A couple of months back, EQ8, a company focussed on audio innovation launched its first true wireless device in India – EQ8 at Rs. 6,999. We got hold of the device and here’s what we think about it.
Design and functions!
Coming to the design, the charging case features a stone black fabric exterior that gives the much-needed premium feeling. The textured fabric case doesn’t weigh much and makes it easy to carry around in the pocket. Upon opening the case, we have glossy finish inside with earbuds arranged symmetrically with the “Live the balance” etched on it.
The earbuds are quite light and ensure that your earbuds are snug and secure, giving you complete freedom of movement, regardless if you are on a commute to work, or running a marathon. Ideal for long listening, the earpieces feature a 45-degree angle and come with 3 additional silicon tips to suit your ear canals without causing any fatigue or pressure and give you a noise isolating tailored fit and seal.
The earbuds enable you to seamlessly control your music tracks and volume, make phone calls, and activate voice assistants just with a click press. Everything worked well in our experience. To increase and decrease the volume, double click the button and hold for a second on right and left respectively. Holding the button on any earbuds around 5 seconds will turn off the device.
Also, to pause/play, or to attend the incoming call, a single press on any of the two earbuds will do the job. It’s worth mentioning that, double-tap on left and right will play previous and next track respectively as well.
Sound quality and battery!
For the internals, the earbuds have a Qualcomm 3020 chipset and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, offering support for AptX, SBC, and AAC audio decoding. It also has Qualcomm’s CVC 8.0 Wind cancellation technology for clear calls and audio recording. EQ8 promises exceptional HiFi sound, incredible bass, and superb definition with its 6mm Neodymium graphene drivers.
Well, in reality, the earbuds offer some good audio and do not distort even at the high volume. The bass is quite good and supports major codecs as mentioned above. The earbuds offer a good amount of passive noise isolation as well. Overall the audio quality is good in most conditions and balanced most of the time.
The EQ8 is powered by a humble 500mAh battery with USB Type-C fast charging where 15 minutes of charging give you up to 3 hours of juice. As per the company claims, each earbud can last 7 hours. Combined with the accompanying charging case, the EQ8 enables you up to 40 hours of non-stop listening. In reality, it turned out to be true as it lasted more than 6 days on a single charge, which is impressive. The headset has a microphone that is decent in the most crowded and noisy environment, but it could have been better.
Conclusion
Priced at Rs. 6,999, the EQ8 is a decent Bluetooth headset with an attractive design, good audio quality, fair battery life, and IPX5 ratings for water resistance. However, you can look out for other good options from Xiaomi, Realme, and Noise at a much lesser price point. It is available from Amazon.in, Flipkart, but you can get it from eq8audio.com at Rs. 4,999.