Review EC Technology Bluetooth Sports Earphones
Earlier this year I reviewed the cheap QCY Qy7 wireless Bleutooth headphones and concluded that they offer amazing value for a very low price. However, two weeks ago I started using another pair of cheap bluetooth headphones from a company called EC-Technology.
In this post I'll give you my review of EC Technology's wireless bluetooth headphones and compare them to Apple's EarPods and the QCY headphones. Let's go!
In the box
In the box we find the headphones, a tiny micro USB cable for charging, a super important instruction book (which I can't turn on?) and a set of ear fittings in different sizes. No real surprises here.
Design
The headphones have a flashy, black and green design that I really like. They're rather big and sometimes remind me of professional in-ear monitors. Compared to the Qy7 heapdhones they're equally as big but a bit lighter, making them more comfortable to wear.
After using them (almost) every day for the last two weeks I can say that they're very comfortable to wear. The included ear pieces are small enough to fit my ears and I can listen to them for hours at a time without having pain in my ears. Something I can't do with the Qy7 as they start to hurt my ears after few hours.
Pairing
Pairing the headphones is pretty easy. Put them into pairing mode by holding down the power button until the LED starts flashing red and blue. Afterwards, go to your phone, tablet or PC and connect to the headphones. Done! No need for a PIN code or whatever. Easy!
I've tested the headphones on OS X El Capitan and iOS 9. The pairing is painless and takes very little time. The headphones remember multiple devices. In my case I've used them with my Mac and with my iPhone. The headphones connect insanely quickly to devices it was previously paired to making it very fast to start listening to music!
Sound quality
I'm not a true audiophile but I do want my music to sound good. I have bought a lot of cheap headphones over the years and they usually have terrible sound quality. Before using these earphones I used Apple's EarPods (still one of my favorites) and the Qy7 wireless headpones. Both of these sound great!
So how do these headphones compare to the QY7 wireless headphones? Very well! The bass is, just like with the Qy7, very loud and really impressive. When reviewing the Qy7 I said that the highs are sometimes difficult to hear. The EC-Technology headphones don't have this issue. Highs are clearly noticable. Overall the headphones are more balanced compared to the Qy7 headphones and almost match the superiority of Apple's EarPods!
Since these headphones are in-ear they isolate external noise very well. This is something I really love and something the EarPods don't offer. When I'm on the train I can hardly hear any noise around me and that's awesome!
The headphones also support the aptX audio codec. This codec is supposed to be more efficient at compressing audio while keeping a high level of quality. To get these benefits you need a pair of headphones and a phone or computer that support it. Luckily OS X ships with built-in aptX support but iOS doesn't. I've listened to the same music on both devices and I can honestly not tell which one sounds better.
Buttons & calling
The button layout of the headphones are pretty straightforward: you have two buttons to go to the next or previous song and a power button that also functions as a play/pause button. I haven't used the controls a lot but they come in handy when I occasionally want to skip a song.
You can also use the headphones to make phone calls. I haven't used this feature a lot since I rarely make phone calls. For this review I called a few people to check the audio quality. On my end everything is fine: voices come through very clearly. On the other end of the line quality was fine, but too quiet. The headphones come with built-in noise cancellation and maybe it's a little too aggresive. The people I called noted that they didn't hear any surrounding noises (which is great) but also said that my voice wasn't very loud.
Is that a big deal? No. You buy bluetooth headphones to listen to music, not to make phone calls. The fact that it has a microphone is nice but won't be used often I believe.
Battery life
Yes, being wireless means having to charge them. The question is how long can these headphones perform with a single charge? EC-Technology claims a battery life of 6 hours while playing music and 175 hours of standby time. Being a $20 product I didn't expect these claims to actually be correct.
The claim of 6 hours music playback holds up. For the last two weeks I've been using these headphones at the office. To test the battery life I connected them to my Mac and played music the entire day to see how long they would last. I was very happy with the result! In my tests the battery lasted more than 6 hours! Every workday I use them 1 hour on the train and almost 6 hours while working at the office.
When the battery is almost empty the headphones beep a few times to indicate a low battery. Sadly this indications comes way to late! When you receive the low battery warning, you've got about 5 to 10 minutes left. That's not much! I would prefer it if the heapdhones would warn me a bit beforehand!
The other remark is about checking your battery levels. You can't really check the current status of your battery, unless you paired it to an iOS device. This is the same for all other bluetooth headphones: only iOS devices can see the battery levels. So Apple, it would be great if you could bring that feature to OS X as well. Thx!
Summary & conclusion
To summerize, the EC-Technology Bluetooth Sports Headphones offer amazing value for a very low price. They're bigger and heavier than regular headphones but they sound good and fit nicely in your ear. Sound quality is incredibly good and can be compared with Apple's EarPods. The battery is large enough to get you through the day and if you've run out of juice, they recharge quickly.
If you're looking for cheap, wireless bluetooth headphones: look no further! They offer tremendous value for a very low price. I'm really happy with them and I'll be using them instead of the Qy7 headphones I bought earlier this year.
