For the last couple of months, I’ve been living life with the Inateck BH1001 Bluetooth Headphones and they’ve pretty much replaced my other headphones. It should be known that, before these, I hadn’t used a pair of Bluetooth headphones before, so this review will be talking about my experiences but cannot comment on whether they are better or worse than other models.
Design
The headphones are two rather large earpieces, equipped with sound-isolating earbuds, attached by a cord that runs between them. The tips of these earpieces have magnets, allowing the two ends to be fastened together around one’s neck. While initially uncertain about the size of the earpieces, I soon found that I couldn’t actually feel much of a difference between them and other headphones.
The cord that runs between them also contains the controls and microphone. There’s a play/pause button that doubles as the power button (long press), and a pair of buttons that can be used for volume or skipping tracks (short press and long press respectively)
Function/Sound
The sound coming from the headphones is pretty good. It’s still a wireless connection, so audiophiles won’t be happy, but it was better than I had expected and they easily matched the sound quality of the cheap headphones I’d been using.
My only frustration with these headphones is how it handles low battery. While the battery life is pretty good (reported at a minimum of 8 hours), when the battery gets low the headphones interrupt whatever you’re listening to every few seconds to play you warning tones. While I understand the desire to warn the wearer that the battery is dying, the way it’s done effectively shortens the battery life further, making it uncomfortable to continue wearing the headphones after the alarms begin.
The solution to that is easy enough, I just keep them charged so that they don’t often have to warn me of low battery.
The only other warning I have and I suspect that this is an issue with all Bluetooth headphones, is that I sometimes find the range substantially shortened. This is likely due to other frequencies in the area interfering, and it doesn’t happen much, but I do occasionally find that whatever I’m listening to would seem to cut out for short periods of time as the headphones lose and regain connection.
Overall
Overall I like the convenience of not having to deal with cables running into my jackets and tugging at my headphones when the phone dips a little too low in my pocket, but the experience isn’t perfect. Having to charge your headphones is an obvious and unavoidable liability, and there are times when I wish that I had brought normal headphones due to the interference of nearby frequencies. But, on the whole, I like the BH1001 Bluetooth Headphones enough that I regularly choose them rather than any other pair of headphones when I go out.
They’re available at Amazon.com for $27.99, down from the original $59.99
These seem pretty cool! Out of curiosity, do you have any experience with Bragi The Dash headphones? http://headphonecharts.com/bragi-dash.php
I don’t have any experience with them, but I’d love to test them for a review, they look awesome. Thanks for the heads up!