“Here’s what we make of Samsung’s latest truly wireless earbuds, the Gear IconX 2018”
Although Samsung was one of the first major brands to come up with a pair of truly wireless earphones, the category hit peak popularity owing to the buzz Apple created for its AirPods. Fast forward to today and you’ll find no shortage of compelling options in the segment from players like Sony, JBL, and Jabra, to name a few. Can then the recently announced Gear IconX (2018) from Samsung stand out from the crowd and find a place in your ears? Let’s find out, shall we?
Table of Contents
Design and Comfort
Close your eyes and try to picture the most minimal-looking pair of truly wireless earphones. Now, open your eyes and look at the Gear IconX. Close enough?
At first glance, Samsung’s Gear IconX don’t come across as a pair of earphones which are geared towards fitness, especially after seeing the all-black colourway I was sent for review. Now, you could spice it up and pick the earphones in a flashier colour, but I preferred the subtle, understated look offered by the black hue. Moving on, the earbuds sport a rubberised plastic finish which is soft to the touch, albeit attracts a lot of lint and dust particulates. The shape of the earbuds is still triangular, as was the case with last year’s model, ensuring a snug fit in the ears.
The Samsung Gear IconX ship with touch controls on both the earbuds which allow users to switch between tracks, play/pause the music and answer/end calls. Although the controls are far from perfect, they are quite possibly the most responsive and accurate touch-based controls I’ve ever used on a pair of truly wireless earphones.
As I mentioned previously, the Samsung Gear IconX are designed to accompany you during your workouts. On that note, the earphones offer sweat-resistance albeit lack any sort of IP rating which could be a deal breaker if you like to exercise outdoors.
On the flip side, the earphones are supremely comfortable and form a secure seal when placed inside the ear. Consequently, it is almost impossible to shake the earphones off your ears during workouts, so you needn’t worry about losing an earbud amidst a burpee. Thankfully, the earbuds don’t protrude outwards as much as the Bose SoundSport Free (review), so you can concentrate more on your workouts and less on your appearance in the gym.
You do get a bundled case to store the Gear IconX when you’re not using them, which also doubles as a battery bank to charge the earphones. The case is quite compact and will comfortably fit inside the pockets of your jeans. Moreover, there’s a fair bit of I/O on the case itself, including a USB Type-C port, three LED lights, and a Bluetooth pairing button. I am all for Samsung’s decision to use a USB Type-C port with the IconX as it saved me the trouble of carrying an extra cable in my bag.
Sound, Battery life, and Fitness features
Well, let’s get to the crux of the matter, shall we? The Samsung Gear IconX are backed by two 5.8pi dynamic drivers, located inside each earpiece. The earbuds connect to compatible devices via Bluetooth v4.2 and come with 4GB of internal storage, allowing you to store your music on them and leave your smartphone behind while heading out for a run or to the gym. While this could be useful for some users, I source my music from streaming services like Apple Music and rarely ever listen to locally-stored MP3s. That said, it’s still a handy feature to have in the arsenal and Samsung has made it quite easy to transfer music files from your smartphone over to the IconX via the companion Samsung Gear app.
Now, as far as the sound quality is concerned, if you’re looking for a pair of truly wireless earbuds which will blow your mind with roaring bass, then you should probably give the IconX a pass. Although the IconX have a decent bass output, it’s not as thunderous or impactful as say, the Jabra Elite 65t Active I reviewed recently. That said, the vocals sound crystal clear and although I would’ve liked the treble response to be slightly brighter, I’m content with the fact that the earphones at least don’t sound sibilant or shrill at higher volumes. Now, you could get better sounding wired earphones for half the price of the IconX, but, as far as truly wireless earphones go, the earphones sound pretty good.
The biggest strength of the Gear IconX is the battery life and the earphones will comfortably stream music over Bluetooth for around five hours, which isn’t too far off from the company’s 7-hour claim. Moreover, the bundled case ships with a 340mAh battery, which can charge the earphones once fully, giving you an effective battery life of almost ten hours.
Unlike their predecessor, the newer IconX don’t ship with a heart rate monitor. However, the earphones still come equipped with a built-in accelerometer which can track your runs and walks. You can access all the data of your workouts from the Samsung Gear app, but you will be prompted to install the Samsung Health app if you don’t have it on your smartphone. While all this is fine, I didn’t use the IconX as a fitness tracker for two reasons –
1 – Since the earphones track runs and steps by means of an accelerometer, it’s really easy to cheat your goals and you could just shake the smartphone in your hand to reach the number of steps you’ve marked for a day.
2 – Even if you were tracking your workouts honestly, the readings from the Galaxy IconX are way off. On one instance, the earphones overestimated a one Km walk from the metro station to my home as showed it as 1.8Km.
On the flip side, the earphones maintain a rock solid Bluetooth connection and during my testing, I didn’t come across any instances of track skips or call drops. Some other notable features of the IconX include the ability to turn on ambient sound and set it to focus on ‘voice’ from within the Samsung Gear app. With the feature turned on, the voice of the person speaking to you is clearly relayed through the earphones built-in microphones. The IconX also pause the media playback when you take both the earbuds out of your ears.
Verdict
The Samsung Gear IconX retail for Rs 13,990, which pits it directly against the Jabra Elite 65t Active. Now, with Jabra’s offering, you’ll get a pair of earphones which have a much better bass output, are IP56 certified and are slightly cheaper too. However, Samsung’s IconX feature a more compact design, offer a case with a USB Type-C port and much cleaner representation in the mids and the highs. Therefore, before pulling the trigger on either of the two, take a look at your current playlist and figure out what genre of music do you listen to the most.
Everything considered, the Samsung Gear IconX offer a lot of compelling features and have been priced rather competitively, making it an easy recommendation for anyone looking to invest in a pair of truly wireless earbuds.
Editor’s rating: 4 / 5
Pros:
- Good-looking design
- Compact case with USB Type-C port
- Long-lasting battery life
- Clear mids and highs
Cons:
- Bass output not the best
- No IP rating
