OPPO Enco W51 review: Good earbuds for music and calls, comfort is an issue

 

Good value-for-money despite limitations. Its distinct and premium looks and ingress protection rating make it a solid contender in sub-Rs 5,000 earphone segment

The OPPO Enco W51 is an affordable pair of true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones with noise cancellation feature. At Rs 4,999, the Enco 51 is one of the few TWS earphones with in-ear design for noise isolation, an array of six microphones for digital noise cancellation, and an ingress protection rating (IP54) for water and dust resistance. The earphones are touted to be as good for attending voice calls as it is for listening to music. Is it? Let’s find out:

Design

The OPPO Enco W51 looks similar to the OPPO Enco W31 (review), which is another budget in-ear TWS earphones, but without noise cancellation feature. The earphones look premium and have a touch of novelty. Being an in-ear earphones, the Enco W51 offers secure and snug fit besides good passive noise isolation. However, the earphones’ hard silicone tips and oval design make them unsuitable for extended usage as they cause discomfort to ears after some time.

Like the earphones, the Enco W51’s charging-cum-storage case boasts a premium design. It is a petite case, convenient to carry and fits easily even in the most cramped places like jeans pockets. Made of plastic, the case has a glossy texture with OPPO printed on top and a USB type-C charging port at the back. Unlike the Enco W31’s case, this one supports Qi-based wireless charging.

Performance

The OPPO Enco W51 is a capable set of earphones with decent audio output. Besides, its noise cancellation feature works optimally to filter ambient noise, improving both music-listening and voice-call experiences in loud environments. As for the audio quality, it is neither loud nor muted but balanced. Thankfully, it is tuned for both voice and music, and feel to have a neutral output and not bass-heavy one that most of its peer offer.

The earphones support touch controls for basic operations — double-tap the right earphone to move to the next song, triple-tap any earphone to activate and wake up the digital assistant, and double-tap the left earphone to enable/disable active noise cancellation. The touch controls are customisable but only if you have the OPPO smartphone with ColorOS 7 and higher. The dependency on OPPO smartphone here subdues its utility to some extent by hampering the user experience for those using a non-OPPO smartphones.