UMi is a China-based company which mainly manufactures smartphones. This company has released a couple of really compelling, and yet affordable devices in the last year or so, like the UMi eMax and UMi Iron for example. UMi is not only a smartphone manufacturer though, this Chinese company has also released some audio products as well, the UMi Voix and UMi Voix Blu. The UMi Voix are the company’s earphones, and we’re here to talk about the latter, their headphone offerings. UMi Voix Blu Bluetooth (4.1) headphones have been unveiled quite recently actually, and are quite an interesting product. I’ve spent the last week+ heavily testing them, and using them wherever I go basically, and finally feel comfortable to share my observations with you. The UMi Voix Blu headphones are actually capable of making phone calls too, and we’ll talk about that later on as well. Let’s see what these headphones have to offer, shall we.
Design, Build And Comfort
UMi Voix Blu headphones are definitely well built. These headphones weigh 125.5 grams, measure 175 x 154 x 63mm, and are available in White color option only. When you first lay your hands on them, you won’t notice anything squeaking or feeling cheap at all, and that fact didn’t change after a week of use in my case. As you can see in the provided images down below, the UMi Voix Blu are actually a well-designed pair of headphones. They’re made out of plastic, but that plastic is actually coated with baby-skin spray (headband part), which makes it quite soft to the touch. The outer part of the earcups sports a piano paint overcoat, which is not that glossy as it looks in various renders the company has released, they actually sport a matte finish on them, but unfortunately you’ll notice fingerprints on them. This is not that big of an issue though, because you really have to look hard in order to notice anything.
The UMi Voix Blu are also quite comfortable, mainly thanks to the aforementioned baby-skin spray coating and silica cladding on the inner part of the headband, and the earcups we’ll talk about a bit later. Speaking of the headband, you can actually stretch it if necessary, it can be stretched to up to 23mm, and stainless steel bars will make sure they’re quite sturdy even when stretched. Another thing worth mentioning here is the fact that the earcups are adjustable, you can rotate them up to 13 degrees if necessary. Earcups themselves are very comfortable, which is extremely important as well. I’ve been wearing the headphones for a long period of time and didn’t have any issues as far as comfort goes. I also took the headphones and went for a run, even though these are not meant to be sports headphones. That was quite obvious as I was running, they’re definitely not made for such conditions, but that was to be expected. Don’t get me wrong, the headphones have a solid grip on your head, but when you’re running they tend to slip off. I just wanted to mention that in case someone’s interested.
Another thing that is worth mentioning here, is that these headphones are actually quite bendable, which makes them even more resistant. You can twist them in various ways, as you can see in the gallery down below. These headphones actually have 5 physical buttons on them, which are located on the right side next to the earcup. The middle round button lets you turn on / off the headphones, and also play or pause audio playback. Next to it you’ll notice volume up and down buttons, and also previous and next song buttons. The buttons are quite clicky, but it can be a struggle to find them sometimes just by feel (except the middle one), some sort of different coating for different buttons would be nice. The LED light actually surrounds the middle round button, and lets you know when the headphones are turned on / off, playing audio, low on power, in pairing mode, etc.
Sound / Call Quality And Compatibility
Sound Quality is the most important part of an audio product, obviously. Before we begin talking about that, let me first mention that UMi Voix Blu headphones offer universal Bluetooth compatibility, in other words, you’ll be able to pair them with your smartphone, TV, laptop, etc. These headphones also ship with an NFC chip built-in, which means you’ll be able to use that to pair them as well. That being said these headphones cost $49.99, and for the said price they offer a really good sound quality.
During my testing, I’ve listened to all kinds of genres of music, ranging from Rock and Roll and Jazz, all they way to Dance and House music. I’ve watched a couple of movies using these headphones, and are constantly using them to watch YouTube videos and what not. The mp3 files that I’ve listened to were all at 320kbps, just in case you were wondering. I was immediately surprised how loud these headphones can get (connection volume + you can increase the volume on the headphones themselves). The sound quality was also quite good, the output sound was deep, clear, and I didn’t notice any distortions during my testing. This was actually very surprising for me because I’m not a big fan of Bluetooth headphones because the sound can suffer because of Bluetooth connection (I usually prefer regular headphones because of this fact).
The Voix Blu headphones come equipped with a 40mm dynamic drivers which deliver noticeable and kinda deep bass, which is especially noticeable in certain types of songs. The speaker impendence on here is 32 ohms, and most of you won’t be disappointed with its clarity nor volume. Speaking of volume, it’s worth mentioning that these headphones actually ship with a microphone as well. The UMi Voix Blu uses CVC 6.0 tech in order to reduce ambient noise, which works pretty well, but unfortunately, the microphone just doesn’t pick up your sound as it’s supposed to. The people I’ve called said that my voice isn’t very loud, so I’ve decided to check that myself, and it turns out it’s true. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll be able to make phone calls using the microphone if needed, or video chat, but it’s definitely not the best way to do it. This is also the biggest issue I had with these headphones, the microphone is kind of subpar, but having everything else in mind, that really wasn’t an issue for me.
Conclusion
So, what’s the conclusion? Well, these are really, really solid headphones. I was surprised by the output quality, especially considering UMi isn’t really renowned for their audio products, they’re more of a smartphone manufacturing company. The company definitely delivered this time around, and having in mind that the product costs $49.99, is also a plus for these headphones. If you’re looking to buy an extremely portable pair of headphones, UMi Voix Blu might be just the thing for you, but keep in mind that the microphone isn’t really Voix Blu’s strong suit.