| Product: |
Philips SBC HC8440 |
| Date: |
12/02/08 (550 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Wireless, FM
Disadvantages: Non replacable ear pads, some cable issues
Being restricted by wires is a major pain so I decided to purchase some cordless headphones. The Philips cordless headphones are a good choice look pretty stylish and are comfortable to wear.
Unboxing
In the box you will get, the headphones (obviously lol) with only one ear pad, the other of the ear pads,2 rechargeable AAA batteries which are great as they save you a fortune on buying regular AAAs, a Multilanguage instruction sheet which is detailed and helpful providing you with all you could possible need to know, AC adaptor for the base unit, the base unit, charge cable to connect the headphones to the base unit, an antennae holder and a headphone adaptor for connecting your headphones to older audio equipment. All of this is packaged well in a generous amount of cardboard packaging so everything stays put during transport, thumbs up!
Looks:
The headphones are a stylish black with silver ear cups, the plastics feel of high quality and there is a comfortable leather band to firmly keep them on your head. A red light indicates if the headphones are turned on. The base station is made of reflective black plastic which looks very sleek (but can get dusty), it has two lights a red one to indicate it is receiving a signal and transmitting and a green light for when the headphones are charging.
Set up
The setup process is relatively easy. First you place the rechargeable batteries into the headphones then screw on the ear pad, compared to a set of Sony cordless earphones this was a joy to do as on the Sonys the battery cover would not unscrew! Next plug in the AC adaptor and connect it to the base station, insert the charge cable into the plug labelled charge and then into the headphones. If this is your first time using the headphones you will have to wait 16 hours for the batteries to charge before you can use them. In the meantime you can use the cable on the base station to connect the audio cable into the device you wish to listen to (this can be anything with a headphone jack). Once the headphones are fully charged you simply hit the power button and you can listen away!
Features
One of these headphones main features is its FM as opposed to infra red. What this means is it will work at distances of up to 30 metres from where the base station is positioned. With infra red you must be within 10 metres. The battery life is claimed at 16 hours (the same as the charge time) and I find this to be rather generous as I rarely get more than 12 hours of use. The headphones feature some audio enhancing features to give you the best sound quality possible; this includes double PLL and 32mm speaker drivers. Another handy feature is the use of two audio channels which are selectable on the headphones and base station; this is useful especially if you have two pairs of headphones as one pair can be used for one thing while another person can listen to something else. They also include a handy feature which will turn the headphones off to preserve battery life if no signal has been detected for 5 minutes. All in all I think they're rather feature packed!
Drawbacks
There are some minor annoyances with this set of headphones, for a start they are heavier on one side because of the batteries. This can be slightly awkward at first but you will quickly adjust. Also the pads on the earphones are non replaceable so when they are worn out the earphones are far less comfy to wear. I have also noticed that your ears can sweat if you wear them for too long which can be incredibly uncomfortable! There are some flaws with the base unit, for example the included charge cable is incredibly short (about 30cm) so you have to charge the headphones right next to base unit, this is worsened by the fact that the cable you have to connect the base unit to your audio equipment is not very long. Nothing major but the ear sweat could be very annoying for some!
Price
These are pretty cheap for what they are costing only £30-35 at good electronic suppliers like Comet and Currys.digital. You may get an even better price if you shop around and check online retailers like amazon.co.uk. I liked them so much I bought a second pair! Compared to other brands they offer many features of much more expensive models, so if you are in the market for a good quality pair of wireless headphones (with a few minor annoyances!) I highly recommend these. 4/5
Summary: A brilliant pair of wireless headphones.
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