Samsung has outshone Apple by not only rolling out its version of wireless earbuds, but also making them available to buy before its rival. Priced at Rs 13,490, the Gear IconX is relatively cheaper than Apple’s yet-to-debut Airpods, and works with most Android devices.
Wearable electronics in the form of smartwatches and fitness bands have failed to live up to the billing. Can the wireless wearable brigade rise up to the challenge?
Pros:
- Easy to pair
- Host of features, including heart-rate sensor
- Snugly fits in your ear
- Touch-based controls
Cons:
- Too many features take a toll on battery life
- Lacks support for high-quality audio codecs
- Device-to-app sync needs improvement
- First-of-its kind product syndrome
- One for the future
What’s Good?
Samsung has made a wireless wearable gear suited for fitness enthusiasts. The Gear IconX has a lot to offer – heart-rate sensor, touch support for control, built-in storage and microphone.
You get a pair of compactly designed earbuds that nestle nicely inside your ears. While you still have to fear them getting lost, it is not as bad as with Airpods (good luck with those).
The touch-based control support comes in handy, especially considering its dimension. You can use it to play a track, pause it, increase/decrease volume and so on.
The built-in heart-rate sensor plays the same role as we’ve come to see on the fitness bands worn over the wrist.
There’s a lot to like about the Gear IconX, and it’s good to see that Samsung has managed to double the 300mAh battery on the earbuds, with further support from the carrying case. You can charge this via a micro-USB port placed at the back.
What’s Bad?
The Gear IconX as a product is relatively nascent, and one gets to the obvious weaknesses, as and when used for a long duration.
The fit-to-wear earbuds tend to warm up, and you feel the uneasiness after wearing these for more than 20 minutes. This is mainly attributed to the hoarding of so many features into a device which can barely take the toll.
IconX is supposed to work in tandem with Samsung’s Gear Manager app, (one needs to install the IconX plugin) but our experience here was a mixed bag. This is something that Samsung can work on with the IconX v2.0.
There is nothing impressive about the audio quality of the earbuds. Bluetooth compatibility is the sole silver lining for the device, which sacrifices other audio codec support so that it can last longer on a single charge.
The charging case has an LED light indicator, but it is hard to say when the device is fully charged. It is either red or green, which reminded us of the sandwich makers that offer similar colour codes.
And finally, the 300mAh battery fails to walk the talk. On an average, we couldn’t muster more than 70 minutes with the Gear IconX when paired with a phone, and on the standalone mode, not beyond the hour mark. Cramming too many features on such a small device is the only reason for its battery downfall.
Why Buy It?
Samsung’s Gear IconX gives us a glimpse into the future of wearables. Wireless brings convenience like never before. However, it has its own shortcomings, but luckily for Samsung, there’s still time before we get to see what Apple’s Airpods can offer.
Gear IconX pitches itself as a full-fledged fitness wearable that’s gone wireless. However, there are chinks in the armour which require fine-tuning, and the device needs a bigger battery. We’ll give full marks to Samsung for bringing this out, but that’s about it.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)