The Mpow Seals are a set of sporty Bluetooth headphones from the company. Boasting Bluetooth 4.0, IPX4 certification and memory wire to keep the earbuds in place, are the Mpow Seals Airflow the perfect Bluetooth sports headphones? Read my Mpow Seals Airflow review to find out.
I want to say thanks to Mpow for sending me a set to review.
Check Price at AmazonWhat’s In The Box?
Inside the box, you get:
- Mpow Seals Airflow Bluetooth headphones
- MicroUSB Charging Cable
- 2 Sets of Ear Plugs
- English Instruction Manual
Mpow Seals Airflow Review: Design
The Mpow Seals look like an oversized set of in ear headphones, each earpiece sporting a bulky chrome and black frame. They definitely look like a decent set of headphones and don’t feel cheap.
The actual drivers have a gentle curve to them, allowing them to angle into your ears for a good fit. There’s actually 3 sets of rubber tips so you should find something that fits your ears well, though I found the medium set that was installed out of the box to fit me perfectly.
The wire near the ear pieces is made of memory wire, allowing you to bend it around your ear to keep the earbuds in place.
There’s also controls located in the right earbud’s wire. You’ve got volume control, power button and power LED. There’s also a small microphone too for using the handsfree function.
The side of the controls also house a micro USB port for charging.
The remainder of the headphones’ wire is soft rubber that sits behind your neck when worn.
The unit is IPX4 certified so it’ll be able to handle drops of water or sweat just fine, making it a great gym partner. It’s not waterproof however so don’t try and take it swimming.
Mpow Seals Airflow Review: Using It
After charging up the internal battery for around an hour, the headphones were ready to go.
Connecting them up is a case of holding down the power button for a few seconds then selecting the “Mpow Seals” from your phone’s Bluetooth menu. You can actually pair the Seals to two phones at the same time which is handy if you carry around multiple phones like I do. I found the headphones reconnected quickly once paired which is great.
Music control is via your phone or the onboard controls. Aside from the volume controls, you can press the power button to play or pause the current track. Holding down the volume up or down buttons will skip tracks forwards or backwards respectively.
Given that the controls sit behind your ears, they’re not the easiest to get to. However, I’m glad they are there and found them far quicker to use than fetching my phone out of my pocket.
Comfort
The headphones fit well into my ears, with the angled design getting the audio exactly where it needs to go. The Mpow Seals take their namesake seriously. Noise isolation is excellent, with the headphones blocking all but the loudest ambient noise. I also found the headphones comfortable to wear for long periods.
The memory wire does a good job keeping the headphones in place. They even staying in place after a few brutal headbanging sessions so they should be fine for the runners out there.
Battery Life
Battery life is reasonable for such a small unit. I only saw a 10% drop after around 2 hours of use. After a full day, I was only down to 40% so you may be able to get 2 days of use depending on how much you use them in a day. Just keep a micro USB cable handy just in case.
Audio Quality
I was pretty impressed with the audio quality of the Mpow Seals. Mids and highs sounds great and there’s plenty of bass on offer. They are closer to “fun” sounding than reference which probably suits for most listeners.
Volume is also great. Pushing my iPhone 6 volume to half put the headphone volume at my threshold of comfortable listening so those who love to prematurely deafen themselves will be well looked after.
The microphone that’s used for the hands-free is ok but given its placement (it’s behind your ear), it made it pretty hard for the other party to hear me during calls sometimes, particularly if there’s lots of background noise. I’m glad the feature is there but the microphone’s location really needs to be closer to your mouth.
Verdict
I was impressed by the Mpow Seals Airflows. Bluetooth headphones tend to show compromises compared to their tethered counterparts but these were great.
Though the controls are a little difficult to use, the audio quality, design and fit are excellent.
If you’re wanting a set of Bluetooth headphones, particularly for the gym or running, the Mpow Seals Airflow are fantastic.
Getting One
The Mpow Seals Airflow are available from Amazon, Mpow, GearBest and eBay.
Check Price at Amazon
