[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] The pros:
• The sound quality for these earbuds is impressive, especially considering their form factor. The overall range is what I would expect for much larger devices (such as over the ear headphones), as well as the warmth and tone of sound. The mic is pretty good too—people I called said that the sound was clear and not an issue at all.
• The app adds a lot of additional features, and my favorite is the equalizer. Once the app is installed, you can choose from among several pre-set equalizer modes (jazz, vocal, bass, club, studio, or extreme bass) or can create your own custom settings. Depending on what type of music I'm listening to (or whether it's an audiobook, phone call, or video conference), I find myself adjusting the equalizer to enhance the sound… and love that I can clearly distinguish the differences and that the visuals help me better understand what I'm adjusting and why it's making a difference.
• I have small ears and usually struggle with earbuds like these, but this set is super lightweight and comfortable and stays in pretty well. I can leave these in for a couple of hours while walking around without having to constantly adjust them back into place, which is a huge plus, but I doubt they'd stay in if I was heading out for a run or anything that would bumps them out.
• The active noise cancelling is fine, but not amazing. There's a clear difference between ANC, ambient aware, and talk through. The ANC blocks most noise, but not everything—maybe 80% effectiveness or so. It's better than you can generally find with this type of earbud, so I don't think this is unreasonable at all… and I probably need to test out different eartips for a while to see if that helps.
• I love that the app allows you to decide what gestures on each earbud control. I also appreciate that there's a max volume limiter to help protect your hearing… something I'm Increasingly thinking about.
The cons:
• I wish the case and a little loop or something that would make it easy to use a mini carabiner to attach it to a keychain to make it easy to carry all of the time. I know I could buy a silicone cover with a carabiner, but I wish it were possible to just attach a mini carabiner to the original case since it seems plenty sturdy without additional protection.
• The first time I used these for a phone call, it's almost as if the earbuds were slightly out of sync. I could still engage in the conversation just fine, but the slight delay was a bit distracting. I'm hoping this was just a first-use fluke since it hasn't been a problem since then (after 3 days of use with several hours each day).
