Enter MEElectronics Air-Fi AF32
When I got a chance to review MEElec's latest (and possibly the only at the moment) wireless offering, the
Air-Fi AF32 BT headphones, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn't have high expectations at all, but I was curious if the Bluetooth reception can improve - after all, if Sony's buds are having trouble even at a few feet away, maybe all Bluetooth headphones have issues.
the IS800), not three, but
sixcontroller buttons. I'm going to talk about them later in more detail, but let's just say I was very pleasantly surprised.
The pairing process was extremely simple and worked like a charm. No manual necessary. I just held the power button until I saw some flashing red and blue lights, set my device (
Sprint's Epic 4G Touch Galaxy S II) to scan for BT accessories, clickity-click, and voila - I was paired.
And then I turned on some of my favorite tunes.
The AF32 is relatively light - it's by no means a studio quality headset, but don't be fooled by that - the sound that came out blew me away, mostly because I didn't set my expectations high for something that only costs $79.99 and has wireless technology built-in. After all the chips, buttons, and leather, how much budget did MEElec have to spend on the drivers themselves? Turns out, quite a bit.
The headphones are very comfortable to wear, with one caveat which I'll talk about later.
The next hour was spent on watching the wife excitedly hop around the room in disbelief that something untethered could sound and look so good, and, you know, that there was no cable to get in the way. And that's the most important part - after a while, you don't want to go back. Life is good on the other side.
As you can probably tell, my initial impressions were good. Really good. I was blown away. But even the greatest gadgets could end up having at least some flaws, so I put off the review for several weeks to get some solid testing time.
It's now been 2-3 weeks, and I'm finally ready to issue the final verdict, though not before discussing all the ways the AF32 excels and mentioning a few things it could have done better, all in my favorite bullet-point style. Let's have a look.
the AF32 on or off, pause and un-pause, answer a call, etc.
- Previous track (single click) / Rewind (hold).
- Next (single click) / Fast Forward (hold).
- Volume Up and Down. Unfortunately, this volume is independent of Android's BT media volume, which seems a bit silly. I usually end up setting the BT media volume to a few notches away from max and control that range with AF32's own volume. It's really not a big deal.
- Solid Bluetooth reception - much, much, much better than Sony HBH-IS800. It's almost perfect. More on why it's not totally perfect later.
- Built-in microphone - want to take a call or use voice commands? There is a small mic at the bottom of the right ear, which I found pretty good. However, sometimes I experienced some serious issues when answering or placing calls. I'll talk about them later.
- Great sound - the sound when playing music is truly terrific, much better than I expected. The frequency range seems very good, the bass is good (not as precise as my Ultimate Ears Super Fi 5 Pros, but still pretty good). Not once did I cringe when I put these on, and while I'm not a hardcore audiophile, I look for sound quality in all of my audio products.
- Long battery life (4-5 days of pretty heavy usage - 4-6 hours a day). MEElec told me the AF32is rated for 12 hours of music playing time, 10 hours of talk time, and 100 hours of standby time, but they have tested much longer for all three of those.
- 3.5mm audio jack in case you need to connect to a transmitter that doesn't have Bluetooth. The 3.5mm-to-3.5mm cable is included in the box.
- No extra charge port - the same 3.5mm jack is used for charging via a special USB->3.5mm adapter (also included in the box). Brilliant, I've never even seen one of those before.
- Foldable design and a handy carrying case.
- Headband adjusts for larger head sizes.
- Multi-function light (blue, red) that indicates the pairing mode status as well as on/off and charging states.
- Easy pairing. Just turn it on and keep holding the power button until the lights start flashing red/blue. Then initiate a Bluetooth search on your device, select AF32, and voila - you're done.
- Last but definitely not least, price. $79.99 is very-very affordable for this product in my opinion.
