Design and features:The Gear IconX has integrated microphones and a touch sensitive volume, music player, call connect/disconnect, and activity tracker control for paired Bluetooth devices. Additional features include a built-in digital music player, and a built-in activity tracker with average heart rate, step counter, duration timer, average speed, and calories used functions that provides activity tracker feedback when used by itself and with the free Samsung S Health app. Our tests showed the accuracy of the heart rate monitor to be very good and step counter to be excellent. This model is claimed by the manufacturer to be water resistant and comes with three pairs of ear pieces in various sizes, three pairs of ear bowl supports in various sizes, a USB charging/data cable, a USB adapter, and a charging cradle/recharger battery/carrying case. It can be used with the free Samsung Gear setup app and S Health fitness tracker app downloads, which are available for Android mobile phones, and the free Samsung Gear IconX Manager program for PCs which is used for transferring audio files to the IconX's internal music player.
Sound quality: The Gear IconX can reproduce audio from two sources; from Bluetooth wireless connected devices and from its own internal digital music player. Regardless of the source we found that it delivers sound quality that, all things considered, falls in the good range - it reproduces music and voice reasonably well despite the obvious shortcomings in its sound. If scored on the tonal quality and clarity of the sound alone this model would have scored in the very good range, but one earphone occasionally sounds louder than and/or out of sync with the other (instead of the right and left earphones playing together in sync, one would sound like it was playing slightly ahead of the other), and sometimes the sound was intermittent or we heard faint clicking noises. Because the syncing, volume level, and glitching issues detracted from the sound quality of these earphones we dropped the score to good. The overall sound for Bluetooth sources can best be summarized as somewhat bassy, hazy and soft. Bass (as in bass drums, bass guitars, stand-up bass, etc.) has good impact and goes fairly deep, but is somewhat prominent and boomy. The midrange (voices, guitars, horns, etc.) is fairly even, but is somewhat hazy and grainy. The treble (cymbals, the upper range of violins, etc.) is fairly extended, but smeared (sounds that should have a delicate shimmer sound blurred), and a bit prominent. While the sound has a good sense of liveliness it is somewhat closed-in -- sound-wise it is somewhat obvious that you have something plugging up your ears. The sound quality of the internal music player was similar to that of the Bluetooth paired mode but the midrange was a touch less hazy; although there was a slight improvement it was not enough to change the overall score.
Comfort: We found that these earphones stay in place with no problem; 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. Some users might find that it inserts uncomfortably deep into the ear canal, and if the size and/or shape of the user's earbowl doesn't allow good contact with the earphone's heart rate sensors the earphones will turn off by themselves. Incidental contact with the touch controls can cause unintentional track pause, playback, skipping, or volume level changes, or engagement/disengagement of other features. Some uses might find that tapping on the touch control, which is required to actuate some functions, causes ear discomfort.
