RATING
- DESIGN
68
- PERFORMANCE
55
- VALUE FOR MONEY
65
- FEATURES
68
- PROS
- Ergonomic earbuds
- IPX4 water resistant
- aptX codec support
- CONS
- Extremely sensitive touch controls
- No volume controls
- Overpowering muddy bass response
VERDICT
The Mivi Duopods are feature-rich true wireless earphones that also have ergonomic and lightweight earbuds that fit snugly in most ears. However, the overly muddy bass response tends to shroud the details in the mids and highs in most genres of music. Additionally, the bass also gets distorted on higher volumes, which makes it hard to recommend these earphones for music listeners. At Rs 2,999, there are some pretty decent options from other companies such as the Playgo T44 and Boult Audio Airbass Livebuds.
MIVI DUOPODS M80 DETAILED REVIEW
Homegrown audio company, Mivi recently launched a new pair of truly wireless earphones, the Mivi Duopods M80, in the booming affordable TWS market. Priced at Rs 2,999, the Duopods M80 comes packing Bluetooth v5.0 connectivity, IPX4 water resistance rating, aptX codec support, touch controls, sizable battery life of about 30 hours, Type-C charging and much more. Let’s find out if these feature-rich earphones deliver when it comes to sound quality and build.
BUILD AND COMFORT
Featuring a primarily plastic build, the Mivi Duopods M80’s charging case features a matte black colour, while the earbuds themselves have a glossy texture. The charging case has a pill-shaped design with a fair amount of vertical life, which makes it bulge out of pockets slightly. The front of the case houses 5 LED lights to indicate the charging status of the case as well as the buds. The back houses a USB Type-C charging port, which is always great to have at this price point.
The earbuds have a pipe-style in-ear design with angled nozzles that enhance the fit. The rear casings of the buds have a metallic CD-like pattern with the Mivi logo housed in the centre. This part doubles as a touch panel to control playback and calls. At the bottom of the elongated pipes, there’s a tiny metallic portion which houses an LED status indicator as well as the microphone. The design of the buds is more appealing than the rather bland-looking case.
Overall, the buds have an ergonomic and lightweight design and fit in the ears pretty snugly. The IPX4 rating means that you can use these buds in the gym even if you sweat profusely, or even in light rains. The buds don’t cause any discomfort or pressure within the ears even after prolonged usage. However, the touch controls are extremely sensitive, to a point where it gets irritating. Even unintended slight taps cause the music to pause or play.
FEATURES
Despite being affordable true wireless earphones, the Mivi Duopods M80 come equipped with a substantial number of features. The touch controls on the buds can be used to play/pause music, answer/decline phone calls, change tracks, and even summon your voice assistant. However, volume controls are absent, which is a shame.
The earphones, along with the more standard SBC and AAC codecs, also supports the aptX codec which translates to lower latency and enhanced sound quality. Nevertheless, simply employing this codec doesn’t mean that the sound quality will be commendable right away since it also depends on the drivers and tuning. We’ll get to the performance later.
The Mivi Duopods M80 also comes with mono mode, which means both buds are master buds. So, you can simply pull out one earbud (right or left) from the case and listen to music solely on that. Powered by Bluetooth v5.0, the earphones connect to your device pretty much instantaneously. However, we did notice some skips and lags in playback at times.
You also get a battery life of 30 hours, as per company claims. However, in our tests, we managed to extract about 25 hours from the earphones - 5 hours from the earbuds on a single charge, and 4 additional charges from the case, which is pretty good for this price point. You also get USB Type-C charging, which is becoming more common even in affordable wireless earphones.
PERFORMANCE
The Mivi Duopods M80 features a pretty impressive build and is quite feature-rich for the price point, however, the sound quality was somewhat disappointing. Now, unless you are an extreme bass head that prefers thump at the expense of pretty much everything else, these earphones may disappoint you too with their aggressive and muddy bass response that significantly cloud the mids and highs. The mids are actually pretty detailed due to the aptX codec support but the extraneous bass response drowns out the details.
Bass-heavy tracks such as bad guyby Billie Eilish features tons of bass thump but the over-exaggeration makes it sound pretty muddy and distorted, especially at higher volumes. Note that these earphones are extremely loud, and we wouldn’t advise you to go past 40-50 per cent volume, since it isn’t good for your hearing and the sound starts cracking and distorting at higher volumes on these earphones.
In rock songs such as Popular Monster by Falling in Reverse and Pull Me Under by Dream Theatre, the muddy bass takes over the intricacies of the song completely, with the drums essentially drowning out the vocals and other higher-frequency instruments. Vocal-centric tracks also sound slightly lacklustre due to the lack of drive in the mids.
Now, moving on to the microphone quality, it performs acceptably in quiet environments such as your home, however, in more noisy environments the Duopods M80 tend to let excessive amounts of background noise in which hampers the calling experience.
BOTTOMLINE
The Mivi Duopods are feature-rich true wireless earphones that also have ergonomic and lightweight earbuds that fit snugly in most ears. However, the overly muddy bass response tends to shroud the details in the mids and highs in most genres of music. Additionally, the bass also gets distorted on higher volumes, which makes it hard to recommend these earphones for music listeners. At Rs 2,999, there are some pretty decent options from other companies such as the Playgo T44and Boult Audio Airbass Livebuds.
MIVI DUOPODS M80 KEY SPECS, PRICE AND LAUNCH DATE
| Price: | ₹2999 |
| Release Date: | 13 Aug 2020 |
| Variant: | None |
| Market Status: | Launched |
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