back to article OneOdio Focus A5: Big battery, budget sound, and a bargain bin price

OneOdio has released a set of over-ear noise-cancelling headphones for an apparent bargain price of £59 ($69). However, they are also a prime example of the axiom "you get what you pay for," or perhaps even a bit less. OneOdio Focus A5 headphones The Focus A5 headphones boast some premium features, including noise-cancelling …

  1. Andy Non Silver badge
    Trollface

    "active noise cancelling won't block out the carol singers"

    That's no good then! Useless.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is a bit random, isn't it?

    I mean, the Reg isn't where we normally come for our hardware reviews; If we did, we'd expect it to be the sort of technophile kit that would interest us, not value-priced mediocrity in beige; And it's not much use publishing a review so near to Christmas that it's not useful information for many potential buyers?

    1. Dave559

      Re: This is a bit random, isn't it?

      The Reg used to do rather more in the way of reviews: mobile phones, netbooks (remember them?), the latest expensive Apple shiny thing, possibly even digital cameras (if my memory isn't imagining that), etc.

      The products reviewed were indeed always a little bit random (probably aligned for the most part with whatever specific products had actually been sent to the vultures for them to pick over), but I rather enjoyed reading them, and it added a bit more of a human touch that sadly is a little bit lacking from the current style of The Reg to some extent nowadays.

      I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of this sort of thing again…

      (But, yeah, this review would indeed have been better timed for a week or two ago…)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is a bit random, isn't it?

      It could be useful to people who don't know how to spend the inevitable Amazon vouchers they got for Christmas.

  3. Chris Gray 1
    Thumb Up

    Another option

    Yes, an odd kind of thing for El Reg. That said, I wanted some new noise-cancelling headphones for when some parkade work, including jackhammering, was happening for a month or so in my building. I got a pair from Amazon. The brand is "runolim". CDN $50. Runtime is listed as 70 hours. When connected to a phone, you can use buttons on them to control the playback - e.g. forward and backward in your playlist. I doubt these would completely block out carol singers, but then that's not a priority...

    1. Sandtitz Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Another option

      "When connected to a phone, you can use buttons on them to control the playback - e.g. forward and backward in your playlist."

      Nothing fancy there - my Bose QC35 headphones from circa 8 years ago have those playback buttons that work with my phone and Windows and automatically pauses music when there's an incoming call.

      These Bose's are still perfectly fine, although I've had to replace the ear pads last year due to deterioration. The battery lasts closer to 20 hours though, not 70 hours.

    2. FelixReg

      Re: Another option

      I got those for $26 last July. Looks like they are $24 right now.

      They work OK. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the killed road noise.

  4. HarryBl

    Sony wants a word...

    1. elbisivni

      Just not the XM5s. I'm on pair three due to dodgy hinges (I'm not the only one to have this problem as a quick peruse of the relevant forums on Reddit and elsewhere will show ).

      Now looking for a pair of new XM4s which have a slightly more robust build. I also understand they offer a bit less of the punter pleasing overly bassy sound profile than the XM5s, which will be nice.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Getting names wrong

    There was a time when western companies could pick a name which sounded bad in some languages. Now thanks to Chinese companies those times are back... "Odio" means "hate" in Spanish.

    1. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Getting names wrong

      No doubt they'll be expanding into North America with their new subsidiary, "Odio US"

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Getting names wrong

      I'm not sure it will be as big a problem as it seems. While you're right that odio is hate in Spanish, audio is as much a word in Spanish as it is in English, and people will understand that. I'm reminded of the urban legend that a car named the Nova sold badly in Spanish-speaking countries because "no va" means "doesn't go". Most people understood the etymology of new, easy as the Spanish word for that is nuevo/nueva, and there was not a difference in sales. For a similar reason, the word "one" is the word for sand in a number of Polynesian languages including Maori and Hawaiian, but I don't think people are going to be confused by that either.

  6. Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world

    Can anyone recommend noise cancellers with a *directional* mike

    > Finally, there is also an omnidirectional mic, which was perfectly acceptable for calls in quiet places or Zoom meetings but struggled when there was too much background noise.

    This.

    The office can get quite noisy. So I'm looking for an over-ear headset (which could be either active or passive noise reducing) but with a decent, directional microphone so that when I stop speaking it doesn't suddenly ramp up its sensitivity and stream the conversations of all and sundry in the office.

    I can't seem to find anything priced less than "airline pilot spec" though. :-(

    Suggestions, or better still, recommendations would be welcome.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Can anyone recommend noise cancellers with a *directional* mike

      Boom mic.

      That's what you need.

      Once upon a time I had a headset where raising the boom automatically muted. Was an excellent feature that I've never seen since.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Can anyone recommend noise cancellers with a *directional* mike

      Not only that: I got some expensive Sony. With Windows, the only way to use the microphone is with Bluetooth, and when using Bluetooth, the audio quality of the headphones is abominable. It's a Windows thing apparently, it picks the lowest compression algorithm when there's a microphone. With Android, it's fine.

      Ah well, I use the cable and my laptop's microphone instead. I guess that's called progress...

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