Five Things To Know Before Buying Earbuds

Wireless earbuds are the latest buzz in gadgets now. Every gadget and phone manufacturer is trying to get one on the market and those who don't have a product ready are buying generic models and adding their branding to keep up with the trend.

However, not all earbuds are the same. There are some good ones but there are some terrible ones too, that's why you have to be careful when choosing earbuds. Earbuds are things we use every day so, it's important to take your time when choosing one.

I recognize that there are cheap earbuds on the market but my advice would be to avoid the cheap ones. Good earbuds don’t come at bargain basement prices. For a start, they need a good-quality Bluetooth chip, and they need to have some decent high-density batteries for them to work for longer than an hour between charges. Good quality doesn’t usually come cheap so be prepared to pay enough to get something decent.

More advanced earbuds will have control pads or buttons on the earpieces that you can tap to increase volume, skip a track, issue voice commands, or take phone calls. Some of the best ones out there can even pause the music automatically the moment you pull an earbud out of your ear. Look closely at the controls on offer. They’re worth having but choose a pair with responsive controls. One of the best touch controls that I know is the HHOGene light earbuds called GPods.

Most wireless earbuds these days offer a noise canceling feature that reduces the outside noise when you are listening to music. Noise-canceling circuitry uses a lot of power from the battery so know that you might not have a very long listening time. With ANC comes transparency mode, a way to hear your music together with the outside noise at the same time.

All wireless earbuds have different volume levels and sound quality. For some of them, you have to turn up the volume to maximum to be able to hear anything while others deliver clear sound at 50% of the volume. When you are trying to compare different brands and models, you should check their volume levels and how each sounds. Earbuds are for people who are always on the move and don't need cables hanging around them but wireless doesn't mean anything if the sound and volume are not good enough.

Most earbud manufacturers will say that their earbuds have 3-5 hours of listening time. In real-life use, you can count on knocking about 20% off the quoted figure. Once the battery runs low, you have to put the earbuds back in the charging case to top up their charge. The charging case usually has a battery that can hold a charge sufficient to top up the earbuds between three and four times before the charging case needs recharging itself. Note that some earbuds manufacturers might quote the combined playing time of the three or four top-ups available from the charging case, instead of quoting the playing time for the earbuds. If you see a quoted figure of 12-15 hours of playing time, that’s not for continuous listening on one charge. Ideally, you need to know how long you can listen to the earbuds before they need to go back in their case for a recharge.

You can consider all the tips above to choose your ideal earbuds. Test their volume levels, check their battery life, noise canceling, and controls but most importantly, see if their price matches what you are getting in terms of functions and convenience. I have to say that the brand HHOGene did a good job of balancing its value proposition with its price. You can check out HHOGene light earbuds.

Find out more about HHOGene light earbuds at www.hhogene.com


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