Gadgetory

what's going on guys it's your average consumer and today we're gonna be taking a look at the Microsoft Surface headphones and these actually came out back in November but I wanted to spend my time with it and really get to know it since these are Microsoft's first pair of headphones bluetooth headphones at bat let's see how they did and of course the first thing we've got to take a look at is the overall design Microsoft's done a really good job at matching the design with the rest of the surface products you put this thing next to a surface book or a surface studio and you can just see that they belong together of course thanks to that great aesthetic now I'll be honest with you guys I don't think these are the best looking headphones in the world they're a little bit on the larger side especially when you've got them on you guys can see how large these ear cups are but I've gotten used to that because of my favorite pair of headphones have really large ear cups as well and that leads to amazing comfort this has some really awesome padding it's very nice and soft and it actually goes completely over the ear so when you're wearing them for long periods of time you absolutely have no issues and it's built mainly out of plastic but it doesn't feel cheap by any means and the overall look isn't bad at all only thing that I will critique about this overall design is the fact that it does look a bit large and the fact that it's not foldable it would have been really nice if the ear cups were foldable so you can have more storing options but as it is right now these can be laid down completely flat and with the travel case that it comes with if you're trying to throw this thing in your backpack you're not gonna really have any issues I just like to have the foldable option especially at that premium price point and I don't think this is a design that's gonna work for everyone but if you have surface products this is gonna fit just right in but in the future I would like to see more color options the surface laptops have a ton of color options like black blue that burgundy so it would be really cool to see these headphones kind of go with that and speaking of surface products one thing that these headphones have going for it is if you already owned them it makes it extremely easy to pair so once you power it on you'll see some options come up in your notification section in Windows and then you can just kind of pair it from right there and it just makes a really simple process kind of like what we see with Apple and their w1 chip where you can pair a pair of ear pods or beats to your iPhone very quickly these kind of have that with all the surface products with nice and I believe Microsoft is calling that feature swift pair and speaking of pairing these headphones can pair with up to 10 different devices which is just crazy because most headphones max out at 2 now that doesn't mean you'll be gonna be able to play music from one device and listen to something else on another device and you hear both at once but it does mean that once your audio stops on one device you can kind of pick up with the other without having to press any buttons or jump into any menus which i think is just awesome and while we're talking about features let's talk about some of the cool ones that Microsoft has introduced with these first things first they've got touch panels on both sides of the ear cups so that is really cool because usually it's on one so you can control it with any side whether you're left-handed right-handed I think that's pretty cool but to control your audio all you have to do is tap it once to play and pause your music double tap to skip to the next song triple tap to go back pretty standard stuff but if you long press you can activate Cortana which can download an app for or you can just use Siri or Google assistant depending on the device you're using and on the right ear clip you've also got a power button and a button to mute your mic and you also have a USB type-c port which is very 2018-2019 I am very happy to see that and we'll talk more about the battery life and charging in a second but you also have a headphone jack so if you don't want to use the Bluetooth features you can always plug this in the regular standard way which is always nice now those are all nice things but let's get to what makes this headphone really special and that's the dials on the ear cups so on the right ear cup you have a dial where you can control your volume so you can bring it up to max the minimum all with this dial but the left ear cup is where there's some magic happening so you can actually control the active noise-cancelling with these and that's something that we're seeing with a lot of premium headphones in this price range active noise-cancelling it's kind of like that feature you got to have but this takes it a step further and gives you 13 levels of active noise-cancelling and you can actually bring it all the way down and that gives you access to ambient noise and we all know active noise-cancelling is meant to block out everything around you so if you're traveling and you don't want to hear other people in your commute you can have that on or maybe you just want to block out all sounds you can do that but with ambient noise it actually does the opposite and it lets sounds in so you can at least know what's going on around you so if you're at home and your wife is calling you or the kids are calling you but while you're listening to something you can have that feature on and still be able to hear what's going on around you and not be completely oblivious to the world but Microsoft is the first company I've ever seen make an actual dial where you can just completely control that at the flip of a switch or turn of a dial and I think that is really cool and the ambient noise mode is surprisingly good guys one of the nights that I was testing these it was really late in the night and I was doing some cleaning getting my basement together and I don't want to play music with the speakers because Ari was sleeping so I put on the headphones had an ambient noise mode because in case Ari woke up and she was calling me I wanted to make sure I heard her and while I was cleaning up and everything and putting things away and getting things together I could hear everything that I was doing even though I was listening to my music and it just felt like I had sonic hearing guys when I paused the music and I was still doing activity with the headphones on I could hear everything amplified and each air cup is equipped with microphones so that you can kind of hear what's going on around you but I will say guys it was an interesting feeling to use this in ambient mode and just feel like I had sonic hearing and that's what I really like about these headphones being able to have that level of control off from the headset itself you don't really have to touch your phone to do anything I think that is really awesome now let's talk about battery life this thing has about 15 hours of battery life which is okay I would like to see that number in the 20s usually when it comes to these premium headsets with the noise canceling and all that you usually see it in the 20 range 15 is a bit on the low side but it did hold up to its claim but one thing that this thing does have going for it is the fact that you can get an hour of listening which is a five minute charge so it has a quick charge feature built into it and I can appreciate that with any headphone I love quick charging and something cool that you can do with these headphones is just call out to Cortana by saying hey Cortana and it is gonna be able to pick up what you're saying no buttons to press and you can just ask your questions or make it do a certain command and I find that this feature works pretty well with computers or even your phones and the headphones also do this really cool thing when you first turn them on they'll tell you just how many hours of listening you have instead of just a battery percentage which i think is a lot more useful now let's talk about one of the most important parts of any headphones and that's the sound quality now I think these sounds really good basses there the vocals could be a bit better if there are any weak points in the sound I think that it's the vocals I like to be able to hear the artists crystal-clear and I can't say that this is the case here don't get me wrong though that's not to say it sounds bad or muffled or tin tea but I've heard better vocal quality and headphones in this three hundred and fifty dollar price range which is up there but I'll be honest that critique is moving into audiophile territory and I throw this thing on Airy or my dad or a friend of mine they're probably gonna hear and just be like oh this sounds great but because it is in that premium price category I do want to put it out there I have I been enjoying listening to audio on these absolutely but I do want to mention all the areas that could be improvement Tenace these are Microsoft's first pair of headphones and if anyone's listening this might be able to help now the question is do they get my recommendation right now and I gotta say they do I absolutely do recommend these they are solid pair of headphones they sound good they've got really cool features especially if you use them along side of the surface product I think it just makes a very very nice ecosystem but I will say I don't think these are the kind of headphones that you save up for for a long time especially if you're looking for is like the best sound quality because these are premium headphones so if you're just somebody who you know you got extra cash to burn you want a nice solid pair of headphones that'll work with a bunch of devices this is a really good buy but if it's something you're gonna have to save up for I think there are other headphones out there that are a lot cheaper that'll give you better quality in terms of audio but you will miss out on some of the awesome noise canceling features that this thing does have I would have been really happy with these at 250 bucks 350 just seems like a lot to be honest I think 250 bucks would have been the sweet spot for these headphones they got good sound quality really cool features a pretty decent look 250 for me would make it perfect but that about wraps it up for this video guys hopefully you enjoyed hopefully this helped you make a decision on whether or not you want to pick these up I personally really like them but I will know what you guys think down below in the comments but till the next video guys it's your average consumer pace