Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsNice but some gripes (READ LATEST UPDATE)
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020
Just received my pair today and so far, they seem good. Sound quality is much better than the Zolo Liberty+ I’ve been using for the past few years and the ANC seems to be pretty decent as well. However, as I’m writing this, I’m laying in bed in a dark room and feel like I’m an airplane flying through the night. The double flashing blue lights on these things are incredibly bright and I can see them lighting up the dark room whenever they do their quick double flash every five seconds. It’s so incredibly annoying and serves no purpose but to be annoying. My Zolos had a light that flashed every few seconds but it was barely noticeable; these Panasonics light up an entire room, I’m not joking. Please, fix this with a firmware update. It needs to be fixed.
FIRST WEEK EDIT: Been doing a lot of yard work wearing these. As I sweat more and more, the earbuds lose their grip inside my ear more and more. I've had quite a few instances where the earbud just straight fell out of my ear. I'm constantly finding myself adjusting these and I've tried various sizes of the earbuds. For some reason, I mainly seem to have this problem with my left ear, which is more than likely an issue with me and not necessarily the earbuds.
The touch sensitivity. I don't know why any manufacturer ever thought that touch-capacitive buttons are the way to go. This technology should've been sent to Hell five years ago when all the car manufacturers started to realize what a dumb idea touch-capacitive buttons were. Need to readjust the fit of the earbuds? You're gonna make the earbuds think you just went through five different commands.
The sound quality on these is just SPECTACULAR. I have some genuine gripes about these, regarding the fit and the light (the light issue may seem so insignificant, but you really can't understand until you see them; it's so bright. I can't imagine wearing these on a plane as I'm sure other passengers would want to rip my ears off), but in spite of those gripes, the sound quality on these is just that good that I'll deal with those issues on my own terms. Songs that I've heard hundreds of times in my life sound like NEW songs as I'm hearing details in the music I've never known were there (and I have 16 speakers in my car!!). I can't raise my three-star review yet as I'm still very much in a love/hate relationship with these. Fix the light issue and I'd raise it up.
ONE MONTH EDIT: I've ditched my wired, over-ear Sennheiser headset for Zoom meetings and have been using the Panasonic earbuds. The earbuds have full stereo for voice calls, meaning that you get sound in both earbuds. What's great about having the two earbuds with full, independent Bluetooth connection, and stereo for calls, is that you can use both earbuds, or use the right or left one by itself. I am a teacher, which means I use Zoom everyday, all day, and I'm the one mostly speaking. My students say that my voice quality with the Panasonic earbuds is great.
Light issue is still not fixed. I've resorted to placing a sticker over the light.
I've been experiencing more and more issues with connecting the earbuds to my phone. When I take the earbuds out of the case, they struggle to connect immediately, and my phone will go through 1 to 3 connection attempt cycles before they will actually connect. It's pretty annoying.
PASSIVE SOUND MODE: As I've said before, the Active Noise Cancellation on these is INCREDIBLY good. However, on the opposite end, the Passive Sound Mode (where noise cancellation is turned off and ambient noise is pumped through the earbuds so that you can speak to people without taking the earbuds out) is terrible. Even with no music playing through the earbuds and passive mode ON, I can BARELY hear people speaking and have to take the earbuds off. My previous earbuds had an incredibly good passive mode where I could carry a conversation with people while still playing music through my earbuds. Not with these.
SIX MONTHS: Still using these but most of the above issues remain the same. They're still going strong with daily use. My wife wanted some wireless earbuds; I bought her some AirPods instead.
MAY 2021: Panasonic released a firmware update that allows for customization of the touch controls (nice) and... THE ABILITY TO TURN OFF THE FLASHING LIGHTS!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Updated my review from 3 to 4 stars.
Whatever was in the last software update seems to have solved the dropped connections. I haven’t experienced any randomly dropped connections with my phone since the last update. Things are improving.
DECEMBER 2021: HEY! I'M STILL HERE! Still using these buds, a year and some months later. Sound quality is still great. Battery life has depleted a little bit but not that much. I'm probably getting 30-60min less use with the buds compared to when they were new.
One issue that has risen with extended use is that the buds are having a little bit of trouble charging when in the case. I've cleaned the charging contacts with alcohol (there's a ridiculous amount of them) but to no avail, the buds still have some issue with charging. I have to jiggle them in their case to get them to establish a good contact to charge. It's annoying, for sure.
MARCH 2021: The Panasonic buds have met their end of life. The right earbud seems to have "blown" its speaker. If you know the sound of a blown speaker, then you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, well, just think of crazy distortion and a lot of "static," particularly in the extreme lows and highs. It's disappointing that these buds have lasted only 1.5 years.
