£5 Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Dynamic Headphones, are they any good?
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Spearheaded by Apple from the iPhone 7 onwards, flagship smartphone manufacturers are following the current trend of removing the headphone jack port from their mid to high-end smartphone models. To us, we feel that this is a crying shame as we do prefer the option of being able to just plug in any available pair of headphones and listening to our favourite music, YouTube video or Podcast but we suppose that’s technological progress for you. So accessing your favourite music conveniently from your smartphone, other then the supplied USB C or Lightening dongle which tends to get lost, then a pair of Bluetooth headphones are your only real option.
So we thought with that in mind that we would set ourselves a challenge and find the most cost-effective wireless Bluetooth headphones available on eBay or Amazon. It didn’t take long to find the ones we are reviewing here as they were featured on the eBay deals part of the app for the unbelievable sum of only £5.00 UK Sterling. These were on offer at the time of purchase for this price as they are normally £15 on Amazon so we couldn’t help ourselves and grabbed two at the time, one for the main reviewer Tony and another for one of his sons to try out and use.
They arrived in next to no time and the packaging was of a fair quality and design, which featured the headphones and benefits on the packaging, and wasn’t the expected plain brown box. Opening the packaging you are greeted with the headphones, we picked white but we believe that they do come in other colours, a red cable which had a jack on each end and operating instructions.
On picking the headphones out of the box you will notice that for the price we paid they are fairly well made and we would say quite robust in fairness. The main body of the Bluetooth wireless headphones are constructed out of plastic and you do have some chrome effect parts that surround the earpiece of the headphones, so not too bad to look at, and the actual cushioning of the earpieces use a vinyl type fabric to cover the foam cushioning. The headphones are easily adjustable to fit most head sizes and types and underneath the top arch of the headphones, you do have a rubberised cushioning element to it which allows the headphones to stay in place on the head and add that extra level of comfort to the wearing experience. Also, the body of the headphones can fold down to make them easier to transport within a bag, so there is a flexible element to them.
The headphones feature the usual determining L and R symbols to them so you know which way to place the headphones on your head and on the left-hand side, where the earpiece is, you have an area which controls some of the features of the headphones and has the micro-USB charging port, 3.5mm jack and believe it or not a slot for a micro SD card, if you have your own library of MP3 songs that you want to listen to without it being connected to a device via Bluetooth or conventional wired means.
The controls to the headphones are fairly well labelled which shows an on and off symbol, which you have to keep pressed down for a couple of seconds to turn them on and off. You also have a button area to the top of the earpiece where you can press to choose FM radio or MP3 and on the left and right-hand side of the button area you have a volume up and down plus a scan left and right, for the radio, or use it to move a track forward and backward for the built-in MP3 player.
Using the STN-16 Bluetooth Wireless Headphones wirelessly they were easy to start up, via a long press on the power button, and connecting to a Bluetooth enabled smartphone was a very simple affair that didn’t need any fiddling around with any pairing codes. The only thing we would mention is that when you do power up the headphones they go into Bluetooth mode as a default and also mentions that you are in Bluetooth mode via a pre-recorded voice which is quite loud and startling if you weren’t prepared for it so bear that in mind when using them.
The sound out of them was what you would expect for the price we paid and a little extra. We found the sound reproduction to be quite good and dare we say enjoyable to use, with some base where required but if you are into your audio then we would probably suggest you look elsewhere. We were using them for listening to some music via Apple Music on the iPhone 8 and 6s and there were no problems with connection and it didn’t disconnect at any time also we used them for watching YouTube videos and found the experience to be above what we paid for. They also easily paired with a MacBook Pro which was great. The only thing we noticed that with prolonged use your ears did get quite sweaty but other than that they were quite comfortable to use.
The headphones we used lasted up to around the three-hour mark via the wireless Bluetooth connection to our smartphone and when they do run out of internal battery power, and your smartphone supports a headphone jack, you can use the supplied cable to connect the headphones to your device. Recharging the internal battery was easily done via a micro USB cable and charger, which wasn’t supplied with the headphones but that wasn’t a problem as we do have a fair amount of micro USB cables and chargers dotted around the house but if you don’t then it might be worth purchasing a micro USB cable and charger extra to this device. Charging the headphones don’t take that long, we would say a few hours, so we didn’t really see this as a negative.
As we have mentioned earlier these headphones do have a built-in FM radio and mp3 player, but other then a quick five-minute mess about with the radio we haven’t really used those features as its main use is just for listening to videos or music via Bluetooth, so we really can’t comment on how good it was for those applications.
To summarise if you can buy these headphones for the price we paid, which was £5 at the time, then we would heartily recommend them as they are a steal at that price. They’re easy to use, the sound reproduction was ok and usable, plus the battery lasted a lot longer then we thought that they would do for the price point we paid. If you are looking at the same model for £15 or more then it might be worth you trying them first and seeing what you think as we are sure that there are probably better ones on the market. Overall though we were happy with them and will be gladly using them for years to come!
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After a different set of Bluetooth wireless stereo earphones? Then why not have a read of our review of the VAVA Moov 28 Bluetooth Wireless Stereo earphones they are not as obvious as the overhead headphones that we have reviewed here and they may be the ones for you – CLICK HERE TO READ THE REVIEW.