Two years ago I wrote a review for the Sandberg Bluetooth Sports Earphones, a set of wireless earphones designed with the active lifestyle in mind, well fast forward two years later and there’s an updated set, known as the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones, that continue to follow the active lifestyle design.
Complete with a modern design, the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones, really do look the part. A combination of toughened aluminum and plastic makes up the housing for the earpieces, which is formed in the shape of a tube.
On the right earpiece housing, you’ll find three buttons across the top. These buttons are easy to access, even when wearing the earphones, although it can be tricky to figure out which button you are pressing, due to the lack of visibility. You’ll also find a rubber flap, that when opened reveals the microUSB charging point for the built-in battery. Also present here is the microphone and a small LED status light which is used in the pairing process and as a charging status light. The left earpiece is free of any connections, microphones or buttons. Both earpieces feature the Sandberg branding running horizontally across them.
With the ear tips being set an angle, I have found that the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones sit nicely in the ears with no discomfort, even during prolonged periods of use. They also stay in the ears with ease, even while out of a long run or using the treadmill at the gym. The flexible earloops paired with the angled tips play a big part in keeping them securely in the ears.
Connecting the two earpieces to each other is a cable that is designed to sit around the user’s neck. It’s a quite a loose freely moving cable, however, this hasn’t caused me any problems during my use of the earphones.
Since these are designed with an active lifestyle in mind, it only makes sense that they have some sort of protection against liquid, after all, rain and sweat can prove fatal to normal electrical equipment. Thankfully the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones come with a very decent IP rating of IPX7, meaning that during a controlled test, it was found that harmful quantities of water were unable to breach the earphones.
Providing the juice to keep these earphones going is a 100mAh Li-Polymer battery. It’s good for up to 8 hours of use or 250 hours of standby from a single charge. Of course, results do vary based on usage factors like the volume for example. Listening to music at high volumes seems to net me around 5 hours, but listening to music with them at lower volumes gets me much closer to 8 hours. A slight shame that 8 hours is all these can handle, given that we are seeing a lot of Bluetooth earphones with upwards of 10 hours of battery life on the market these days. Charging time from flat to 100% takes about two hours, which isn’t bad at all.
The audio produced by the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones is rather impressive. They produce clear, distortion-free audio even at high volumes. They are also quite rich in bass, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the type of music you listen to. I listen to many genres of music and do sometimes feel like the earphones are producing too much bass, that said my overall opinion of the audio they produce is favorable.
Like many other Bluetooth earphones, the other main purpose of these ones is for talking to people, yes, even now in 2018 we still talk on our phones. The microphone has actually been quite good for me. It picks up my voice with next to no problems despite being right next to my ear instead of close to my mouth. It works well across many different applications from the standard phone call to VoIP calls.
With an S.R.P of £43.99, the Sandberg Waterproof Bluetooth Sports Earphones are pretty damn good. They are well made, with an emphasis that serves their purpose of being earphones for active people. They produce some good audio, although, for certain songs, the bass is a bit too much.
PROS:
- Well priced
- Great design
- IPX7 rating
- Comfortable
CONS:
- Heavy on the bass
