It seems like every mobile maker has a pair of earphones or two these days. In Oppo’s case, there are three.
If you thought you had plenty of choice to pick from when it came to phones, the selections will seem even wider when you start talking about portable audio: there are just so many headphones, earbuds, and earphones to look at, it can all get a bit dizzying.
We’re typically not surprised when mobile owners choose audio brands related to the phone they own, and it’s pretty easy to understand why: if they’ve had a positive experience with the phone brand, it’s easy to make a connection to trying a pair of earphones by that brand.
And that’s where Oppo comes in.
For the past few years, it has achieved one of the industry awards for Most Satisfied Customers, the Canstar Blue award, so now Oppo is turning attention towards a different area mobile customers are typically interested in: portable sound.
Alongside the launch of the Oppo Watch this week, the company is releasing three variations of in-earphones, ranging from $149 to $249, with all three delivering the “truly free” approach to cordless and wireless earphones, all with a degree of water resistance.
First there’s the $149 Oppo Enco W11 (above), which is a pair of small in-earphones delivering IP55 water and dust resistance and up to five hours of life, though the charging case will get 20 hours of charge in, as well.
Next is the middle of its three-prong earphone attack, with the $199 Oppo Enco W31 (below), sporting a little less water resistance in its IP54 rating, but expands on the smaller size of the W11 by giving them stalks to control, and arriving with a low-latency transmission technology to keep delay down between the two.
And finally, there’s the Enco W51, which is Oppo’s take on active noise cancellation, taking the design of the W31 and adding the noise quelling technology with what the company claims is an ability to handle “a broad range of choice”, using both a noise reduction chip and microphones to cancel out the background of the world. There are three microphones to help make this happen, and Oppo says it will help make calls sound professional even in strong winds of up to 25km/h.
Oppo is also throwing in a wireless charge case for the Enco W51 earphones (below), with the case holding up to 24 hours of battery life, though the earphones themselves will deliver up to 4 (3.5 hours with noise cancelling on, or up to 4 with the noise cancelling tech turned off).
“The launch of our wearables and audio range is a pivotal moment for us as a brand, broadening our product offering for our customers as we begin to build out the Oppo ecosystem in Australia,” said Michael Tran, Managing Director for Oppo Australia.
“We’re proud to be bringing Aussies more choice, across a range of quality and stylish connected devices, at affordable price points,” he said.
Oppo’s addition to the audio space in Australia comes hot on the heels of Realme, a sister brand that has seen two types of wireless in-ears in recent months. However Oppo was quick to disconnect any suggestion that the two would share research, with a representative telling Pickr that:
Oppo and Realme operate as independent brands. Although, as a leading global technology brand, all Oppo’s manufacturing is done entirely in-house. Our state-of-the-art facility is licensed and leveraged by third-party brands including Realme.
While we’ve not yet confirmed if Realme’s earphone ambitions come from the Oppo labs, we’re hopeful that Oppo’s take on earphones delivers a different experience, as our experience with Realme’s first pair was hardly fantastic, though definitely built to hit a price point.
Locally, Australians will be able to find out for themselves, with the Enco W51 noise cancelling earphones set to go on sale from October 6 at Bing Lee, Mobileciti, Amazon, and Oppo’s own store for $249, while the $199 Enco W31 and $149 Enco W11 will be found only at Oppo’s own online store in October, too.
