ZOOOK ZB-Rocker Soulmate Bluetooth Earphones Review

ZOOOK is a name not unheard of when it comes to smartphone accessories and gadgets in the audio department. One of the latest products from the French company’s portfolio is the ZB-Rocker Soulmate Bluetooth earphones, which we got for review recently.

Before you proceed to read the review, here’s something you should know – I’m not an audiophile and hold not so good expertise in the audio products, but share my experience while using the audio gadget for a good time.

ZOOOK launched these Bluetooth headphones, the ZB-Rocker Soulmate in a price range where it might seem like a tough challenge, but also could beat each of them if the sound quality comes out to be good. There are some shortcomings with every Bluetooth headset, and one of them is the battery life, but the Soulmate easily gives you over 3 hours of continuous music playback with Bluetooth, or over four hours of talk time if making calls.

Buy the headphones from Snapdeal

Let’s begin with the specs of the headphones. The Soulmate has dedicated AMP Drivers that are supposed to deliver high definition sound, and for the connectivity, there is Bluetooth 4.1, with the company claiming that the range could be up to 33 feet, and the support by aptX audio compression technology helps in better Bluetooth data transmission rate. The earphones have two 12mm drivers for the audio output, and the entire set is splash proof and sweat proof.

I give importance to a few factors when using a Bluetooth headphone personally – Comfort, weight, ease of connectivity, sound quality, and the battery life. And out of these five factors, the ZB-Rocker Soulmate has been perfect with four of them, and if the price is taken into consideration, the last one also seems good enough.

At 25gm, you surely aren’t going to feel like you have been wearing the earphones for hours, and thanks to the rubber stabilizers that keeps the earplugs fixed right into your ears, that adds to the comfort. With looks, the earphones didn’t seem like they might be comfortable enough, which is the case with most of them out there, given how most of them wrap around the ear to keep the earplug in its place, but the rubber projection on the stabilizer sits right into the ear lobe and maintains the position very well. The wire that connects the two earpieces is flat and long enough to not pull one of the sides at times, and not so long that it takes away the purpose of being clutter-free.

It might look a bit like an exaggeration, but that’s a fact that I have several earphones in this price, and most of them failed to deliver a high level of audio without distortion. The drivers weren’t capable of putting out a clear audio output, but the Soulmate did that with a great balance when on a high level, or even at lowest ones.

Connectivity was easy as the earphone tries to connect to the already paired device as soon as you turn it on, and while doing that, you will detect them on any other smartphone as well, if you intend to connect it from there. A voice prompt will keep informing you about the activity, whether it is connected or is just turned on.

While connected, you can check the battery status of the ZB-Rocker Soulmate directly on the smartphone, where the status bar will show the remaining battery percentage, or you could long press the volume button to find out with the voice prompt.

The buttons located on the right earpiece have functions including turning on/off, previous/next track, volume up/down, as well as taking and ending calls. The package comes with different sizes of earbud tips, and a pair of extra stabilizers is also given though it doesn’t seem like the pair that already is fixed would break or tear off, thanks to the rubberized material. The package also has a good looking carry case for the headphone.

The earphones could easily give me a continuous playback of four hours and more than that while making calls while being connected, and wireless is the only option as we know. It might seem important for many about the charging of the unit as it carries a MicroUSB charging port, and you don’t need to carry any proprietary charger along. The charging from zero to a hundred took over an hour, though.

I haven’t personally tried to splash water onto the headphones, or haven’t been in a rainy place to see how well it holds up to that, but the sweat didn’t change the way it functions, and a simple rub off is what it needs since you are seeing just the plastic and rubber material, with the concern of only the mic. The MicroUSB port is well covered with a lid, that sometimes feels difficult to lift from its position when you want to charge the Rocker Soulmate, but once you get a habit, it all becomes too easy.

Final Verdict – How good is the ZOOOK ZB-Rocker Soulmate for its price?

For the current price of Rs. 1499 (which is 40% of the original price), the Soulmate does have all of it that is needed to call it a perfect unit of headphones not just for joggers or for those who have daily workouts as a part of their daily lifestyle, but also for music enthusiasts.

Of course, there are competitors in this price range, including the Sony MDR AS600BT, Samsung Level U, and some of them from brands like Philips, Panasonic, etc., but ZOOOK has been doing a good work in the audio department for quite some time, and that continues with the ZB-Rocker Soulmate earphones. Except only if you want a Bluetooth headset that lasts for more time on a single charge, there is no reason you should ignore these.

Buy the headphones from Snapdeal