Gear Icon X Volume Low in One Ear
(Pocket-lint) - Samsung was amidst the first to join the wire-gratis revolution with its Gear Icon Ten wireless in-ear earphones. The production didn't exactly set the world debark, though, and so the visitor followed it up at the cease of 2017 with a newer, bigger pair with better battery life.
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In improver to the wire-complimentary perk, Samsung also markets the Icon X as fitness-focused. The question is: can these in-ears compete with our other wire-free favourites?
Secure and snug fit
As with any wire-free earphones at that place all the same remains the business of whether they'll fall out of your ears during employ. Fifty-fifty though a cable rarely supplies any real structural support, having such a tether connecting two earbuds is still a more than secure selection.
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With the Icon X, Samsung has produced a fit that'south equally secure and snug equally the Jabra Elite. The fit is partly down to the rounded shape and grippy silicon around the Icon X buds' middles, only predominantly considering of the small-scale sports fin on each that tucks inside the ridge of each ear. It tucks in nicely, ensuring that the ear buds won't ever fall out.
Thankfully, that doesn't mean the buds experience like they're stretching your ear canals. After a couple of hours' wear, nevertheless, the snug fit does start to go a niggling uncomfortable. We institute the two hr mark was about the limit we wanted them in our ears.
On the whole, the looks are stylish and subtle, with no distracting buttons, nor eye-communicable blueprint features. The black model we tested is just matte black, while the underside hosts golden-plated connectedness points which line-upwardly with the connectors inside the portable, pill-shaped charging case.
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On the outside of each earbud is a touch-sensitive console that you tin use to control music playback. Whether you want to skip tracks, change the volume, play or pause, there's a gesture for information technology. Sadly, it's not something that's easy to master on such a minor surface. We found some gestures got mistaken for others, resulting in skipping a runway when what we really wanted to practice was modify the volume, for instance.
Nosotros likewise found that the earphones would trigger an exercise activeness just as we were putting them in, and not intending on doing exercise at all. In the end, we plant the experience easier and less prone to adventitious activities and mistaken gestures when we just permanently locked the touch surfaces, so they couldn't be used.
Versatile audio
In that location are so many earphones out there that don't give you the option to accommodate the sound profile, merely thankfully the Samsung Icon 10 isn't one of those. While there's no in-depth nine-band equaliser, you tin can adjust betwixt a few different presets to change the sound style. There's bass, soft, dynamic, clear and treble boost to choose from. We stuck with dynamic for a punchy sound, which still had plenty of bass and mid-level pop to keep things immersive.
The ambient audio selection is one of the Icon Ten's most enjoyable sound performance aspects. With it switched on, and the phonation focus activated, it'south possible to both heed to music and hear what'south going on in the outside world. Turn it to the maximum level and everything around becomes really articulate and amplified. Information technology may non exist a characteristic we would use constantly, but used while running near busy roads and junctions information technology adds a level of awareness and safety.
All the features merely one affair missing
The best way to brand the most of the Icon Ten is by signing up to Samsung Health, the fettle-tracking platform built to collate and make sense of fitness data from the company's range of action trackers and wearables.
The Icon X isn't quite every bit loftier-tech as another fitness tracking earphones we've tried, simply at that place are some smart features. You can set them up to auto-detect when y'all're working out, and have that information collated in the Wellness app. Alternatively the touch sensor on one earbud tin be used to manually activate, but every bit nosotros've already noted, that's ofttimes besides easy to activate past blow.
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For all of its features and design positives, the Icon X is missing one cardinal element that would push information technology into being the perfect workout companion: a centre-rate sensor. Without this, yous notwithstanding need a wrist or breast-worn monitor to get accurate activity stats.
Connecting...
When wire-free earphones first started flooding the market place, ane of the well-nigh common problems with them was connectivity performance. Turns out, edifice a pair of small, wire-costless earphones that not but need to connect with the source, simply too each other, is difficult.
For the near part, the Icon Ten does a good job of remaining continued to source. There aren't whatever long downtimes, where one earbud shuts off or the music stops playing, as nosotros've seen on a few competitors. That said, the Ten's performance is not perfect either.
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The biggest connectivity effect is what we'd describe every bit a glitch, rather than a total connectivity problem. Every so ofttimes, maybe one time per vocal (roughly) there's a fraction of a second where playback stops, similar a little stutter. We tested it using both streaming music over Wi-Fi and mobile connection, besides as playing playlists and albums we'd downloaded for offline playback in Tidal and Spotify, and the result was the same irrelevant of source and connection type.
Lasts your whole run, and and then some
Samsung promises upwardly to 5 hours of playback using Bluetooth to stream music from a phone to headphones (upwards to seven hours when playing music directly from the Icon Ten'southward internal storage). That's a solid claim, although we could never quite brand information technology to the five hour mark exterior the case, more like four hours.
Afterwards two hours of listening to music through Spotify and Tidal, the battery was downward to 50 per cent. It's worth noting, withal, that for office of this testing period we had the ambient noise pass-through at its loudest level and with the voice enhancement switched on.
When they practice need a peak-up, the mobile charging case holds its own charge, and then information technology'south possible to recharge on the go for futurity use.
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Verdict
The Icon X offers a tonne of features and decent dynamic sound, making them among the most versatile wire-gratis in-ear earphones on the market.
Saying that, they're not perfect. The touchpad controls are tricky, while the connectedness glitched every at present and and so producing a less than seamless listening feel.
There's also no heart-rate monitor, which limits the fitness-tracking potential. Nevertheless, with the Samsung Health necktie-in and ability to store music offline on the earphones themselves, the Icon 10 certainly give the Bragi Dash Pro a run for their coin.
Alternatives to consider
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Bose SoundSport Free
The SoundSport Gratis is among our favourite wire-free in-ears. The blueprint may exist a fiddling 'out there', but the sound is fantastic and the earbuds stay deeply in the ears during exercise, without feeling uncomfortable at all.
- Read the full article: Bose SoundSport Free review
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Jabra Aristocracy Sport
With a eye-rate monitor and smartphone app compatibility which can track your runs using your phone'south GPS, superb connectivity performance, and decent sound, the Jabra is a better fettle-focused wireless in-ear experience.
- Read the full commodity: Jabra Elite Sport (2017) review
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