Tuesday, 18 September 2018

Boat products review: Inexpensive phone accessories with quirky design

Boat is inexpensive, not cheap. It needs a bit of tweaking before taking on the audio biggies

Quirky is a characteristic of Boat, a comparatively new consumer electronics brand founded in 2016. Its designs have a generous use of bright colours -- red, pink, blue, fluorescent -- and the occasional grey and black, aimed at catching the eye in the cluttered segment of affordable mobile phone accessories. The company makes earphones, headphones and portable speakers, along with accessories such as chargers and cables. We tested out one in each category for its design, quality and ruggedness.
Rockerz 430 (on-ear wireless headphones)

The packaging of Boat products is unimpressive across categories. The boxes are flimsy and aesthetically banal -- uncharacteristically opposite of how the products look. The Rockerz 430 we reviewed has a charcoal grey exterior and is bright red inside. The plastic headband feels solid and the PU coating makes the headphones comfortable to hang on the neck when not in use. It’s also light.
have never been a fan of small ear-cups that sit on the ears and not cover them completely. Doesn’t matter the cushioning on the cups, even the slightest of pressure makes the headphones hard to keep on for extended use. The Rockerz 430 has a passive noise cancellation, which means they sit on the ears snuggly to block the outside noise by design; and the headphones won’t slip off even if you run with them. But not everyone can get used to the pressure on the outer ear.
The Rockerz 430 is paired easily, and is even faster to connect the next time. The over-enthusiastic announcer welcoming you with “you have plugged into Nirvana” is quite unnecessary though.
Moving on, the headphones don’t falter on delivering the low frequency sounds right. The sub-bass is deep and surround. Even the mids -- that include the vocals -- are clear. Listening to Drake and DJ Khaled is a pleasure, but only until the highs kick in. It seems like in order to achieve satisfactory base, the highs have been amped up. And the distortion is quite evident when bass takes a back seat. The snare drums in Highway to Hell by AC/DC were overbearing after a point, and by the time I moved an era to Charlie Puth’s Done for Me for its treble-heavy music and Puth’s high-pitched voice, I could not increase the volume over 70 per cent. While the bass is good, the overall sound quality Rockerz 430 delivers for Rs 1,995 -- even though cost-effective -- is average, at best.

No comments:

Post a Comment