Looking to say goodbye to cable entanglement misery with a pair of Bluetooth ‘phones? You could do a lot worse than to invest in the Philips SHB7100 earphones.
Making a Bluetooth clip look stylish isn’t easy, but the Philips SHB7100 look as smart as Pierce Brosnan after a dash around Gieves and Hawkes. The splendiforous styling is complemented by the ease of use: the small pendant lets you stream sounds from your mobile and acts as a hands-free headset, controlling calls with a touch of its button – or, if you prefer, voice-dialing through its built-in microphone!
Another neat feature Philips has thrown in is the AVRCP, which automatically pauses any music that you were listening to when you start to receive a call. So you can pick up that Meat Loaf tune where you left it when your mum rang. Oh and thanks to the 3.5mm jack, you can attach any headphones!
Performance-wise, the Philips SHB7100s fit snuggly in your lug ‘oles and are actually pretty comfortable compared to other offerings. They sound natural enough and have a decent amount of bass slap to boot. The lack of noise-cancelling on the inline mic, however, can impair a conversation if there’s too much unbearable background noise in your vicinity. You know the sort: trains, tubes, Del Amitri concerts.
Those niggles aside the Philips SHB7100s offer a respectable battery life of between eight and ten hours, look the business, and generally send wireless tunes/conversations to your ears sans wires. We like.
