I like (borderline need) to listen to music much of the time, particularly while working and running. While working it's fine, however when I run the little white (other colour variations are available) lead, bouncing around in front of me, catching on things, generally begin a nuisance, pisses me /off.
I've left it dangling in front of me, annoying. I've fed it up under my shirt (not somewhere anything deserves to go really) and it rubs and the lead then obviously has less length. I've suffered occasions where my pocket is just, ever so slightly, too far away and 20 yards in the lead is yanked out and I have 2 hours of silence and other people breathing.
While running it's also not just da toons that help, but also my phone likes to talk to me and tell me how I'm doing. Not in a freaky beginnings of skynet way, but in a MapMyRun / Nike+ kind of GPS update way. I need this as still, after years of doing this now, have little sense of pace. Without it I'll plod along thinking everything is easy and the worlds great, then realise I'm slow, panic and kill myself trying to catch up. It doesn't end well.
So, I decided to take a punt and go wireless with headphones. I started looking weeks ago and initially found things with horrible transmitter / receiver kind of things going on, wasn't a fan and definitely wasn't reasonably priced. After wading through these I came to Bluetooth ones, essentially upgraded headsets. These seemed to be the best ideas, but I couldn't decide between 2 styles (over or in ear) so I ordered quite cheap versions of both to sample.
I got:
(It's a link as I don't know how to insert an image on the app!)
I wasn't expecting much from them, as combined they cost 20 qud and generally speaking, at least with sound quality, you get what you pay for.
The ones on the right were first to arrive, and I was generally shocked. They fit nice and sound very nice. Don't get me wrong, they aren't a pair of Beats, but I have more expensive normal headphones which sound the same/worse. I did have them on when Wife Driscoll phoned me in tesco though. I can confirm they work brilliantly as a headset, but can also confirm people don't half give you some funny looks when you use it. Merthyr is not ready.
I then tried them out on the Bryn Bach Parkrun on Saturday. To be fair, couldn't fault them, comfortable, sounded good, relayed the GPS news as I went. The GPS needs fixing as my settings were lousy, but that's not the headsets fault. I ran poorly due to many reasons, not the least of which being late and having to run to the start line...
They seem to be the preferred option.
The other ones, the in-ear option, still not bad. Still better sound quality than the outlay deserved, however a bit big. I don't think I have a small head, in physical size context before you make your own jokes, but these were a good bit too big. As a result the back 'box' flapped up and down as I ran being quite annoying, but maybe not as annoying as catching a headphone lead on your hand as your run.
Also the controls are on the very same box, meaning so skip a track or answer a call, you end up reaching round the back of your head like you're participating in some kind of stupid dance. The on-your-right-ear controls of the flat headset win through there.
I haven't ran far with them on yet as the box bounce on the back, just inst appealing, however I may pair them with my tablet as they seem to have a bit more volume about them and the Nexus 7 is really quiet on times.
The flat ones will have a further outing this weekend as I run in the Merthyr 10k (Didn't know that existed a couple of weeks ago) where I hope to run under an hour (and preferably not come last). Half Marathon countdown well under way!
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