boAt Airdopes 281 Pro Review: Was Skeptical!
With my Skullcandy Riff Wireless getting busted, I was in quite a need for new Bluetooth earbuds. Boat recently added its Airdopes 281's successor to its Airdopes catalogue, boAt Airdopes 281 Pro and they caught my attention. They had everything (on paper) in them I could ask for in that price. So, I pre-ordered it on 25 June on Amazon, and received them on 29th June.
Note: boAt has no input in this review by any means.
Specifications
Headphone Type - In-Ear
IPx Rating - IPx5
Driver Type - Titanium Alloy Drivers
Driver Size - 6mm x 2 Drivers
Impedance - 16Ω+15%
Sensitivity (dB) - 102±3DB
Frequency Response - 20Hz-20KHz
Battery Capacity (mAh) - 40*2 mAh earbuds | 420 mAh case
Playback Time - up to 32 hours
Compatibility - All Bluetooth Devices
Bluetooth Range - >10 Meters
Charging Time - 40 mins buds and 1.5 hours case
Connectivity - Bluetooth v5.1 | AAC
Build and Comfortability
Airdopes 281 Pro comes with a sturdy, boxy case with matte finish all over, it does give a strong feel, and well I’m a sucker for black color with matte finish so it really gives me that feel. Well, the case can easily be spotted in the pocket, yeah, the case is that boxy, and big. The case has lil’ boAt typography on the lid, which surprisingly doesn’t look odd, easily blends with that matte finish, not that flashy type, get what I’m tryna say, right?
Although the case looks premium and sturdy, while opening the lid I noticed that the earbuds get nudged by the lid sometimes, in other words, earbuds tend to come in way of lid’s inner part while opening the case. Should I consider it a design flaw, I should, right?
While I couldn’t open the case with one hand (it wasn’t easy, I’d say), the lid has that hinge traction in the starting, while opening and closing, and then it feels free or easily movable all the way back, but — but, the lid holds itself back pretty well (I tried rotating the case to see if it closes, it didn’t). I’ll give it that.
On the comfort side, which is always subjective, I’d say they fit snuggly in my ears, and I tried shaking my head, it made me dizzy but earbuds didn’t fall off, and I’d like to point out that they give that assuring feeling too, that they won’t fall off, whereas I’ve tried Soundcore Life Note and, yeah, they do feel like falling off any second. On the look side, Airdopes are on quite minimal, subtle side, but they’re lil’ big, and for me, I needed to get them off after 1 to 1.5 hours of usage.
boAt Airdopes 281 Pro - Audio Quality, Call Quality and Noice Cancellation
I was skeptical on sound quality on these, as I’ve heard boAt as bass-powered sound devices, but I think Titanium Alloy drivers did the magic here or boAt tuned them that way. The sound on them is treat, I’ve tried listening to podcasts, K-Pop, K-R&B, Pop songs, and while the bass is there in adequate amount, it is not over-powered and gives the vocals that range, and are crisp. The treble is what I’m not quite sure of, as it gets it right sometimes and sometimes misses it (not an audiophile, but have heard songs on many wired and BT headphones)
Note: AAC was on all the time, I use Spotify with ‘High’ streaming quality for music, and podcasts too and Dolby Atmos was enabled too.
Airdopes 281 Pro comes with two microphones on each TWS, and while on call with these Airdopes, the person on other side didn’t have any issues with my voice, I was clear, and the most important thing to me, my voice didn’t sound processed, or should say robotic.
As these are in-ear TWS with rubber tips, they do the work of passive noise cancellation. I wear the medium size buds which comes with two other sizes.
However, the Type-C cable we get with these Airdopes comes with this glossy polished finish, my first reaction to the cable was “wow, this looks cheap”. TBH, from the start I was using my VOOC Type-C cable to charge these Airdopes.
Gesture Controls
These TWS comes with touch controls on both sides, and to me it took time getting used to them, I’d say were pretty finicky for me. It was hit and trial for me, I always would first Tap and wait for the feedback, but it was rare to get at first time. The latency between the touch and the response has a noticeable latency of a second.
The controls are pretty basic, for play/pause and answer/hang up a call, a single tap is assigned, to skip to next and previous track, a double-tap on right and left bud respectively will do the job. To reject an incoming call, a long press of 2 sec is assigned. There is a full guide on it, so yeah, there are couple of combinations.
Connectivity
boAt Airdopes 281 Pro comes with Bluetooth v5.1 along with IWP (Insta-Wake Pair) technology, meaning the moment lid is open, the buds are turned on (no pun intended🙂) and ready to be connected or paired if a new device is trying to get paired. In daily life scenario, the connection was pretty stable, like my home is at length, and balcony is 20 straight steps away from my room, with three walls in between, and I could still listen the music, which is good I’d say.
The earbuds get connected by the time you wear them, so no issues there. The AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) comes enabled by default, so on connectivity front, it’s great.
boAt Airdopes 281 Pro - Battery Life
The battery life is what I’m impressed with on these, Boat claims up to 6 hours of playtime with single charge, and these live up to that with ease. I didn’t find myself running out of juice. On the charging side, this thing charging time is average, I charged it out of my laptop’s USB 3.0 port, and the case with buds in them charged around an hour.
Coming to the case, it really impressed, so I remember receiving this order on 29th at evening, so I fully charged the case with buds in them before pairing or using them. After that this case went for straight up 3 days, note that for those 2 days, I was using the TWS extensively. At night, I fire up podcasts and let them play with timer set to 30 mins, but when I wake up at morning, I find them playing. This went for straight two days. So, yeah on battery front, you could lean on them.
I would like to point out one thing though, I find taking TWS off very annoying and worky, they should have put the right bud on the left, and vice versa. I don’t know, being a right-handed, it is a hassle taking buds off. It may be the case for me.
Conclusion
At Rs. 2000, these are totally worth to look at. You get great sound quality, call quality, battery backup, touch gestures which were pretty finicky for me. As I got them for ₹1,799, for me these are really worth every penny.
So, that’s been boAt Airdopes 281 Pro Review, thank you for reading! ✌🏻
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