Featured Review: Mpow Swift Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Headphones

Monday, February 2, 2015

Featured Review: Mpow Swift Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Headphones

You can debate between wired and wireless headsets when it comes to sound quality, but when it comes to working out or doing any sort of physical activity, wireless headsets win every time. The Mpow Swift Bluetooth Headphones are sporting headphones designed for active use. They also offer surprisingly good sound, and when you factor in the low price point, they become a bit of a no-brainer. Let’s take a closer look at the Mpow Swift Bluetooth 4.0 Headphones and see why I recommend you go pick up a pair.

Design

The Mpow Swift headphones are sturdy and the cord that runs between the two earpieces is thick. On the right earpiece we find the main multi-function button that turns the power on and off, as well as the volume rocker. The left earpiece houses the charging port. The earpieces fit well because Mpow gives you three different sized rubber tips. You can find the ones that are right for your ears. They also come with stabilizers in two types, with three different sizes of each type of stabilizer. These allow you to find the right size for your ears and also wear different stabilizers based on your activity. If you are just wearing them when you’re out for a walk, you can use the softer, thinner ones. If you are getting in an intense workout or run, you can wear the more heavy duty stabilizers to ensure the headphones don’t fall out of your ears.

The Mpow Swift headphones aren’t small, though. If you have small ears, you should be able to find a fit that is comfortable for you. You will probably find that the earpieces stick out of yours a good ways, however. The cord is also a bit longer than I would have liked. I normally wore it behind my neck when I was working out, but there were times when I was bench pressing or doing crunches that I had to move it to the front of my neck. I was laying on it and pulling the earpieces out. When I was running, I had to move it to the back of my neck because if the cord was in front it would bounce on my chest. This isn’t a deal breaker, but it’s something to keep in mind. You may find yourself adjusting the cord in the middle of a workout based on what you’re doing.

Pairing the headphones is simple. Just charge them fully, press the multi-function and hold it until the LED flashes red and blue, and then go into the Bluetooth settings on your phone and hit discover. The headset will do the rest. I had no issues with connectivity on the headphones. They paired and connected easily, and then stayed connected like they are supposed to. Turning them off disconnects the Bluetooth connection. They will reconnect automatically when you turn them back on.

Sound

Even when I’m working out, I want my music to sound good. I don’t need top notch audiophile sound out of my workout headphones, but I still want to enjoy the music. The Mpow Swift headphones definitely deliver here. Like most Bluetooth audio devices sound is compressed, but the Swift headphones support the aptX codec so this is alleviated somewhat by the higher quality stream that the codec provides. Highs are fine, if a bit rolled off. Mids are somewhat hollow sounding. There is plenty of bass, and music production comes through and the overall mix is pretty good. Once you find the right size tips for the earpieces, you can get a really good seal that blocks out background noise, too. This makes for a louder and more pleasurable listening experience.

Comfort

This one took me some tweaking to find the right fit for my ears. I tried all three sized tips and swapped out the stabilizers, finally settling on the largest tips and the smallest of the heavy duty webbed stabilizers. You’ll want to experiment with this yourself. My ears were sore after my first workout wearing the headphones because I had used a large webbed stabilizer. It was pushing on the back of my ear for an hour. Now that I’ve found the right fit for my ears, I can wear the Mpow Swift headphones for a full hour or hour and a half with no discomfort. I have noticed that when I work up a sweat, the plastic tips form a seal and can make my ears pop when I take the headphones out. This can happen with any water-resistant workout headset. If I give them a twist forward, and then backward, I can break that seal and the release the pressure inside so my ears don’t pop when I pull out the headphones.

Battery Life

You should be able to get about 6 hours between charges with these Bluetooth headphones. My workouts last an hour to an hour and a half, depending on what exercise I’m doing. I can get 5 workouts in before the battery dies. I work out four days a week, so that means I charge them on the weekends and don’t have to mess it with charging them during the week. For me, this is completely satisfactory.

Wrap-up

The Mpow Swift Bluetooth 4.0 Headphones are lightweight, easy to use, and sound decent. They are water-resistant and feel like they will hold up over time. Battery life is great, and they are comfortable once you find the right fit for your ears. The cord that connects the two earpieces is a little too long, and the earpieces will stick out of your ears a bit, especially if you have small ears. They only cost $35.99 on Amazon, so you really can’t go wrong with these if you’re looking for workout headphones or inexpensive wireless headphones for everyday use. I highly recommend them.