Episode 001 - Aukey EB-40 Bluetooth wireless earbuds review
I have never heard of Aukey before purchasing these. I was looking for a cheap and cheerful pair of Bluetooth earphones to use at night while charging my phone, as I have a Pixel 2XL with no 3.5mm jack. Here lies the big flaw in taking it away-you can either charge your phone, or use the USB-C to 3.5mm adapter and use your headphones but not both. I also wanted a pair to go the gym with, and not to get tangled in a web of headphone cables.
I went straight to Amazon as you do, and searched for “Bluetooth earphones”. Then being rather frugal, I clicked the sort by filter “Price – Low to High” and I had set myself a budget of around £20.
There were a few brands I recognized; Sony , Anker* , JBL and such. I then came across Aukey’s offering, it appeared to be in the price bracket I was looking at. I read some of the reviews from the other brands and they were very mixed although 3.5-4.5 stars. At the time Aukey had a solid 4 star, and mostly positive reviews so gave them a punt.
*Ended up getting a pair of Anker ones for my wife so I there will be a comparison post to come.
A few days later they arrived ( I don’t pay for prime ). It came in this minimalistic cardboard packaging, which was different to the plastic tube or plastic shrink wrap type packing you would normally get for something like this.
Contents:
- The Box
- A Manual
- The Earphones
- Large and small buds and pointy ear grip type things.
- A small mico-usb cable
- A small squeeze to open material pouch to put it all in ( which is a nice touch )
On to the review part. I feel there needs to be a few categories and some sort of scoring system so will do out of 10 as that seems sensible enough.
The categories are;
- Sound
- Comfort
- Battery life
- Wear-ability
- Wobble test
Let’s start,
Sound
Sound comes in some sub categories, volume, EQ ( bass, miss and highs ) and cancellation.
Volume- it’s loud enough, but depending on what you are listening to gets easily distorted at max volume. I found a nice sweet spot around 75-80% but if you get a really nice seal on these headphones 60% is a comfortable level.
EQ , with the Aukey EB-40 there are three presets which can be toggled between with a double tap of the multi-function button (the middle one), these are Balanced, Treble and Bass. I always left it on Bass as the treble is tinny and the balanced seems lifeless.
Cancellation, or noise cancellation, blocking out external sounds. There is no activity or passive cancellation but get these in your ear and get a tight fit it blocks out a good chunk of background noise, add music to the mix and even at lower volumes and I still have to be nudged or tapped on the shoulder to get my attention.
To sum up the sound category, decent quality sound as long as you can get the right fit and don’t put it on full volume- a solid 7/10. Can’t really expect studio grade at this price but a good sound experience here.
Comfort
These are remarkably comfortable, I have worn them for almost an entire work day without any discomfort. The medium size buds fit my ear just fine along with the medium ear grips, so straight out the box it’s a win. 9/10.
Battery life
As stated before I have managed nearly an entire work day , but with some juice left over for a bit of YouTube in bed while charging my phone up. This was a mix of playing music, idle time and some phone calls. So as stated by Aukey, 8hrs, that’s a tick ☑️ 9/10.
Wear-ability
This one comes down to how well they wear, functionally and looks. They stay in your ear and when not in your ear they come down and stick together with the magnets in the back of the ear pieces. So 9/10 so far, but they fall down when it comes to the gym (they do for me at least as I get rather sweaty my workouts) and find that with that they easily slip out so end up having to do make sure I towel down my head and ears more often then I used to. Not sure I can knock to much off for this but there has to be a way to stop it slipping during a sweaty endeavour. So 7/10.
Wobble test
This one I have done with every pair of headphones , in ear or cups. It involves putting ear pieces in or headphones on, and give your head a good wobble.
Then a good headbang, followed by a bit of jump up and down. I feel this is a good simulator for running, now I could put my headphones on and go for a run. But sometimes this can’t be done when trying them on in say a shop, but this you can do, although you may get some awkward looks. But this gets a middle of the road 5/10 they stay in your ear but come loose with a wobble and completely come out with a headbang.
To sum up, we have a grand total of 37/50. So for a £20 something pair of headphones, a really good but in eyes.
If you’re thinking of picking up a pair here’s Amazon link for a pair of Aukey EB-40. Or if you have a pair,let me know what you think.