The rise of wireless earbuds has exploded, especially more so over 2020 during the pandemic which at the time of writing this, is well causing a lot of pain and frustration in Sydney and its because of these, alongside the need for working from home and wireless audio solutions have continued to gain momentum.
So when OPPO announced its new Enco range line up, we thought it might be good to review the range to see what they offer and more and first up off the cab rank is the OPPO Enco Air.
So can the OPPO Enco air live up to the rigours of the work from home and home isolation (and hopefully soon return to the new normal lifestyle) needs, lets have a look shall we.
The unboxing
So opening the box for the Enco Air, you’d find the case which is not only the case but also houses the inbuilt charging battery and the two earbuds, which is housed in a specially made piece of cardboard, with the underneath section holding the safety and instructional booklets and a 10cm USB-C cord.
Talking about the case, it is made of a matte black polymer plastic with the case/cover being made of a slightly opaque black to somewhat grey lid. The case comes with an inbuilt battery which can help charge the earbuds on the go and thank to the included USB-C cord, it can fast charge the earbuds within 10 minutes to give you an extra 8 hours of play back. Combined with that the charging case can make up to 24 hours.
What is it good at?
I have to say that having an app which can help pair the Enco Air earbuds to your smartphone or tablet is a great idea. Though the app is limited in how it interacts with the earbuds. For example you can set what functions each side of the earbud does such as pause/play, skip or go back and more.
Whilst the Enco Air earbuds don’t offer some sort of ANC features, it can reduce some of the background white noise by about 70-80% but you will still hear some background noise.
When it comes to voice calls or video calling, the Enco Air earbuds are able to ensure clear voice communication thanks in part to adaptive AI noise cancellation which work thanks in part to the two built-in high sensitive microphones in each earbud. I have to say when using it for video calls or voice calls, the people I spoke to were able to hear me clearly and that’s a bonus for me given the current state of working from home in Sydney at the moment.
What is it bad at?
The issues I faced off pretty much instantly was trying to place the earbuds into my ears. Given the buds do not come with any sort of rubber tip which is generally my preference to ensure the earbuds stay as securely as possible.
I did take over about 2 to 5 minutes most times to find the most secure position that would keep the buds in my ear canal.
Also when it comes to any sort of active noise cancellation, the Enco Air earbuds sadly don’t have any sort of active noise cancelling so this means you will hear some white noise still in the background. Whilst that’s disappointing I can understand why this would be missing as this type of feature can be expensive and put up the price at the end of the day for the consumer.
There is also the issue of when pulling one earbud out this would for similar products, ensure the songs or podcasts you are listening to stop, however that’s not the case so you will have to physically stop these yourself before putting your earbuds into the case.
Also listening to music whilst was ok, it wasn’t great. Bass wasn’t deep and there were a couple of struggles with certain songs I was listening too which was a little disappointing.
Lastly, you cannot wirelessly charge the Enco Air buds, however I wasn’t expecting this option. You can still charge the buds via the case thanks to the included USB-C cable which is a little short for my liking but I did find using my own longer cord did work as well as the included cable.
There’s an app for that
Setting up the Enco Air earbuds can be done via the HeyMelody app which is available to download from the Google Play Store for free, which can help you set up and pair the buds to your smartphone, but also provide firmware updates to the Enco Air earbuds as well.
The app also gives you battery information and notifications for the battery percentages for each earbud and the case.
You can also use the app to set up the various controls for each earbud such as double tap to enable voice assistant, play/pause, previous, next or no option. There is also Triple-tap to enable your voice assistant or game mode whilst under touch and hold you can set each earbud to activate the volume controls to either have the volume up or volume down or nothing at all.
Should you consider buying one?
In all honesty, I feel that the price tag for the Enco Air buds is a little steep given it is missing some features that are available on some other similar earbuds on the market.
The lack of any sort of ANC is a disappointment and the music playback was ok, but not fantastic, not even great.
The Enco Air earbuds are available through the OPPO Australian website in either black or white colours for $149.
