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Mini-Review


VicTsing Latest Black Mini Wireless Stereo Bluetooth 4.0 In-ear Earphone

51gy CPUUvL. SL1000 smSourced from Amazon (UK) - Direct Link

Price: £10.00 (as purchased)

This is a curious little device. I wanted to be able to discretely watch video or listen to audio books in a busy and crowded environment like The Tube (London Underground) and this device has been a big success for this purpose. It lets me watch video and hear what’s going on even in a noisy environment and doesn’t seem to bother other people.

 Pros:

  • It stays in the ear much more effectively than I expected and is fairly discreet – doesn’t stick out much
  • Battery life seems rather good and charge time doesn’t seem to be too bad
  • Has a nice standard micro-USB connector for charging and it turns off when charging automatically
  • Pairing was nice and quick and seems to work well
  • Has a weird 2nd earpiece that connects to the USB port so you can hear mono in both ears; the 2nd earpiece isn’t sealing (just a conventional ear bud without any foam padding) so I think it’s of fairly limited use
  • It’s a more conventional rubber-done seal arrangement for audio rather than some of these dodgier pieces that have weird shapes and seem to be designed to let sound in from the outside more
  • Seal (sound seal) and isolation isn’t too bad; it’s not a double-flange silicon piece that you find on an Atrio M5 but it does its job rather well. You can focus on the sound coming out of that ear in a noisy environment but still be “environmentally aware” as such
  • Volume was sufficient to work well and compete with noisy environments. Basic volume control available on the headset itself (cycling through four audio level positions) and can be operated by feel
  • Sound leakage (that heard outside the ear by other people) doesn’t seem to be noticeable – certainly less than non-sealing earpieces
  • Seems to be able to pair with more than one device (though I haven’t tried this myself)
  • Also has an additional ear hook which you can optionally use (though I’ve not needed it)
  • Doesn’t seem too obtrusive or obvious – if you’re using it in the way I am people don’t pay any attention to it and you don’t look like a “bluetool” with a whopping great headset sticking out of your ear
  • I found that leaving it on (in standby) in my pocket didn’t drain the battery too much; it seemed to be happy to play after being in this state for many hours, its standby power consumption seems to be low (this is a Bluetooth 4.0 device)
  • Very convenient to pull out and put in your ear and then put back in your pocket quickly

 

Cons:

  • its microphone is boomy and generally dreadful - not very useful for its stated purpose as a Bluetooth headset in that regard
  • the status light is very dim and hard to see – it’s hard to tell if it’s charging unless the room is very dark; this can be a bonus though as you don’t have this bright blue light sticking out of your ear
  • without the hook I wouldn’t recommend wearing it where you have a lot of head motion
  • only came with one silicon earpiece so if it doesn’t fit you well you’ll have to look elsewhere; I was surprised to find that it fitted and worked fairly well even though I’ve been using the larger sized pieces for IEM headphones
  • the provided hook (which is optional to use) seems to pull the earpiece out of the ear somewhat – while it would stop the unit from falling out of your ear completely it does decrease the convenience of use
  • instructional material wasn’t great – it has two buttons and the instructions/operation were a bit confusing and odd however there’s not many options for it so that’s of minimal impact
  • I wouldn’t use this thing as an earpiece for making calls – it does work and they can hear you but other solutions are far superior, even in quiet environments. Its microphone and placement just aren’t very good – this wasn’t a problem for me however as I wanted it purely for audio playback.
  • The audio quality (given the design, environment, being mono, etc.) really ends itself best to voice, audiobooks, etc –I wouldn’t listen to music with this but it works perfectly well for watching youtube videos, TED talks, shows, etc. Anything with a fairly consistent soundtrack where you’re more interested in content than pure audio quality.

 

Overall Impressions

51gSQvQEjUL. SL1000 smHandling is fantastic – once you have it paired you can very easily pocket the device; it’s not delicate and I found audio-seal quickly when putting it in my ear (this is the act of settling it into your ear canal to maximise sound isolation, users of IEMs and in-ear buds that use silicon grommet earpieces will understand this). Imagine the old style earphone that you used to see on mono radios that people would listen to the cricket with; however without the chords, plugs, etc.

Using it as an audio device for watching shows, speeches, listening to audiobooks, etc. has been a big success. I’ve used it sitting and standing up on the Tube – I can focus on holding onto my tablet for dear life even on the roughest lines on the Tube, I never felt like I had to worry about the ear piece falling out. Even if I did lose it – it’s very cheap to replace so it’s not something you have to worry about too much.

 

Rating

8/10

I'd give this an easy 8/10; but only for the type of use that I'm putting it to. For the sheer convenience, robustness and ease of use it's hard to beat; the microphone pickup quality limits its use but for me that's not an issue.