Before I start I would like to say thanks to Mpow for sending these out to review.
Unboxing
The box is very simple and features an image of the Swift on the front, with the Mpow branding in the top left corner.
Down at the bottom you'll see the earphones model and the Swift name. All very simple but very nice.
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| Box |
The earphones come very nicely packaged and have a good amount of soft foam to protect them. The packaging also includes a thin piece of cardboard which helps hold the earphones in place.
In the box you'll find the earphones, a variety (a large one) of ear-tips and a selection of silicone hooks to help secure the earphones in when you're exercising. You also get a quick guide a USB cable and your guarantee information. I'm actually very surprised by the sheer quantity of the supplied accessories for a set of earphones with such a low price point. So I have to give some much due credit there.
All in all they are very nicely packaged for a relatively inexpensive set of earphones.
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| Included accessories |
Speaking of the accessories, on the hooks features a little indicator to let you know which goes on which side. A handy little feature if you are unfamiliar with these types of earphones. The hooks also feature the Mpow logo on them as well.
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| Ear hook |
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| USB and documents |
Design
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Swift main controllerThe design of the earphones is pretty simple. You have two pear drop shaped modules on each side. Design is fairly modern and has a touch of their sporting credentials about the overall aesthetic. The colour I have is a highly glossy black with a really very bright yellow for the accents and the cable. It really is very bright, but unfortunately that doesn't come across in the photos. Check Mpows website if you want a better idea of just how bright the yellow is.The module design is a little on the big side and I think a bit of extra effort could have gone into packaging them in a more compact unit. The earphones features a cable that is designed to go around the back of your neck and help to keep the cable from getting in your way whilst working out.More on the modules now and the right side features your main controller (above), the volume rocker and a mic for calls. The left side houses the USB charging port and the battery. But a little more on that later on in the review. |
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| Volume controller |
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| USB input |
The sample I have is the Yellow and Black version but you can get Green and White, Orange and White and finally Black and Blue. So if this one doesn't take your fancy there are more options to choose from.
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| Colour Options |
Also to note the actual housing for the driver and earphone is a touch on the long side and causes the earphones to stick out from your ears quite far. This makes them look a little awkward when wearing them. So if you're a little conscious about what you wear in your ears then these may not be for you.
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| Driver housing |
The cable is a flat ribbon style one and like previously mentioned is designed to be worn around the neck whilst exercising. The cable is finished off in a very very bright yellow, so if bright isn't your thing then I would suggest one of the muted finishes (Colour options above).
Build
The earphones are a predominately plastic construction, to be perfectly honest its actually not that bad. It may look a little on the cheap side but it certainly feels differently. The overall fit and finish is pretty decent, the volume controller has a nice feel to it and the port that covers the USB feels ok too.
The modules are very lightweight though and this makes the wearing experience better as they aren't dragging your ears down. Speaking of the weight, the entire earphones weight in at a featherweight 20g. I mean that's very light indeed.
The cable has a nice soft touch finish and feels nice in the hand and round the neck as well. The joins on the cable and the earphones look pretty good too on closer inspection and I can't see any cause for concern there.
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| Cable |
The silicone tips on the other hand are pretty hard and to truthful some of the worst I've ever encountered. They are well made, but like mentioned they are quite hard. The ear hooks are even worse and are made from an even harder silicone. But does this effect comfort?
Comfort
To be honest the comfort for me is not there. I did try all the tips and hooks and found myself needing the smaller of each. Like mentioned they aren't the softest of tips and this shows. I found my ears getting fairly fatigued after only 30 minutes which to be honest might be ok for a quick work out, but for a long run/jog that might be an issue. So if you're someone who spends a few hours at the gym you may find your ears are just as sore as the rest of you.
But that may differ for you, I know from testing other earphones that my in-ears are quite sensitive, so that probably didn't help and like mentioned that it may be different for you.
Also as a bonus there are plenty of different sizes to choose from (included) so if one doesn't fit another one probably will.
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| Selection of securement |
The ear hooks are even worse and made my ears really sore, but I discovered that without them the earphones kept falling out. So hooks it was. I did also try the other ones, which thankfully are softer but they just didn't provide a secure enough fit for me.
On the plus side though, them hooks really do stay planted in ears and don't budge at all, so if you can bare the discomfort then they will be great.
Connectivity and Battery
To get going with the earphones is pretty simple. Press and hold the Mpow button for 5 seconds until the light starts to flash in an alternate red and blue light. Then turn the Bluetooth on your phone and search for the Mpow Swift. Then simply connect, once done the Mpow button will flash blue to let you know the connection has been made.
Once connected you get a range of approximately 30ft (9m) which is about accurate for what I achieved during testing. Speaking of testing I left my phone downstairs and wondered around my house and I noticed that the signal barely dropped at all. Only when I passed through two closed doors did the signal start to falter a bit. But more often than not your phone is likely to be in a bag or your pocket anyway so that's not really a major issue.
Also to note the Swift is rocking a new version of Bluetooth (v4.0) so it is backwards compatible with older devices and its new enough to work well with the newest generations range of smart phones too. And unlike iOS and Android specific these Bluetooth ones aren't fussy about what they're being paired with, they just work and you still get all the functionality on either OS.
One final thing to state is that the Swift is also packaging AptX technology as well. That means that is you have an AptX enabled smartphone you'll get better quality than those without. If you don't know what AptX is, here is some reading material to bring you up to speed http://www.aptx.com/howitworks2
But essentially what it does is allow the music you are streaming to be less compressed than over regular Bluetooth. This in turn means better quality music for your listening pleasure.
With the battery you get a quoted time of 5 hours playback or 5 hours talk time. However I managed to eek out an extra hour with the volume on about 60%. Not to bad considering the small size of the unit. Turn the volume down even more and you'll see the battery life improve even more.
Charging the Swift is simple. All you have to do is plug the included USB cable into the Swift and a compatible USB port on either a PC or Laptop and you're good to go. Charging time takes 2 hours to fully charge from 0% but that may vary depending on a few factors.
The Swift also have a standby time of up to 185hrs so if you forget to charge, that shouldn't be an issue. I was however unable to test that figure as most of the time the Swift was charged. But its reassuring to know that if you forget you'll still have some juice left after a few days.
Lastly, when your battery life is running low you get a spoken message played back informing you that the Swift needs to be charged. I worked out that after that message you get roughly 5 minutes before the battery is going to die. A pretty handy feature to have as you won't be surprised when the music completely stops.
In use
I found using these on the go pretty easy going. They have convenient placed volume controls so you can make quick changes without having to remove them or get out your phone. This is achieved by simply pressing the desired button once.
However that's easier said than done as I often found myself not pressing the buttons in at all. I think a different finish to the rest of the earphones would have been better so you can more easily distinguish them from the rest of the earphones.
The volume control can also be used to skip tracks forwards and backwards. This is done by holding down the volume up/down depending on which way you want to skip. You'll know its worked when the track changes. Again much easier said than done when on the go.
The main multi-functional button is no better either. I can be used to play/ pause, answer calls, turn the earphones on and off and finally pair them to a Bluetooth enabled device. But again like the volume controls its too easily missed when on the go and I often found myself needing to slow down a lot to control the earphones properly.
On the plus side the earphones stay very firmly attached in your ears. This is all thanks to the ear hooks that do an amazing job at keeping them locked in. So even with the most vigorous of workouts they shouldn't fall out at all. But to be honest that only makes up a little for difficulty factor of using these on the go.
On the other hand though I've only had these about two weeks so maybe after a while longer I may have gotten used to controls and been able to use them better. So again your experience maybe different.
Isolation and Leak
Starting off with isolation I was pleasantly surprised to the level of noise that these blocked out. This is in part to do with the seal, music volume and the CVC6.0 Digital noise reduction technology, which is supposed to filter out unwanted background noise to make you music sound even better. And you what it worked pretty well. No bear in mind that it doesn't offer Bose level of isolation but for a inexpensive set of earphones and to get this technology included at the price point is pretty impressive. So what does it all mean. Well the levels of noise they block out are impressive, if you workout outside you'll pretty much not be able to hear background or traffic noise. But there is the issue, I know from experience that if you workout outdoors you need to have some situational awareness to stay safe. Well these do too much of a good job to offer that, so these would be better suited to the gym rather than an outdoors workout. In the gym they do a great job at blocking out external noises so you can really focus on your workout and block out any unwanted distractions.
All in all they are impressive, but caution be advised if you are going to use these outside.
Now to the leak and again they performed much better than expected. both in the gym and outdoors you're not going to bother anyone with the music you're playing. That is unless you have it on full volume which to be honest I wouldn't recommend as these go pretty loud and you don't want to damage your hearing.
But for average listening volume of between 50% to 75% then you're pretty much not going to hear these leak especially over noisy gym equipment or the noises of everyday life outside.
So the Swift really do impress in this area.
Sound quality
The sound of these earphones is for me where it falls down a bit. The sound is really congested, closed in and compressed. Now this maybe due to the lack on AptX support on my Moto G but that's all I have to hand to test it on.
The overall sound is pretty heavy and just isn't that open, but bare in mind these are earphones which aren't known for an open sound anyways and plus the Bluetooth connectivity could affect the quality. So your experience may differ to mine. But anyways here are my findings.
Bass is powerful, punchy and can drop fairly deep too. However it can be a little overbearing at times and easily drown out the rest of the sound. The bass is also lacking refinement and can often come across a bit murky especially when listening to tracks with a prominent bassline. This is an issue as it has an unwanted effect on the rest of the sound.
The mids are like mentioned far too easily overpowered by the bass and thus require a bit boost to get any sort of presence from them. Even with a bass reduction and slight boost they are underwhelming and lack any clarity or detail.
The vocals are pretty potent, but not in a great way. They are a little lackluster and not overly exciting, they are clear enough but just fail to excite. The vocals sit really forward with the bass and overpower the mids and highs.
The highs are very vague and very quiet and I could barely make them out sometimes. Now bare in mind a lot of this is Bluetooth and lack of AptX so you will probably have a different experience depending on what you are pairing them with. So maybe they will a lot better to you, but my experience wasn't that great. Also to mention is the low price point and all the other tech crammed into the inexpensive product and maybe I am just being a little too over critical about them.
And also for a work out you aren't really focusing on outright quality anyway, you essentially want music to wither drown out your surroundings or to get you pumped up for your workout. So taking everything into account, they are actually fairly decent.
Summary
To wrap up, the earphones are very inexpensive considering the level of tech the pack into the package and taking everything into account I can say that although the may not be the greatest but they are very well rounded and provide a good package for those of us on a budget. I mean they have a lot of good things going for them that you only see on higher priced products and although not perfect they are pretty good.
Again thanks to Mpow for sending these out and check out the links below to see where you can get them from.
Info about Mpow http://www.xmpow.com/
Get yours here http://www.xmpow.com/swift
Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/mpow-swift
Check out the YouTube review http://youtu.be/Xj0SRCt7eYY
Thank you all for reading and have a great day.
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