Smatron had recently introduced tPods, the in-ear headphones priced at Rs. 1999. I’ve used these for over a month now and this is my verdict about them. To begin with, about what is on offer here, the tPods have a different design from the regular headphones available in the market, with the L-design and even with the earcup area, the other side has a unique funnel-like look. There is a bunch of earphones available in the same price range and thus, it shouldn’t be easy for someone to choose the offering from Smartron since we have seen some excellent earphones from Sennheiser, Sony, and even Skullcandy.
The tPods have a coaxial dual driver setup where the 15mm woofer aims at the mid-low frequency sound while the 7mm tweeter aims at the high-frequency one. The 3.5mm connector pin has a gold plating that is said to be keeping the music flow lossless. And the 1.2-meter cable is said to be oxygen-free. There’s a sensitivity of 116dB and the frequency range is 20Hz – 20KHz. But, how well does it keep up with the specs mentioned?
The box offers a circular casing to carry the earphones, and apart from the earphones, there are two extra pairs of earplugs so that you can use the ones based on what fits into your ears. The earphones have a microphone as well and a button that would help pause/play music, and a short press answers a call and mutes the microphone, a long press ends the call.
The Smartron tPods don’t have a tangle-free cable as they easily get messed up and are hard to straighten because even that L-shape of the ear plugs makes it hard to untangle the long cable. The microphone quality is quite good and the button given beside to it for controls is tactile and good at the response.
The tPods are great at the sound quality offered. The earphones do have a heavy bass but on the higher frequency, there is a certain distortion noticed only when the sound levels are at the highest. When it comes to the noise cancellation, I have used the earphones in different conditions, even in the flights and there is a certain amount of noise reduction seen, even though it cannot compete well with the over-the-ear headphones but there is a certain level of reduction of external noise that is appreciable on the earphones compared to some in its price range.
The earphones sit comfortably in the ears and the light weight helps in keeping them on without an issue for a good time. Overall, the bass levels are high, and the sound quality is appreciable as well.
So, are the Smartron tPods a worthy purchase?
These might seem a little high on the price but what is being offered is good for that price tag. The Smartron tPods did work well with the phones I tried them with, especially the Samsung Galaxy S8, Lenovo K8 Note, Xiaomi Mi A1, and even the Nokia 6. For a regular audiophile who would want some good noise cancellation while seeing no compromises in the audio levels, the tPods are a good choice.
