In terms of comfort, the leather padding on the headband and
around the ear cups is nice and locks the headphones in place.
On paper, the PLAYGO
BH70 is capable of going toe-to-toe with the best-in-class. But even though
it tries really hard to pack everything useful in a pair of headphones — and I
appreciate the sincere effort — it falls short on some things that an able pair
of ears just can’t miss. In the following paragraphs, allow me to explain why
you should or shouldn’t buy these headphones, and what you should consider
buying instead. This will be especially useful to people who don’t wish to
spend more than Rs 15,000 on a pair of all-purpose headphones, ever.
The construction
At a time when
most gadgets have embraced the beauty of vibrant colours, the PLAYGO BH70 comes
in two dull, unimaginative SKUs: Graphite Grey and Medallion Brown. At least a
bright silver option would have been nice. For a brand called Play, it’s no fun
at all.
In terms of
comfort, the leather padding on the headband and around the ear cups is nice
and locks the headphones in place. But the pair has been constructed around a
gradient plastic skeleton, which does not feel solid or justify the 300 grams
weight.
Although most
people would use a good pair of headphones
for music, if you happen to wear these on a brisk walk while listening to an
audio book like I did, you might hear a slight creaking noise coming from the
moving parts of the headphones. The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) takes care
of it but, like most other pairs, these headphones aren’t light or secure
enough for running.
The tech
And now for the
sales pitch. The PLAYGO BH70 has a host of useful tech. But the ones you really
should care about are ANC, Bluetooth 5.0 and a very capable Qualcomm aptX LL
(Low latency) audio codec. In top features, there’s a proximity sensor that
detects when you take the headphones off (pause) and put them back on (play),
while another mutes the sound and lets you get a quick word in as long as the
left ear cup is covered. These are some very useful attributes for a pair of
headphones but nothing that we haven’t seen before.
