If you're fed up of the daily struggle to untangle your music player's
headphones, Logitech's new Freepulse Wireless Headphones may well be the answer.
The headphones aren't much bulkier than standard over-the-ear phones. The
headband sits behind your neck and is flexible enough to be curled up in a bag
while a rubber hook on each earpiece ensures they won't slip off your head when
moving around.
Data is sent between the transmitter and headset via Bluetooth, which results
an operating distance of around 10 metres. They're simple to set up – press the
connect buttons on the transmitter and then on the headset and the two will pair
with each other in a matter of seconds.
Volume controls are found on the right-hand earpiece, but since the device
connects through a standard 3.5mm jack, advanced functions such as track
navigation aren't available. By pressing the connect button on the headset you
can mute the music, but it will still carry on playing on whichever device the
transmitter is connected to. Holding down the volume up button for a second or
so activates the Bass Boost mode.
Although the transmitter unit will connect to any audio device with a 3.5mm
headphone socket, it's clearly designed for
iPod owners. Six plastic iPod
adapters are included to ensure the transmitter fits snugly, but if you're
planning on using a non-Ipod audio player, you'll find the transmitter swings
around rather ungainly. Measuring 39mm wide, 35mm high and 14mm deep it also
makes the likes of the iPod Nano
slightly less pocket friendly.
We gave the Freepulse Wireless Headphones extensive testing and, in the main,
found them easy to use and reasonably comfortable to wear. Audio quality is
excellent, although we didn't notice a huge difference when the Bass Boost
feature was turned on.
During a half-hour test period audio very occasionally dropped for around a
second at a time. At one point, the transmitter actually turned itself off,
which meant we had to pair the two devices before normal service was resumed.
Logitech
suggests you place the transmitter in a right-hand pocket since the receiver in
the headset is located in the right earpiece, but when we experienced our sound
outages the transmitter was placed on a table very close to the headset.
It's important to bear in mind that these glitches were reasonably rare and,
overall, we found the Freepulse Wireless Headphones a good alternative to a set
of standard wired phones.
Also consider:
Shure E500PTH earphones
Enjoy outstanding sound quality from these tiny earphones
Steelsound 5H
v2 headphones
Flexible headset designed with professional gamers in mind
Terratec
Headset Master 5.1 USB
These cans promise surround sound from two multi-driver earpieces
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