The Oppo Enco X was announced alongside the Oppo Reno 5 Pro on 18th January 2021, promising an immersive sound with the best auditory experience on Android. These earbuds pack some premium features like Active Noise Cancellation, Co-created with Dynaudio and IP54 dust and water resistance, should moreover be work pretty well with other devices due to 5.2 Bluetooth connectivity. So, We’ve been rocking these for almost a month now, and here’s our review:-

DESIGN

The Oppo Enco X stands very premium which boasts a Pebble shaped design. Though it consists of glossy plastic, this choice keeps everything lightweight and distributes a similar design profile with Apple Airpods Pro but also grasps scratches and stains very easily. The earbud sports a dangling stem; with a glass finish on the corners which shine and huge charging contact points. Tossing them into jeans doesn’t feel bulkier in pockets. It stimulates two charging modes to charge this case, the first is through a USB Type C and other with Qi Wireless Charging.

The outside of the case is illustrated with a pairing button surrounded by a silver ribbon. It has ‘Oppo’ branding on the top and ‘Co-Created with Dynaudio’ on the hinge of the case and houses a single LED for battery status which indicates ‘Red’ when the battery is low, ‘Orange” when charging and ‘Green’ when charged. As it offers IP54 Water and Dust resistance, it’s safe to bring it near to the dust and water and can be used for workout sessions as well.

COMFORT & CALL QUALITY

Meanwhile, Each of the earbuds weighs just 4.8 grams and the fit is extremely snugly for longer playback sessions. Fit is a subjective topic and it depends on the shape of your ears. In our usage, the small-sized ear tips worked pretty well providing the perfect fit for our ears. They also ship it with a variety of tips for different ears sizes in the box. These nozzles seal the ear canal which improves noise cancellation for better sound output.

It comes in two colour options:-, Black and White; Black catches smudges easily meanwhile that’s not the common cause with the White colourway. The brand has tuned them with Dynaudio to provide a precise audio performance. It sets three mics in each earbud:- Feedback mic, a feed-forward mic, and an internal mic; which works when Call sessions and Noise cancellation comes to play. These mics also include wind-detection which cancels out the noise over voice calls. The other party has no trouble listening to our voice while indoors and in outdoor situations

AUDIO QUALITY

These buds utilize DBEE 3.0 sound structure technology which enhances the audio frequencies. It features Coaxial Dual Design which is continually available in high-end audio peripherals. In the front, a 6mm magnetic membrane deals with higher music frequencies along with the 3 dynamic drivers with 11mm membrane to address the low and middle frequencies and the audio latency is very low.

As it sports 5.2 Bluetooth connectivity, The buds support 3 codecs like LHDC(Low Latency High-Definition Audio), AAC, and SBC. This LHDC is an audio codec from Sony which is not widely adopted as of now. Even if it’s better than AptX, It lacks streaming apps that support Hi-Res Audio. Hence, LHDC will be valuable in the future but till the time, you’ve to rely on AAC and SBC.

Let’s dawn with the most beautiful part now while reviewing an audio peripheral, which is the Sound Quality in which the sound details are impressive, the vocals are clear while listening to bass-rich music. Highs and mids don’t receive much emphasis, it’s neutral. People who listen to pop, hip-hop, rap, and dance music will enjoy this sound signature, as it adds a greater impact to your music without auditory masking. If you loved that extra bass, listening to songs like Jingle Bell by Honey Singh and BAD by Sidhu Moose Wala, there is a divergence between bass and dialogue. The isolation is promising as you use the proper ear tips to achieve a proper fit.

Uttering about Active Noise Cancellation, This impressed me a lot. It’s not as promising as the Apple Airpods Pro but it’s better than some of the budget TWS which offers ANC. It offers two audio cancellation modes:-Noise Cancellation and Max Noise Cancellation, so you can block out background sounds even better. Meanwhile, you need an app named Hey Melody to configure between Regular ANC and Max ANC. But, as soon as you’ll start using Max ANC, there’s no bending back to Regular ANC. The Max ANC cancels out the low-midrange frequencies, We listen to music on Max ANC while travelling on 100℅ volumes in cars and trains, no background noise disturbed our experience. It also has a transparency mode which lets in the ambient noise from the surroundings. There is no sound leakage problem too.

CONTROLS AND APP COMPATIBILITY

The touch gestures are enjoyable, allowing you gestures like double-tap to change tracks or Play/pause music, Triple tap to activate voice assistant, Slide the control to adjust the volume or to switch tracks, touch and hold for 1 second for ANC and 3 seconds for to switch to another device, can be useful while switching between laptop and smartphone. However, we wished that these had a single tap gesture also to play/pause music. The gestures can be customized with the HeyMelody App itself. Though, the independence of customizing gestures in the app is limited as you can’t assign any favourable task on these gestures. The touch gestures work well and accurately almost every time.

HeyMelody app is available on Playstore to take over the controls on this TWS. This app facilitates the user to download the latest firmware, to check the battery status of the case and earbuds, earbuds control, and earbuds fit-test. If you’re an iOS user, you need this app to customize the gesture and upgrade the firmware and sadly it’s not available for iOS users yet. If you’re an iOS user, there’s no app support for iPhone users as of now.

BATTERY PERFORMANCE

The Oppo Enco X charging case packs-in a 535mAh battery and each of the earbuds pack a 44 mAh battery. Oppo claims that these earphones can last up to 4 hours on a single with ANC turned on with 50% volume and when ANC is turned off, the buds can last up to 5.5 hours. Along with the charging case, it offers up to 20-25 hours.

While our review period, With Max ANC with 100% Volume, offers almost 3 hours of music playback, and with ANC turned off with 100% volume, it offers a battery backup of 4 hours or so. If you’ll reduce the volume to 50% or 70%, it can shell out more battery hours. On the continuous use of these for 6 hours usage per day, We would be able to finish the battery levels of it after 3 days. The charging case takes almost 1.5 hours while using a Type-C output and buds can be recharged again by the charging case within an hour.

OPPO ENCO X: THE UNBIASED REVIEW

The Oppo Enco X comes at a price of Rs. 9990 and ships with 2 colour variants, Black and White. If you’re someone who wants an excellent proportional audio experience, active noise cancellation, solid build quality, accurate gestures control, a good battery life, and satisfactory comfort. The collaboration with Dynaudio stands out exceptionally well and makes these earbuds worth the price. However, LHDC is a codec that is still not compatible as of now and the lack of app compatibility for iOS users might be a deal-breaker for some. The ANC is not as same as Apple Airpods Pro but it works very well in its segment. If you’re someone for whom iOS compatibility and codec support matters, then these are not for you. Else, We believe that an earphone should nail the basics like comfort, build and sound quality I can recommend these earphones to you.

Disclaimer: We tested the Oppo Enco X for a months before writing this review. All our reviews are unbiased and are published without the brand getting to read it before you guys. We don’t change our reviews on pressure from brands and that’s the reason we are not sent review units from companies like Samsung, OnePlus and a few more.