Kinivo BTE40 Bluetooth Earbuds Review

     Kinivo is one of thousands of small up-and-coming electronics companies trying to make their footprint in the lucrative consumer electronics industry. Their miniature Bluetooth speaker, the ZX100, has allowed them to gain a foothold in the market and release other electronics, such as the BTE40 Bluetooth earbuds, ($30 on Amazon) one of their newest offerings.

 

     Upon receiving the BTE40, I was largely unimpressed with the box, and wouldn't have known inside there would be something even closely resembling earbuds had the name of the product been written in plain white font on the front of the box. Indeed, all that is pictured on the box is the Bluetooth adapter, not the earbuds themselves. A minor qualm, but from a marketing standpoint they could do better.

     The earbuds, along with an instruction booklet, charging cable, the Bluetooth adapter, and two gold-plated auxiliary cables, are packaged in the box in hard plastic. I'm not quite sure what the auxiliary cables are used for, and their function is not mentioned in the instructions. I was able to operate the earbuds without them. I liked the feel of the earbuds and the Bluetooth adapter. The earbuds have a full-metal body, and the adapter was of durable, matte-finished plastic with a solid metal clip that you can pin to your shirt on the back of it.

     Directly plugged into my phone, the earbuds sounded like similarly-priced earbuds. Bass was slightly muddy and at the forefront of the music. Using the earbuds wirelessly via Bluetooth, however, bass became intensely muddy and surfaced over the rest of the sounds. This might be a good thing if you're a basshead, but I personally did not enjoy it, and found myself turning up the volume so that I could hear vocals that had been pushed to the background by the tyrannous bass. It doesn't make sense to me why I experienced so much distortion in sound quality since the Bluetooth version that runs the adapter is Version 4.0, one of the latest. Fortunately, the design of the adapter enables you to plug in any variety of earbuds, not just the ones that come with the device. I tried using my Klipsch S4 earbuds with the adapter and experienced surprisingly minimal distortion, a sharp contrast to the earbuds the product came with.

     All-in-all the BTE40 is a solid first offering by Kinivo to the earbud market, especially since if you're not a fan of the bass with the stock earbuds, you can pair your own to the adapter and still have the Bluetooth earbuds you want. Be on the lookout for more reviews of their products coming soon!