The Mi sports Bluetooth earphones basic earphones is a mouthful to say but is a good pair of wireless earphones. They are going on the first sale in India tomorrow. We got our hands on one early. This is a Layman’s review of Xiaomi’s Latest 22$ wireless earphones.
Whats in the Box
These earphones come in very minimum packaging. Xiaomi initially used to include fancy Plastic cases. Their current lineup of Audio devices all use similar dimension external card boxes with different graphics. A plastic tray holds the earphones. You get a teeny white micro USB cable in the box.
The box surprisingly has 5 different pairs of silicone buds. Two are supposed to be noise cancelling and the other three are normal soft buds. There is also a neat little cable holder that can increase the grip.
A neat little touch is that the buds come in a re-sealable packet. Usually this packet is torn open and the remaining buds lost for eternity. The wing tips cannot be removed.
Device Build
The earphones are pretty lightweight at 13.6g. The main Buds come with wing tips/ supporters permanently attached. The back surface has a resin like glossy finish. The main capsule looks small but once worn can look a little awkward at first. The main external buds are angled slightly away from the capsule body.
The wires themselves are the only bit Xiaomi could have made better. It seem very thin and delicate. They are long enough to sit comfortably on the neck. It can also be adjusted with the little organizer provided. On the right half of the cable are the buttons. The buttons themselves are not really tactile. Its gets a lot of getting used to press the correct button. The firm press required sometimes may discourage you from using it and resorting to the controls on the phone. The same side also has a mic and the multi color led light. The side of the buttons has the micro USB port that can be closed with a firm rubber flap. The back only has the logo and other marking printed in tiny font.
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Fit and usability
The Mi sports Bluetooth earphones basic fits surprisingly well in the ear. Keeping true to its ‘sports’ name the device will stay put even with a lot of motion. Thanks to the sizes of tips available and the well designed fin. It sometimes feels like it fits too well. In the initial few days of use you may feel soreness on your Ear pinna concha. After a few days it should get OK. The buttons portion of the earphones sometimes tend to pull the wire towards the right (due to its weight) which can sometimes be annoying.
Coming to the usability, The earphones perform very well in any possible scenario. Xiaomi claims a basic water resistance of IPX4. This means that you will not need to worry about a bit of sweat or a water splash. And also the reason for the bad buttons.
Double pressing the middle key activates the Google assistant. This is useful when you dont want to remove your device from the pocket. Talking about the assistant, The microphone does a good job of picking up speech.
It takes about 1.5 hours to charge completely and can easily last up-to 6 hours on a full charge.
Connection and Sound Quality
The earphones connect over Bluetooth 4.1. Once paired with a device it usually connects instantly. The connection quality as well is pretty stable. If you remain in line of sight with you phone, It works as far as 10 meters away. If its not in line of sight the quality deteriorates quickly beyond 5 meters.
At a very rare instances it did sound like the earphone was picking up audio from another nearby device. Strange.
And finally the sound quality. One of the reason this is a Layman review is due to the fact that Iam not an audiophile but will attempt to give you an unbiased review of the sound quality.
Detail – The buds perform very well when it comes to detail. Finer details that a smartphone cannot reproduce are clear on the earphones. This is usually true for most earphones but I found this to be a little ahead of the curve in detail reproduction.
The highs, Mids and lows – Xiaomi claims dynamic bass but this is not really true. The sound stage is more neutral. The earphones wont satisfy the needs of a metal head but will do just fine for a casual user. I find that the drivers are best optimized for speech. Listening to speech on the earphones is very clear. Overall sound wise there is nothing really impressive about the earphones. I even went back to the website to check the description. Sure enough Xiaomi has barely advertised the quality of sound. The main focus remains the fit and usability in a sports or active environment.
Conclusion
The Mi sports Bluetooth earphones basic are an affordable and a very much functional pair for 22$. If you want an affordable pair provides a good fit and lets you stay active this is something you should consider. If you prefer excellent sound quality, this is probably not for you.
