TCL MOVEAUDIO S600 earphones review — Comfort and good sound at a reasonable price

The wireless earphone market is steadily getting more crowded and hyper-competitive. So at times, it’s a little surprising to see new entries to the space. TCL has been on a device launching rampage over the past 12 months or so with a slew of phones, now audio gear, a tablet and a laptop coming.

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been spending a bit of time having a listen to the TCL MOVEAUDIO S600 and they’re actually surprisingly good.

Design and Fit

There’s not a huge amount you can do with a wireless earbud solution in terms of design. The case fits a fairly generic design: Slightly smaller than palm size, top-hinged with a USB-C port in the base for charging. Something that struck me is just how lightweight it is, even with the earbuds in the case charging. One thing of note is just how easy the earbuds are to get out of the case due to the way they’re housed. There’s nothing particularly special, more importantly, no major detractors to the carry case.

The earbuds themselves fit the standard look that could label them an Airpod clone apart from a slightly longer stem than a number of others on the market. This no doubt contributes to the seemingly better connection range on the earbuds. More important than the look is the comfort and audio.

To get the right fit, I spent a bit of time trying the different sized tips but once I did the user experience is excellent. The balance while in-ear is excellent, particularly when you consider the length of the stem. They’re lightweight enough that — with awareness turned on — you can easily continue wearing them all day.

In daily use, there were no issues with fit or comfort, even when they were used exercising they were stable in my ears. This is particularly welcome when you’re on a bike travelling at 25kph or more since your odds of finding a wayward earbud the faster you’re travelling.

Then we start to move into the audio space which includes the noise cancelling. It would be easy — as I did — to have low expectations of earphones that cost $179.00. The noise cancellation is impressive, not just for the price but outright impressive.

To control ANC you’ve got the standard three options:

• Off which has the natural suppression of having the device in your ear
• On providing full active noise cancellation
• Awareness provides amplification of surrounding nosies to maintain playback and improve situational awareness

Setup, use and playback

The TCL App works fine, but it feels a little bit “unpolished” compared to a few others and, while you can use the earbuds without the app, you can’t customise controls. That’s important because there’s only a single touch sensor on each ear, so your options are limited.

By default:

• Right ear – long touch will cycle through noise cancelling options
• Right ear – single tap will play and pause playback
• Rightr ear – double tap will advance a track
• Left ear – long press will reduce the volume steadily as you hold it
• Left ear – single tap increases the volume

You can tweak and change this as you want to through the TCL connect app to include assistant controls or, if you wish, remove the ANC controls and trigger your assistant.

One of the features that I believe is underrated is to automatically pause playback when you pull one of the earbuds out. Put simply, this is an indicator you need to listen to or concentrate on something other than what you’re listening to – pausing when you pull an earbud out makes sense.

Sound and Battery life

In-ear audio always has and always will have the disadvantage of the physical size to producing mind blowing audio. That doesn’t mean they can’t produce really good audio, but it’s not something audiophiles will endorse. So the fact they’re in-ear and quite cheap compared to some competitors, I didn’t hold high hopes for the sound quality. I was beyond pleasantly surprised at the depth of sound that they produce.

I tried a fairly eclectic mix of music, video and podcasts to test out the S600 and found them pretty capable. Whether it was heavy metal, orchestral score, voice only podcasts or streaming video playback the audio balance was smooth. There was no element of overpowering bass or shrill high notes, with vocal ranges remaining clean even at high volume.

Even the phone call audio quality was excellent, offering audio so crisp (on HD calls) that it sounded as though I was in the same room as the caller. When I queried my callers on audio quality, they were surprised to hear I was on Bluetooth earbuds noting that normally there’s a static or low level of white noise that they expect but wasn’t there.

Another pleasant surprise was the battery life of the S600 earphones. According to the specs, there is around 32 hours of playback in the earphones and case as a combination. Specifically, I was getting around 6.5 – 7.5 hours of playback from the earbuds without charging plus the time in the battery of the case that recharges on the go.

In practice, I found this to be a bit conservative because I don’t usually have earbuds up at high volume. At a low to mid-range of volume with a mix of ANC on and off: I got consistently around 40 hours of playback. It is smart to underpromise and over-deliver given customers unhappy with undelivered promises can lead to poor reputation.

Would I buy them?

Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy them but not because of any specific fault with them. I have a personal preference for over-ear vs in-ear audio. If I wanted or needed new earbuds for use in the gym or hot weather, they’d be on my shopping list.

There’s a lot of good things going on here including:

• A nice slim case
• Lightweight and comfortable earbuds
• Good audio quality
• Excellent battery life
• Reasonable price

They are another in the sea of AirPod clones, but that’s more to do with the technology and limited design options with in-ear wireless solutions. Ultimately, they’re a really good option if you’re looking at a great value, good audio quality audio option.

If they’re sounding like an investment you’d like to make you can check them out via Mobileciti, Amazon and normal retail channels.