Asus Zenbeam 2

CRYSTAL CLEAR CALLS COME TO THE TRUE WIRELESS WORLD.

PLANTRONICS IS RESPONSIBLE for producing the headset used by the first astronauts on the moon, and now some 50 years later the company has finally brought its prestige in voice communication to the true wireless realm.

The BackBeat Pro 5100 are incredibly compact and lightweight, as is their charging case, which manage to pack 6.5 and 13 hours of battery life respectively, although unfortunately the latter connects via a dated microUSB port. The audio quality coming from these little earbuds belies their size, offering excellent clarity and a well-rounded frequency response out of the box. Upon connecting them with the BackBeat app, you’ll notice a wealth of features, including Find My Headset and the ability to configure its (rather finicky) touch and click controls to launch playlists, start a stopwatch, read out the time, and more. When making calls on the Pro 5100, they use a system of four noise-cancelling microphones in combination with WindSmart technology to cut out background noise and wind. In practice, this works rather well – certainly better than other true wireless products we’ve tested – and the ability to move your call to your handset when the ‘buds sense you’ve taken them out is genius. Unfortunately, we found their fit a little awkward.

Being late to the game means that Plantronics has plenty of competition, especially at, and under, the $299 price point, but nothing has come close to the call clarity of the BackBeat Pro 5100, so if that’s important it’s likely worth the investment.