The TWS market is crowded right now, with most of the companies including, smartphone makers are coming out with their offerings.
In the market occupied by Boult Audio, Realme, bOAT, OnePlus, and Xiaomi, MULO (MUsic LOvers), the Kolkatta-based company, has been making noise for some time now with its devices including, neckband, TWS, and Bluetooth Speakers.
Mulo Wonderbuds 500 is the latest entrant in the affordable TWS segment that promises to offer a good quality experience. Can the Wonderbuds 500 device penetrate the market and come on top? We have been using the TWS for some time now and here’s my detailed review.
Design
Talking about the built, both the charging case and earbuds are made out of polycarbonate material. The case is sturdy, compact, and slides easily into the pockets. The opening and closing mechanisms are simple.
In terms of placement, the charging case has a digital display, which shows the battery level to give you a clear indication of the same. The display is clear and gets the message right. At the back, we have the USB Type-C port for charging.
Each earbud weighs just 4.5 grams, which is very light and fits well into the ears. Due to its nature of design, these fit your ears firmly and don’t fall off easily during workouts or even when running. Notably, it has single microphones for calls. You also get 2 additional silicon tips to suit your ear canals.
The buds have a decent touch control area along with a small LED strip that glows Blue, Red, and Purple. The touch control works well most of the time, but we have experienced random misses at times.
The multifunctional touch button on both the earbuds lets you play or pause music, increase/decrease volume, accept or reject calls, and activate the assistant.
The procedures are given clearly in the user manual.
- Single-tap — Play/Pause, Attend/End calls
- Double-tap on the right bud – Next track
- Triple-tap on the left bud – Previous track
- Touch and hold on for 2 seconds – Refuse call
- Double-tap left bud – Activate Google/Siri
- Long touch (hold for 3 seconds) left bud – Volume down
- Long touch (hold for 3 seconds) right bud – Volume up
Performance
Setting up the earbuds is a straightforward process. For the internals, the earbuds are powered by 7mm drivers, features Bluetooth 5.0. Passive noise cancellation is on point due to the in-ear design.
The WonderBuds 500 offers a very good audio quality and manages to keep everything in control for an enjoyable listening experience. Each earbud can be used independently. You can remove anyone’s earbud from the charger case, it automatically becomes a master earpiece.
The headset doesn’t have a companion app, but you can launch Siri on iOS and Google Assistant on Android devices as well. Coming to the calls, the Wonderbuds 500 has a single microphone. The call quality is decent but doesn’t work well in a noisy environment.
Battery
The Wonderbuds 500 have a 50mAh battery in each earbud that is rated for 4.5 hours of listening time on a single charge, with an additional 2.5 charge cycles with the included charging case. It can also quick charge the earbuds — 10 mins will give 45 mins of listening time.
To be honest, we are impressed with the battery life, where we squeezed somewhere around 8 to 9 hours. Notably, the battery life depends upon the volume level we use generally. We kept it most around 60 to 80% indoors and 90 to 100% while running. The battery life is excellent by wireless standards.
Conclusion
Overall, the Wonderbuds 500 is a good option if you are looking for a TWS below the Rs. 3,000 segment. It has great sound clarity, impressive battery life, and a good build. The MULO Wonderbuds are available for purchase on Amazon and MULO’s online website for Rs. 2499. To summarise, here are the pros and cons.
Pros
- Good sound quality at this price point
- Very good battery life
- Battery indicator display
Cons
- Build quality