooth earbuds

E’NOD Mini Ring wireless earphone review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 24, 2017 at 11:00 am.

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