Good Points:
- Price
- Battery life
- Active Noise Cancelling
- Good mid-range sound quality
- Lightweight
Bad Points:
- Plastic build quality
- Sound distortion at high volume
- Bluetooth 4.1
Design:
The Zen Wireless ANC (active noise cancelling) headphones are the latest in the budget range from Groov-e. Coming in at an MSRP of £49.99, these are an upgrade from the Groov-e Fusion headphones. Although the Zen headphones are packed with features, to keep the price down they are constructed mainly from plastic with fake leather ear cups.
Being made of plastic is not a bad thing, as the headphones are extremely lightweight and therefore very comfortable, but I did find the fake leather ear cups did make my ears sweat after a long period of use. The headphones have swivel earcups that allow ease of storage when not in use, but they do not fold as with other Groov-e products.
In the box you get a storage bag as well as a micro-USB cable, and 3.5mm headphone jack for wired connection, should your batteries go flat or for those times when Bluetooth connection is not an option.
For controlling the headphones, everything is all on the left cup, such as is the 3.5mm jack, ANC on/off button, volume/track control buttons. On the front of the left cup, is the power button that is also used to take/end calls and play/pause your music. On the right cup, you do have the micro-USB port and a small built-in microphone.
In Use:
Paring the Zen headphones is the usual affair. Once you turn the headphones on they enter pairing mode. You can see this via the little LED flashing red and blue – this is located next to the 3.5mm port. On your phone make sure you connect to the “GV-BT1100″ from the list of available devices.
The headphones connect with Bluetooth 4.1. I would’ve like to have seen Bluetooth 5.0, but again these are in the budget range. They have a claimed range of 10 meters, and in my testing it was pretty close to that.
The headphones are fitted with 40mm neodymium drivers, and I found that the sound quality was excellent, with great bass in the low to mid-volume range. However, when ramped up to full volume they did start to distort a bit and this affected the overall sound quality. So keeping them at a medium level and protecting that hearing is the way to go.
The Groov-e headphones also provide ANC technology and when using these on an everyday basis, I noticed they did remove most of the outside noise. They aren’t perfect, but that comes out only when you compare them to more expensive headphones like my Bose QC35’s.
Conclusion:
If you are looking for a pair of headphones for everyday use, with the added benefit of Active Noise Cancelling Technology, but on a budget with up to 10 hours of playback and the chance to take calls and with decent sound quality, they are well worth considering.
Get more information on the Groov-e website.