Sonicgear Airphone V Bluetooth Headset Review

Sonicgear brought to the market their latest offering, a Bluetooth on-ear headset aimed at the youngster and hip lifestyler called the Airphone V. High end headphones might be the craze, but there is no doubting that the ease and portability that is a Bluetooth headset is a really big checkmark in many high energy youngster. Although Sonicgear’s quoted MSRP of RM 169 seems quite high of an asking price for something targeted at the younger age group, but compared to Beats and Skullcandy’s exorbitant price, it might be more successful.

LOOKS

If you want to sell things to the youngsters and hip lifestyler, you are going to need your product to look cool. Sonicgear made a decent looking pair of headphone although I would say the styling theme looks to be a major copy of Beats Audio headphones. Regardless, my red review unit is plenty striking and quiet at the same time. At once glance it does not turns head, which is great. I would not want to look like the douche walking around showing off my super glamorous headphone but it is striking enough that I can appreciate the design when I want to.

The headset outer side is mainly made of glossy plastic which the red version made a decent attempt at not attracting fingerprints although I doubt the black one would be so great in that department. The insides of the headset is a mix of soft touch plastic and pleather. The extension bit of the headset has a brushed aluminum effect that looks great actually compared to normal plastic extenders.

The buttons located on the left part of the headset unit compromises of 5 buttons. One main button, a pair of volume control and a pair of track selection button. These buttons are surprisingly great. They are very tactile and easy to differentiate when it is on my head. The main button is inscribed with Sonicgear’s logo. On that same side is where the micro USB port is located for charging the headset. Flipping to the right side, nothing striking is here accept for a Bluetooth logo on what would have been the main button much like the left side. I may have prefer a Sonicgear’s logo instead of a screaming blue Bluetooth logo but understandably, the logo is there to advertise the headset’s main feature, wireless Bluetooth.

BUILD

The headset is well built, rugged enough for its size but do not expect to abuse this headset too much. Day to day usage is fine but once in a while I get worried when I have to stretch the headset apart to take them off or to put them on. The headset extends to increase the length of the headband on either side as most other headphones do. The size varies from small to medium. Large headed customers will be sad to find out that they will not be able to accommodate the Airphone V on their head. I had to use the Airphone V at the maximum extended length, and I have a medium head. To test the size, I had my friend with a larger head try it and true enough, it did not fit well with the earcups failing to reach his ears properly.

Speaking of earcups, the two left and right earcups swivel around a center pivot slightly, with maximums swivel of around 3-4 degrees. There is not much customization in terms of earcups movement, so comfort might be an issue if you have peculiar pair of ears. The paddings on the earcups have a lot of give and does a good job on keeping your ears comfortable. Long sessions with the Airphone V brought minimal discomfort, even when the headset is brand new out of the box. Most other headphones need time to form to your ears and get comfortable, but this pair of headphones does not need to which is awesome.

PERFORMANCE

As with any Bluetooth headphones, sound quality is not top notch due to the Bluetooth technology. Although maximum data rate for Bluetooth is theoretically 3 Mbit/s, the practical application throughput is only slightly more than 80 kbit/s. Any audio from your devices that has bitrates more than 80 kbit/s will be compressed and quality will be lost.

With that said, the Airphone V did not perform too badly given that it is a Bluetooth headset. The audio coming through is very much clear and no quality loss can be heard normally. The midrange audio is clear and the bass is plenty powerful but it does gets too powerful sometimes. Those that loves bass heavy audio may appreciate it. On the other hand, the audio compression does take a toll on the higher range part of the audio. Playing Muse’s The 2^nd Law – Unsustainable, you can clearly hear that the headset drivers try very hard but fail in the end. The high ranges will start breaking and you will hear noises.

This is pretty much expected and more or less the issue depends on the audio source. In my case, I tested it out on my iPhone, a desktop with a Bluetooth dongle and a MacBook Pro. The iPhone and the PC desktop could not deliver optimum high range audio but the MacBook did just fine comparatively.

Picking up a call is pretty much as simple as pressing the main button. Call came through perfectly fine and the microphone was able to pick up everything I said clearly. I did not particularly have to speak out louder than usual but I suggest you drop the headset and use your phone directly in a noisy environment. You can hear your phone calls alright but your caller might not be able to hear you.

As a side test, I used the headset for gaming just to give it a run for what it is worth. Tested it in Dota 2 and also Battlefield 4. In Dota 2, with less need for clear audio, the headset was fine and very usable. Battlefield 4 however, with its crazy explosions and shouting teammates sometime gets the better of the headset. The built in mic would at time pick up the loud audio from the drivers driving my teammates crazy. Apart from that, the headset performed well and did not drop any audio packet at all.

Battery life is reasonable. I did not have to charge the unit for a few days and whenever it did finally die I could not remember the last time I have charged it. So expect long battery life in the range of days if you are using it lightly. Since I am reviewing this unit, the Airphone V was practically on my head all day long and it still lasted for at least that long.

USABILITY

The headset comes with an advertised Voice Instruction feature. At first I thought the headset could understand voice instruction from me. Alas, my hope was squandered as the Voice Instruction feature meant that the headset itself can give voice instructions to you. When you turned the headset on it would greet you with a “Power On” instruction. Truth be told, I have only heard three voice instruction from the headset, one being power on, the other during power off and also lastly during pairing. I see very little benefit in this feature other than the ease compared to beeping notifications. The price of the headset could have been inflated by the Voice Instruction feature which brought very little to the table. On the other hand, the Airphone V still had beeping notifications that was extremely loud! The first I heard it I had a splitting headache. The beep was too loud in my opinion and along with its high tone will hurt. It beeped every time you tried powering it off. I learned to just take it off before powering the thing off.

Pairing the Airphone V was simple. All you had to do was make sure the unit was off, then proceed to hold the main button while ignoring the “Power On” instruction and keep on pressing until it finally said “Pairing”. At first try, I thought the “Power On” instruction was saying “Pairing” and so I failed to pair it a few times. After noticing the correct instruction, all my devices could find it without a hitch.

All the media button worked to control the playlist as expected, although do note I did not have access to an Android device for testing but I am pretty sure it will work given its more open compared to the iOS devices.

CONCLUSION

The Sonicgear Airphone V is a great Bluetooth headset. Its portability is decent but could have been improved with swiveling earcups but those would bring in more complexity which would have done nothing but drive cost up. Speaking of which, price is the only part that will prevent many keen buyers from going ahead and making the splurge to own this unit. Apart from that, there is really nothing that would draw buyer away from this pair of headset.

Here is my final say on the Sonicgear Airphone V:

Things it excels at:

• Great looks. Like, for real
• Quite comfortable with ample of padding
• Long battery life
• Decent sound quality for a Bluetooth headset
• Very usable for answering calls

Things it can improve at

• Longer earcups extension to accommodate larger head
• Improvement on the clarity of the Voice Instructions
• Lower the volume of the beeping notification by A LOT
• Pricing