Design and features:These earphones have an integrated microphone and volume, music player function, and call connect/disconnect controls for use with paired Bluetooth devices. This model is claimed by the manufacturer to be water resistant. It is also claimed to have a wireless operating range of 100 feet, but maximum range we were able to get in our tests varied from 33 to 75 feet. It comes with six pairs of ear pieces in various types and sizes, three pairs of removable ear bowl supports in various sizes, a USB charging cable, and a charging cradle/recharger battery/carrying case. The free Altec Lansing Freedom app download for Apple and Android mobile devices can be used to find this earphone if it is misplaced.
Sound quality: We found the True Wireless Earbuds delivers sound quality that falls in the fair range, meaning that it has sonic shortcomings that leave a lot to be desired when listening to music but don't rule it out for dialog and communication. The overall sound can best be summarized as boomy and muffled. Bass (as in bass drums, bass guitars, stand-up bass, etc.) has good impact and goes fairly deep, but is prominent and boomy. The midrange (voices, guitars, horns, etc.) is muffled, congested (think sonic traffic jam), and somewhat overwhelmed by the bass. The treble (cymbals, the upper range of violins, etc.) is dull and subdued. The sound is closed-in (sound-wise it is obvious that you have something plugging your ears) and lacks a bit of liveliness. The earphones also produced a faint whining and ticking background noise, and depending on the sample we were testing, the volume of the right side earphone lowered or dropped out completely from time to time. If scored on the tonal quality and clarity of the sound alone this model would have scored in the middle to upper fair range, but the background noise and right channel volume issues further detracted from the sound quality of these earphones and dropped the score to the bottom of fair.
Comfort: We found that these earphones fit and stay in place with no problems; the ear bowl supports make the fit very stable even with vigorous head movement. As typical of in-ear models they produce a sense of pressure in the ear canal opening might be uncomfortable for some. Unlike most in-ear models we found that the earpieces were prone to falling off when the earphone was removed from the ear.
