The Avantree Sacool was a blessing in disguise for me at first, I like listening to music especially when walking between buildings at university or waiting for my next class, but my current HTC headset can be quite a bother to untangle and keep in my pocket, when I was given this unit for reviewing my music on the go life improved so much, aside from a couple of problems I had with the Avantree Sacool is one of the better headsets you can buy for it’s price! If you can look past a couple of it’s flaws this will be a great purchase for you.
Wireless is always better? The Avantree Sacool does have some strings attached.
The Sacool is yet another Avantree product which is small, easy to setup and delivers great quality music on the move. Whlie the quality isn’t comparable to having wired headphones you have to consider that these are definitely a better substitute for wired headphones especially if you are an active runner and frequently have to put up with a mess of tangled wires more frequently than you are supposed to. Once you get the hang of hanging it around it your ears and looping it behind your hair you will be setting this up in a matter of seconds with little to no trouble in between. These things are absolutely amazing and very portable, you can put these in your pocket without having to worry about dealing with a mess of wires afterwards.
The connection was quick and simple as with any other bluetooth device, simply sync them up once and you are all set to go. I used an iPad 2 and iPod Touch 4G to review these headsets, on the iPad 2 I watched a few TV shows and a movie while on the iPod Touch I used it fully for music testing, while I prefer the use of these with the latter they work great with the iPad too espeically if you are one to do some late night watching and don’t wish to attract too much attention to yourself with added noise on an already bright screen.
In the case of movies and TV shows the audio reception was good as was the case with music, the ONLY real gripe I had with the headset was the constant problem of interruption / audio cutting in and out even when the iPod Touch was right in my pocket and the iPad 2 was right infront of me, as you can imagine audio cutting out during a TV show or a movie can be quite a bother especially at the important scenes and during music it just ruins the groove / beat you are trying to keep up with which again was an encumberance in my audio enjoyment, but when it works it does the job great! And the audio cutting happened VERY rarely, I could say it happened almost every 1/5 songs for only a second and out of 3 full hour length TV shows (Walking Dead, Dexter and Breaking Bad) it only happened for 2-3 minutes altogether in all 3 episodes collectively and this is my rough estimate but I’d say it was closer to a little over 2 minutes.
But what really makes this thing shine is how it stubbornly stays in your ear no matter how fast or how bumpy you move, I have to run quite a bit and even when accidentally bumping into walls and people along the way the ear pieces still managed to stay in place if not move a LITTLE bit out. Along with the running at university these things served me well on my daily jog / cycling regiment during which they once again stayed in place and did a fantastic job of getting me through the exercises.
Despite me being drenched in sweat the headsets were easy to clean and continued to work and even when these things got moist / slightly wet from a mixture of water and sweat these things were easy to clean off and continue using.
On a full charge the battery lasted me around 3 and a half hours give or take 10 minutes or so with a mix of loud / medium volume controlled by the buttons on the headset which come in handy especially when you are cycling and don’t want to stop to change a song as you have the volume up / down buttons which also act as the Next / Previous track button when held down and considering my workout playlist always has my favorite songs playing I almost never had to take out my iPod.
Over all the headset is great if you want small, portable, durable and indeed long lasting if used right, if you are looking to do away with wires I would highly recommend this set to you if you are able to forgive it for the minor fault of dropping a second or two of audio every now and then but the longer you use it the lower are the chances of it happening after a while and will most likely happen if you resume a song after a while or reconnect it after turning it off for a whlie but again its very minor and you will eventually get the hang of it.