Hi I’m Gidon from thetechnologyman.com. The Mpow H5 over ear bluetooth headphones
are about the cheapest noise cancelling headphones you can get at just over £40 or $40 . They
have a built in microphone, up to 30 hours of battery life, and a compact foldable design.
I’m testing their latest iteration, but what are they like and how do they compare
to the Taotronics BH046s I recently reviewed? Getting Started
The Mpow H5 headphones comes in fairly basic packaging with a micro-USB charging cable,
a flat tangle free 3.5mm audio cable, a soft pouch and a basic instruction manual. There’s
no airplane adapter. They have a foldable design that makes them
quite compact for over ear headphones. They’re lightweight at 230g and measure 180mm by 120mm
by 75mm when folded with their length increasing to 190mm when opened up.
They fit comfortably in the soft pouch when folded.
The ear cups have a glossy black finish which attracts fingerprints and make them look a
little cheap. But the rest of the build quality is good for the price. They are plastic with
a metal headband that expands with fairly positive clicks. They’s a good amount of
flex on the headband and they feel like they could take some abuse.
The synthetic ear pads are on the firmer side but still feel comfortable. They don’t appear
to be replaceable. The same material lines the headband.
The ear cups rotate over 90 degrees, so even unfolded they could still be stored flat.
The right ear cup has the Active Noise Cancelling switch with a green LED that comes on when
it’s activated. ANC can be turned on without the headphones being on.
There’s also a 3.5mm port for using the headphones wired, if you’ve run out of battery
or want to connect to a device without Bluetooth. The left ear cup has the volume controls,
the power | Bluetooth button and the micro-USB charging port. There’s no fast charging
- a full charge takes 2-3 hours charging at around 0.2A.
Pairing A 2 second press of the power button turns
the headphones on and a 4 second press turns them off, both accompanied by audible prompts.
The LED flashes blue and red for pairing mode when you first switch them on. Locate MPOW
H5 in your Bluetooth settings to connect. There’s an audible confirmation and the
LED blinks blue every few seconds. To connect to another device, turn the power
off and press and hold the power button for six seconds to restart the pairing process.
You can connect to two devices at the same time and if you pause playback on one device,
you should be able to continue on the other without reentering Bluetooth settings, but
this doesn’t always work. You can reset the headphones and clear all
pairing records by pressing and holding the volume up and down buttons until the LED flashes
quickly three times. Fit & controls
The headphones feel very comfortable, a combination of their light weight and not excessively
tight headband. The cups easily fit around my ears. Their light weight would also make
them a decent companion for the gym or even a run, but there’s no waterproofing.
The headphones are mainly controlled from the left ear cup. Holding the volume up and
down plays next and previous tracks respectively. A single press of the power button plays or
pauses your media and a double tap activates your voice assistant. So I can double tap
the button, wait for the confirmation beep from my device and say, “What’s the weather
in London”. The controls are small but are well positioned
so you do get used to them quickly. Unlike the TaoTronics you only need to use your left
and right thumb to control playback and switch ANC on and off, which feels quite natural.
Performance & sound quality There’s only Bluetooth 4.1 support and I
started getting dropped audio just walking into the next room of the house. With the
headphones close by though, the connection was generally stable with just the occasional
blip. They don’t have support for the aptX codec
with its supposed better audio quality over Bluetooth.
Audio sync was a little better than I was expecting. Even the YouTube app on iOS which
is notoriously troublesome, had barely perceptible lag.
Battery life was very good. With ANC off it’s quoted as 30 hours. I mainly used them with
ANC on and got just less than half that playing at between 50-70% volume. It’s very easy
to leave ANC on which will easily drain the batteries overnight.
You can’t charge them while you’re listening via Bluetooth, but a wired connection plays
fine whilst charging. The headphones use a noise cancelling microphone
with Clear Voice Capture or cVc technology for supposedly clearer phone calls. Phone
calls sounded ok on both ends of the call. Active Noise Cancelling on these headphones
is not their strong point. They don’t have the more effective Hybrid Noise Cancelling
of the TaoTronics BH046s. They slightly reduce low frequency sounds
but you’ll find yourself checking whether you’ve turned the ANC on of off half the
time. I’d almost say not to bother with ANC and save battery life, were it not for
audio quality. Their passive noise reduction is not bad,
but not as effective as the TaoTronics. The audio quality from the 40mm drivers with
ANC off is ok but they sound a little flat and lack any clarity. Surprisingly turning
ANC on really improves the headphones. They sound a lot brighter, with deeper bass and
crisp mids and treble for such a budget pair of headphones. They are also a lot louder
with ANC on and at full volume on my iPhone and iPad they were uncomfortably loud and
started to sound harsh. But I doubt you’d generally need to go much above 60-70% volume
depending on what device you’re listening from. There’s also a fair amount of sound
leakage at higher volumes, more than from the TaoTronics.
My pair did have an occasional unpleasant fluttering artifact from the noise cancelling
from the right ear cup which was more apparent at lower volumes.
There’s no app to control the headphones or adjust EQ settings but I wouldn’t have
expected one at the price of these headphones. Conclusions
The Mpow H5 headphones are a good value set of headphones which are comfortable and offer
good sound quality for their price, especially with ANC on. I like their foldable design
and the battery life was very good. I wouldn’t buy these headphones purely for
the ANC, but it does reduce some low frequency background noises to a degree. You might have
to put up with some occasional artifacts from the noise reduction though. And the glossy
black finish won’t be to everyone’s taste - it does make them look a little cheap.
But if you’re after a budget set of wireless over ear headphones with a decent build, good
sound quality and at least an introduction to ANC they’re definitely worth a look!
If you want better ANC for only a little more money, take a look at my TaoTronics BH046
review. If you’ve got a pair of the Mpows, let me
know what you think of them? And if you’ve found an even better option, I’d love to
hear! Let me know down below. And as always, if you have any questions,
please ask - I read every comment and will do my best to respond.
I do hope you found this video useful. Please like the video if you did. I’m releasing
videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it, so please
make sure you subscribe - it helps more than you think. And don’t forget to tap the bell
icon if you want to get notified as soon as a new video gets uploaded!
Thanks for watching!