starsGreat audio quality

Setting up and connecting these headphones for the first time is about as simple as it gets. The Bluetooth connectivity responds quickly to new devices, and stays connected even at a reasonable distance. The actual controls are basic but effective, covering things like play and pause, volume, and skipping songs. One odd feature that took me a while to get used to was the way that you turn off the headphones. Each headphone has a magnet on the back, and to turn them off you touch those two magnets together. This isn’t hard to do obviously, but it was so unusual that I forgot several times in my first few days of using them. Once you've got the hang of it, it's simple, but I don't think most people would think of it.

I’m no audiophile, so I’ll simply say that these headphones produced great sound based on my experiences. The bass was just right, the volume was plenty loud for me, and I found that everything I listened to sounded crisp and clear. I tested these out with music, audiobooks, and even TV shows and movies, and never had a problem with the quality of the audio itself.

The in-ear feel was more of a mixed bag. Most of the time, the E6 feel good in your ears. They have a little fin to help keep them from falling out, and both that and the actual tip of the headphones can be adjusted to various sizes to help find the perfect fit. Once I found the right size, they felt good to wear and didn’t fall out nearly as often. The only issue is that they did still sometimes fall out when walking or jogging, because the cable and the two heavy battery/controller parts are all hanging down from your ears and pulling on the headphones. I wasn’t able to find a solution to this problem, other than to adjust them occasionally to ensure they weren’t about to fall out. I do think they were clever to put a weight on each side of the headphones, so you can avoid the feeling of it tugging on one side, but I still find the tugging feeling a little uncomfortable.

The E6 has several features that allow it stand out, but not all of them work very well in execution. Take the charger, for example. The snap-on charger connects to part of the headphone cord and allows you to charge them while still using them. But there are a few problems with this feature. First of all it’s the ONLY way to charge them, so good luck if you lose or break this charger, because it exclusively works with this special charger and nothing else. Also, I’ve used previous headphones from this line which allowed the battery charger to be portable, allowing you to charge it via micro-USB and then take the backup charger with you. No luck here, where the charger is built into a USB cable, so you need to find a USB port to plug it into on top of everything else. Aside from the charger issues, the battery life itself is respectable at 5 hours of use, but not long enough for something like a long plane ride or a full day of listening at work.

In summary, I think that the E6 is a great pair of headphones with good functionality, but held back by some odd design choices. The charger is frustrating, as is the fact that they fall out of my ears often when I’m jogging, but those aren’t dealbreakers in my mind. Most of the problems with the headphones are things that all wireless Bluetooth headphones seem to suffer from (and I've used many) and when it comes to the audio quality, I'm thrilled with these.