Xqisit iE200 Stereo Bluetooth in-earphone REVIEWED

My life is full of cables. Cables for chargers, approximately 1,000 cables behind my TV, cables on my headphones, cables, cables, cables! You get it. That’s why I was so excited to try The Xqisit iE200 stereo Bluetooth (V.4.1) in-earphones – they don’t require a cable for connection and are brilliantly wireless, thanks to Bluetooth.

For me, this meant 1 less cable in my life and that makes me happy. Sad, I know. No more catching the audio cable on the go and no more unraveling of the audio cord for 5 minutes before I get to listen to my music.

The important bits

The earphones themselves come in what appears to be a brushed metallic style, which looks modern and is even bordering on sophisticated.

Inside these little headphones is a Li-ion battery, which performs for up to 4 hours play time and up to 150 hours stand by time. In our testing the battery was fairly quick to charge and the performance time was consistent. A good start. Plus, these earphones are also sweat proof. This combination of great battery life and sweat resistance makes them ideal candidates for runners or cyclists. So, if that applies to you, take note.

The sound is also crisp on most tracks and the bass is rich and booming. At higher levels there is a little deterioration of quality to the sound; however, that volume level would have been too high to listen to consistently and therefore the deterioration wasn’t such an issue.

The earphones also claim to offer high noise cancellation, but we found noise cancellation to be more mid-range and there was still the occasional leak of surrounding environmental noise.

Now, wireless earphones are nothing new and the market has a fairly healthy range to pick from. However, these can be had for under £50, they have a slick look and there is another unique features which got me interested… magnetic pause and stop technology!

Magnetic pause/stop technology

One of the issues with listening to music on the go, especially with wired earphones, is the fact you have to take them out and then pause your music, before you can speak to someone. However, the iE200s come with magnets in each ear piece and when connected the music playback is stopped. This means you can whip them off if a train guard asks you for a ticket and you won’t miss any of your audio. This is such a neat trick and one we wish all headphones came with, as it just makes life so easy. Plus, the same works for when you are taking a call, as touching the magnets together will pick up/hang up too!

For under £50 these earphones are great performers with some smart bonus features and good build quality. We would certainly recommend.

£49.99, available from Boots. Currently on sale for £39.99.