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With its latest Bluetooth on-ear headphones, the new SoundLink OE, Bose has made a very attractive package – lightweight build, a rather compact form factor, comfy fit and suede-like material in the outer casing, and of course, a promise to deliver rich audio with a long battery life.
While the promises tick off all the requisite check-boxes for a good pair of wireless on-ear headphones, we at Technophile spent some time verifying the veracity of the promises.
To begin with, Bose has got the styling spot-on. The mix of colours, available in two combinations, is quite pleasing – the headphones stand out in a crowd, but are balanced enough for everyone’s tastes.
The build is sturdy, and surprisingly light – Bose has cut down on metal components to achieve this lightness, but in no way are any parts or joints flimsy. The finish is near-perfect. The most common problems with on-ear headphones is that of comfort, but the SoundLink OE are a delight to wear. The cushioning is ample and we could pull all-nighters wearing the headphones without having any discomfort on the ears.
The SoundLink headphones have a very powerful output – if you’re at work or at home, just the 50 per cent volume level would be more than enough to keep you happy. Since these headphones don’t come with noise cancellation or really effective noise isolation (on-ear headphones were never good with noise isolation anyway), the maximum volume level does help in drowning the din outside. While listening to music from Daft Punk, we found the sound to be very balanced, with good highs and lows, and clear vocals.
But Avicii and DJ Tiesto call for some extra punchy bass, and the SoundLink OE did not deliver any. While listening to Iron Maiden and AC DC, we found that the riffs and solos sounded a bit too shrill for our taste. We also watched a full season of Two and a Half Men in one go, and we reckon that the SoundLink OE is not too spectacular for movie or TV series experience. The microphone performance is pretty good, despite the lack of a boom.
The battery performance was quite impressive – we used these Bose headphones for up to 6-7 hours every day, for a couple of days. Only on the third day did the headphones start prompting us to plug in.
The Bose SoundLink OE give a very good audio output, but not across all genres. The Bluetooth quality is good, with absolutely no problems in terms of wireless performance, and the comfort levels and battery life are extraordinary. We only wish that these headphones had a better all-round performance, to be worth their price.
₹21,038
Love – Comfort; Build; Battery life
Hate – Not an all-rounder
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