Philips A7607 bone conduction headphones evaluate

Philips has been delving into the world of bone conduction headphones over the previous couple of years, and the A7607 is its newest try at serving up a worthy various to fellow sporty bone conductors from the likes of Shokz.

The A7607 do a whole lot of issues proper. They provide a design that is primed to be match for powerful exercises, pack a pleasant additional function for runners and night-time train followers, and crucially need to punch out the sort of sound to make them a worthy health club or working companion.

At $199.99/£157.95 although, these bone conduction headphones do not come low cost, so does Philips supply sufficient right here to persuade us that these are a greater match for train than equally priced rivals? We put them to the exercise take a look at to search out out.

Design

• LED security lights
• Weighs 38g

Philips delivers its open ear design in a style that the majority different bone conduction headphones do, by way of a neckband design that rests across the head, inserting the arms simply in entrance of the ears to ship audio to your inside ear with out sealing them up.

At 38g, they are not the lightest bone conduction headphones on the market, however they do not really feel cumbersome in any respect to put on, even throughout longer exercises, and are comfy to don with glasses and caps as properly. In truth, the match right here is basically safe, so that they really feel tremendous safe it doesn’t matter what exercise you might be doing.

Bodily controls are dealt with in the same method to Shokz’ headphones, with a number of buttons on prime of the part that sits in entrance of the ear, letting you tinker with quantity, skip audio, activate your good assistant and take calls. That does imply there’s microphones on right here too, and Philips consists of two to deal with all of your audio instructions and cellphone calls.

One thing you do not see on a whole lot of headphones is the built-in security LED gentle Philips consists of, which encompasses the again of the headphones and will be set to glow or strobe, providing you with a bit of visibility increase on these evening time or early morning outings.

To make them match for train each indoors and outdoors, the A7607 is slapped with an IP66 sturdiness score giving it some good safety towards mud and water, and making them good for a wet run and extra rugged use.

As for what you get within the field, Philips bundles the headphones with a small carry bag, some earplugs to assist higher isolate sound – good for once you’d moderately not be listening to the skin world – and the proprietary charging cable that it’s essential get them powered again up.

Battery life

• 9 hours battery life
• 2 hour charging time
• Quick charging mode

In bone conduction headphone phrases, the A7607 guarantees some fairly good numbers right here. Philips says you may rise up to 9 hours off a single cost, providing an hour greater than the Shokz OpenRun Pro.

While you do get low on battery, there is a quick charging mode that’ll provide you with an hour of listening time from a 15-minute cost. It isn’t fairly the quickest quick cost charge, then, however helpful to have nonetheless. While you do hit empty, it’s going to take 2 hours to get again as much as 100 per cent.

The sort of battery you get right here completely is dependent upon how loud you hearken to your audio and likewise placing these working lights in play as properly. We’d say the numbers fall barely wanting their quoted most when listening at louder volumes, and is extra across the 5-6 hour mark.

Efficiency

Philips delivers its bone conduction sound from a dynamic driver setup channelling sound by way of your cheekbones to the inside ear with out protecting them up.

The general sound high quality we might say was a bit of underwhelming and definitely not the class of the most effective bone conduction headphones we have examined. It felt a bit of muted, not notably clear and detailed, or very balanced.

With a mixture of bass-heavy exercise playlists, some podcasts from streaming providers like Apple Music and Spotify, the A7607 fared higher dealing with dialogue and voice than it did for listening to music with them.

That does imply if you happen to’re set on utilizing them to deal with calls, they do carry out properly on that entrance a minimum of. As we talked about, Philips employs two microphones right here – each designed to counteract exterior noise and wind – and so they undoubtedly do assistance on that entrance. Voices on the different finish of the road had been simple to listen to and we had been properly heard by our callers too.

They carried out properly by way of providing a great steadiness between headphone and exterior sound, even when utilizing them close to busy roads and in windier circumstances.

Nevertheless you do have to have them at greater volumes to get essentially the most rewarding audio right here – and that creates a few points.

Not solely do they provide a shorter battery life once you crank issues up, however in addition they leak sound (as will be the case for bone conduction headphones), so they are not best to be utilizing in your prepare or bus commute if you happen to worth protecting your audio non-public, but additionally need to hear them at their finest.

Verdict

The Philips A7607 get a whole lot of the important thing issues proper to make them a pair of bone conduction headphones which can be a great match for extra rigorous train use. They’re comfy to put on, keep put in additional intense use and the working gentle is a pleasant contact as properly.

Finally although, the sound high quality would not fairly match as much as that workout-friendly design and simply feels barely undercooked once you examine it to what else is on the market within the bone conduction house at this value. Particularly if you happen to needed one thing you need to use inside and outdoors of that exercise time.

It is a disgrace as a result of there’s lots to love concerning the design, in addition to Philips making an attempt to assume out of the field by way of including extra worth and use to bone conduction headphones. Sadly it misses the mark in a very powerful division.