Well, technically these are the "Fashion Bullet Metal 3.5mm In-ear Earphones Earphone Headset Noise isolating Earbud For Mobile Phones MP3 MP4 Laptop" from AliExpress. This review won't be that long, unless I feel like really going into great detail describing how shite they are.
My search continues for the perfect cheap earbuds and in the past my test earbuds had at least a few redeeming qualities. As I wrote in my last earbud review post I'll be rating each review with the same set of characteristics to allow for easy comparison. These will be Build Quality, Tangle Rating, Audio Quality and Overall Impression.
Some of the best sets will also be for sale on our coldplaysucks.com store – but units will only be stocked by the shop they rank highly in my earbud reviews here. Feel free to contact us if you'd like to provide your own review. My main criteria is to have earbuds that I would use each day. These won't be in that category, but onward to the build rating!
Build Quality
These aren't falling apart or anything but they really aren't well built. As you can tell from the image the packaging itself is very cheap plastic. Getting plastic like this just feels grubby, like getting a crumpled up bill from a stranger. You may be wondering why I'm commenting on the packaging at all but I feel like it acts as a great broken window indicator of other issues with the manufacturing or distribution process.
The earbuds themselves are fairly solid and they probably aren't going to fall apart any time soon. I'm giving them a 3.5 out of 5 stars. They aren't as well packaged or designed as the AWEI-ES-Q9's I recently reviewed, but they also didn't fall apart in my hands when removing the earbud, so its kinda a wash.
Tangle Rating
These were packaged with a twist tie and coiled in a neat loop. I feel this is done to ensure they don't tangle within the package because they are extremely prone to tangles. I pulled two out of the packaging and that was fine. Between removing the twist tie and trying to uncoil the earbuds I somehow managed to tie the microphone around the earbud and tighten it hard. Oh well, it sure is a good thing I've already found the perfect cheap earbuds (keep subscribed to find out which ones they are!).
I'm giving these a tangle rating of 1 out of a possible 5 stars.
Audio Quality
With these earbuds I could possibly use these for jogging in the rain . . . but I have better cheap alternatives. I would usually rather one of the Music Lovers Club standard rotation earbuds but these would be acceptable for podcasts in situations where you're really worried about loosing earbuds.
The bass really isn't there and the EQ balance is pretty far off from neutral. I'd give these a 2 out of 5 stars in audio quality.
Overall Impression
These aren't quite the winning set of earbuds I was hoping for. They are cheap and easy to throw away but I'm not really needing something like that. The audio quality makes me want these even less. The overall rating was 6.5 out of 15 stars.
I won't be selling these in our coldplaysucks.com store and I also won't be selling them directly. As always be sure to keep your ears tuned for the next reviews in the coming months.
