The first time I tried them was months ago, and the impression I had was that it was at least better than what I was using then in some ways. But I thought I wouldn't buy one anytime soon because, well, the earphones I had then seemed just fine... until recently when they began to act up. It's been a few weeks with the SpaceBuds, and I have to say, I think this is it.
What's most important to me with earphones is true freedom. That to me means that I get to use them for long hours at a go, not feel discomfort, have all sufficient controls, and enjoy great call quality. Sound quality isn't on the list because, obviously, it's a must... else I wouldn't own them.
They felt different in my ears, and I knew that was going to take some getting used to. When I played a song to test them out, Viva La Vida by Martin Miller, something hit me. "Woahhh," was my reaction when I heard that creamy sound and thumping bass. It became clear to me that I would never again pick up the old ones. But there's more to tell.
I'm just going to tell you right away that I have kind of suffered a bit since I started using the Oraimo SpaceBuds. Yes, let's start with that. Because it's shaped differently, my ears have been hurt for a while getting used to it. And then the earphones slip off my ears a bit in some cases, although they've never fallen out. I figured out that swapping out the buds -- the cushion, if I can call it that—to the largest size solves those two problems.
Something surprising about the earphones is how long they last. And not in a good way. 11 hours of playtime on a single charge was what I expected, as advertised, but that's not been my experience. I get an average of 6 hours. This was disturbing, but I quickly realized that I often had them connected to two devices most of the time. And that's a feature I find very useful.
The Oraimo SpaceBuds has a dual connection feature. Like I said, I connect it to my PC and phone at the same time. That doesn't mean I get to hear sound from both devices simultaneously, though. It stays connected to both, but sound comes through one and stops the other. That is, when I'm listening via my PC, the audio there pauses [like a YouTube video] when sound starts on my phone. That's really cool.
Speaking of cool. I have my own voice telling me, "Connected, Low Battery, Noise Cancellation Off." Because I recorded my own voice prompts and set them up. This was a nice inclusion, I think, because my earphones feel more personal... and I get to be reminded that I don't sound bad at all.
I could record the audio with my phone's mic, but that didn't sound great at all. Instead, I used my podcast mic to record high-quality and noiseless voice prompts. It was all on the app, which makes the app a little more useful now. Useful indeed -- because I can customize the earphones even further.
You see the blue moonlight around the case? Yeah, I chose that. The default is white, but there are other colors available -- six, I think -- but not red, since that's the color to indicate low battery. We don't want to have ourselves confused, you know.
I'm getting to the good parts now. And I'll continue with the noise cancellation feature. This has always been a very useful feature to me, as it also comes with transparency mode. One, I don't have to unplug my earphones to hear my surroundings and when people talk. Two, I get to block out noise when I need to by activating the noise cancellation. Unlike the previous models I have used, there's a "smart chat" mode.
The smart chat mode works with the noise cancellation mode [only]. What it does is that it switches to transparency mode based on the level I set it so I can hear when people are speaking to me. It activates when I speak. That's pretty neat, don't you think? I don't use noise cancellation much, though, but it comes in handy all the time when I do.
Next on the list is Game Mode. What this basically does is reduce the latency even further. To illustrate, if it takes a second for a sound signal to travel from my device to the earphones, it would take less with Game Mode on. It takes more battery power, so I only use this when I play Call of Duty Mobile.
Now or the top on the list. The sound and calls. I thought the bass couldn't get better on these earphones, but I've been proved wrong with this one. Not to talk too much, it hits hard. I love it; I feel the bass real good, especially listening to bass guitar and drums. And then for the calls... let's just put this in new paragraph.
Ahem. So the most annoying thing when using earphones I'd spent good money on is to have people complain that they don't hear me well over the phone when I use them. Jeez, it always pisses me off because I'd have to switch to phone audio for a good phone call. I'm happy to announce, people, that this one doesn't make my veins pop. I think I've heard someone say they hear me better with these earphones than with my phone's mic. Can't verify that, but that sure is good news.
That marks the end of this review, fellow nerd. Enjoy the photos and have a good look. Then buy them for the same experience. Or not. Whatever.
Images in this post belong to me