Boltune Wireless Earbuds 030 Review
About
The Boltune 030 are water resistant wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation and in-ear detection.
Purchase Date: 2021-09-10
Review Date: 2022-01-25
Review
The Boltune 030 are budget earbuds first and foremost. They drew my attention because they punched above their weight in features and promised audio quality. There are many different models that come out on a regular basis, so this review may function well as a general review of Boltune earbud quality.
Key features:
- Proximity sensor for auto play/pause
- Active noise control
- Long battery life for earbuds and case
- Multiple mics on each earbud
The Good
These earbuds are significantly better quality than their price may suggest. The audio quality is on par with $50+ earbuds, with healthy levels across the spectrum.
These earbuds are both comfortable to wear and use. The touch sensitive pads on each bud are easy to find and press with a light touch. The controls are easy to learn and I rarely found myself making mistakes after the first week of use.
Active noise control is a great feature, and it works very well here. You can turn it off if desired while listening to music/etc, or set it to passthrough to pause your audio and hear the outside world almost as clearly as if you didn't have earbuds in.
The batteries in the earbuds themselves last a long time, and the case will charge them up several times over before needing a recharge itself. I never found myself wishing the battery lasted longer. The case is compact, feels nice, uses USB-C, and fits easily anywhere.
The earbuds connect fairly fast since they start connecting as soon as you open the case lid. They are also reliable in their connection, and I have never needed to re-pair them to fix any issues. Taking one out of your ear causes them to auto-pause your music, and putting them back in resumes it.
The Okay
Build quality and longevity are where Boltune saved some money on these earbuds. They feel good enough quality to the touch, but with my first pair the touch controls broke out of the blue, and my second pair sometimes act up as well. Boltune did replace my first pair after having my run through some basic checks. But they also forgot to ship the replacement from their warehouse and after a month I had to reach out asking for a tracking update. They quickly shipped my replacement after that.
The Bad
I find the earbuds difficult to remove from the case. The shape of the exposed portion of the earbuds make them slippery and easy to drop when you are removing them. I would say be careful, but even still you are bound to drop them. This is bound to shorten their lifespan when coupled with their mid-range build quality.
In some instances one of the buds would not fully settle into place causing it not to charge. At least a few times one of the buds died on my because it had not charged, despite being in a charged case for hours beforehand.
The earbuds constantly disconnect and reconnect whenever I use them for phone calls. It appears that using the speakers and mic at the same time cause the connection to drop. The earbuds do automatically reconnect fairly quickly, but you can miss a lot of important things when audio cuts out for 5 seconds every few minutes. I do not know if this happens when connected to all devices, or it is an issue with my phone specifically. As it is now, they are not suitable for phone calls for me. Thankfully I only use them for music and podcasts 99% (invisible) of the time.
Decision 👍
When on sale for under $50, these are a worthwhile pair of wireless earbuds. They sound good and are feature packed.
The trade-off you are making with a cheaper pair of Boltune earbuds like this is reliability. You may occasionally run into audio, connection, or even hardware issues. I would not expect these to reliably work for more than 2 years.
With the exception of the connection dropping on calls (Which may be a deal breaker for many), I have not had any major frustrations with these earbuds, and I often hear similar or worse frustrations from people using expensive name-brand wireless earbuds.
The Rest
My Purchase Price (including tax and shipping): $39.75
Usually on Sale at TaoTronics
Usually full price at Boltune: https://www.boltune.com/products/bt-bh030-wireless-earbuds-030-bluetooth
