I don’t exercise as much as I should; I have a gym membership but never go, I have tonnes of equipment at home that just sits there and I bought a nice pair of running trainers which are still in the box. I made myself a new years resolution that I would get into shape, especially when my doctor advised I could afford to use a few pounds and she wasn’t talking about my gambling problem. Unfortunately I get bored easily and disillusioned at the idea of wasting my time doing physical activity when I could be binge watching the latest original series on Amazon Prime or Netflix. One reason I don’t go the gym is I don’t like people, for no general reason other than they annoy me; the other reason is that I have to be listening to my own music. The problem is I have all my music on my phone since my iPod broke, and as cool as the OnePlus One is, it doesn’t have an armband accessory to attach my phone to. I also had the issue if I was jogging or bouncing around then the earphones would fall out of my ear and get tangled in my chubby legs. I tried to use bluetooth earphones but kept kept forgetting to charge them, and my brother kept taking them when going to work.
That’s when I found the perfect solution to my music listening problem, it seemed an obvious idea but one I hadn’t seen on the shelf before at any retailers renowned for selling fitness products and accessories; The Sandberg RunPhones(R). These are an amazing creation which combines earphones and a sweatband into one. I know putting two different products together to create a new one doesn’t always work, I mean look at Homer Simpson when he created the make-up shotgun. But by merging these two it thus removes the problem of earphones falling out of your ears, and because it has a long cable it eliminates the need to to charge them up constantly after use. I guess some critics may not prefer a wired set because they’d worry that a slight jerk reaction may cause the phone to be tugged out of your pocket, but the cable is long enough that you can have your phone at your side and there is still a bit of slack on the line to erode those fears.
As for the design and style of the RunPhones(R) they do look the perfect accessory for any keen runner. The sweat band is made from 100% recycled polyester and comes in black with a little orange logo on the side, so it is more than suitable to go with whatever outfit you wear. It would be nice to maybe have a choice of a few more colours as well for those who really want to match it to their outfit but it’s not really a real issue as it doesn’t affect their performance. I did feel I looked a little daft though with the front of the band sitting under my fringe and pushing my hair in the air, but who seriously looks good when working out?I mean it turns everyone into a big sweaty mess. As for its comfort it was alright, it felt a little tight but I do have a big head and I suppose it has to be so it doesn’t slip out of place. Still I think maybe having an adjustable strap so you can have it as tight or as loose as you want it would be a nice improvement upon the current design.
As for the cable, it comes out the back of the sweatband through a small slot so you can thread it down the back of your top to wherever your phone or mp3 device may be. Don’t worry about it irritating your skin by doing that either as it is coated in a soft fabric as opposed to rubber like many headsets which gives it a quality look and feel; and like I said the cable is a good size measuring in at 1.2 metres in length. I guess this will have some people wondering about cleaning this headset because you can’t put electronics in a washing machine, and the sweat band will be very stinky after a hardcore session. Well the earphones are removable and the sweat band just simply gets tossed into the wash ready for a good clean. It’s so easy to do, although me and my stubby fingers had a little more trouble getting them back in, but it’s still simple enough a child could do it. I’m not sure how many washes before the the band starts to show signs of wear or tear in it but mine has been through on a cycle a couple of times and it looks as new as when it came out of the packaging and is still just as durable.
Time for the important part, the sound quality. Having a mum who works in audiology really helped with this bit as I looked at the frequency range which is 20Hz – 20kHz and began wondering what that actually meant. But with the help of what is known as a banana diagram and a decibel converter found using google, it turns out that it goes from about as quiet as a tap dripping all the way to being a little quieter than a screaming baby, which anyone with their own bundle of joy or a younger sibling will know, is VERY loud. The issue with many devices built for emitting sound is that at the top of their range the quality tends to fizzle out and you can end up with a lot of distortion. With the RunPhones(R) this wasn’t really the case, the sound was clear on full volume and I could hear in perfect clarity the words to each song, however there was a noticeable lack of bass which was a little disappointing. Still I was pleasantly surprised overall as I did expect being wrapped up in fabric the sound would sound muffled and it wasn’t at all.
As good as everything has been so far, the one thing that would have been nice to see personally is an additional wrist sweatband included in the package, because as good a job as the RunPhones(R) do at mopping my brow, it’d be nice to have something to just wipe up the rest of my face with as well. Saying that though, this is by far the best fitness related product I have ever had and I’ve wasted a lot of money on gadgets that just get tossed into the attic never to be heard from again. Yes it has some areas that it can be improved upon with an adjustable head strap and some work on the bass output from the earphones being my suggestions, but none of us our perfect so I don’t expect the things I review to be either; there is always room for improvement. Therefore my overall verdict on the Sandberg RunPhones(R) is that for any fitness fanatic, whether you be a runner or someone who likes to play on the Wii Fit and Xbox Kinect, then you should definitely go and buy them.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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