Oppo recently launched its very first semi-in-ear earbuds with active noise cancellation, the OPPO Enco Air 5S. And today we are sharing the detailed review of it with all readers of Geeky Stuffs. So, we are going to talk about its audio quality, design, noise cancellation performance, battery life, and smartphone app features as well.
This review is divided into various sections to cover each aspect of the device separately and talk about the pros and cons of each section.
OPPO Enco Air 5s Review
Design and Build Quality
Talking about the design and build quality, the very first thing that you will notice is how small and lightweight the Oppo Enco Air 5S earbuds are. Each unit weighs just 3.9 grams, making them one of the most lightweight semi-in-ear active noise-cancellation earbuds. In terms of design, they look quite beautiful and futuristic. The body comes with a glossy finish. The Enco Air 5S features Oppo's Exymer craftsmanship, providing smooth curves, comfortable contours, and a very comfortable and economic fit to your ears.
Compared to my AirPods 4, I found that the seal and stability on the Enco Air 5S are better, and it does not come out of my ears as much as the Apple AirPods 4. The stem of the Enco Air 5S comes with Slide Volume Control technology. So if you just slide on the stem, you can control the volume.
The case comes with a nice matte-finished body, LED light. And at the bottom, we got the USB Type-C port. So, the overall design of the case is quite minimalistic. The interior of the case is glossy, just like the body of the earbuds. The magnet inside the case is really strong, and even if you shake the case violently, the earbuds will not fall out of it.
The Enco Air 5s comes with IP55 water and dust resistance. So you do not need to worry about a bit of sweat, etc to damage the Enco Air 5S. The Enco Air 5S comes in three color options. The one we got here is the Lunar White that resembles the texture of the pearl, and the other two color options are Midnight Black and Starlight Purple.
Audio Quality
The Enco Air 5S comes with a large 12mm dynamic driver with high-grade copper-clad aluminium wire, along with an Acoustic Cavity design to provide better frequency response variation. Oppo introduced Adaptive Noise Enhancement for the very first time on the Enco Air 5S.
When it comes to audio quality, it does not matter what kind of music you listen to; you are going to totally enjoy it on the Oppo Enco Air 5S. The audio output is very well balanced. The amount of bass is perfect, and so are the mids and highs. If you are a basshead, then OPPO also gives you the option to enhance the bass profile of the audio output from the smartphone application, about which we'll talk in a bit.
The latency on Oppo Enco Air 5S is quite low. So not just the music, you will enjoy watching videos and playing games on it. And once again, Oppo provides a dedicated Gaming Mode to provide even better latency.
Noise Cancellation Performance
Talking about the active noise cancellation, the Oppo Enco Air 5S comes with flagship-grade Real-time Adaptive Noise Cancellation. It intelligently detects the wearing condition, the shape of the ear canal and the ambient sound to provide brilliant and dynamic noise cancellation in real time.
The Oppo Enco Air 5S comes with a triple microphone system for noise cancellation - a front-facing mic, a feedback mic, and a talk microphone. These three microphones detect the ambient sound perfectly to reduce the noise and provide you with a better listening experience. It also comes with 800 KHz sampling rate for real-time ambient noise analysis. And based on that, it provides you the best active noise cancellation you can get in semi-in-ear earbuds. And because of this, it comes with TUV Rheinland certification for noise cancellation, providing impressive noise cancellation.
I used it in many different environments and scenarios like at the airport, at the hospital, in traffic, in outdoors. The performance of Oppo Enco Air 5S adaptive noise cancellation was really nice, and it was able to suppress the majority of the ambient sound in a dynamic scenario very easily. It also comes with a tailored voice-cancelling system that provides a better listening experience by suppressing the sound of the human voice in places like cafes, offices, etc.
Battery Life
When it comes to battery life, the performance of Enco Air 5s is once again quite impressive, as you will get up to 5 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation turned on and up to 9 hours of battery life if the noise cancellation is turned off.
Once the battery goes down, you can charge the Enco Air 5S with the charging case up to four more times. So, with the charging case, you will get up to 45 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation turned off and up to 25 hours of battery life if you are using the noise cancellation. And because of this nice battery performance, the Oppo Enco Air 5S comes with the TUV Rheinland Battery Durability Certification as well.
Smartphone App Features
To use all of the features of the OPPO Enco Air 5S, you will have to use the Hey Melody application, where you will find plenty of options and settings to improve your listening experience. In the app, you will be able to check the battery status of the charging case and each of the earbuds, the connection status, and then you will get the option to switch between different noise cancellation levels, like noise cancellation, transparency, and how to switch off the noise cancellation.
In the OPPO Alive Audio, you get the option to turn on or off the special audio. The performance of this feature is really nice. Once I started using it, I have always kept it on because it does not matter what kind of audio I'm listening to- music or playing games or watching movies; it improves the audio experience by adding the spatial audio and surround sound effect.
Then we've got the Sound Master equalizer in which you will find three predefined equalizers: Ultimate Sound, Pure Vocals, and Thundering Bass. As I mentioned earlier, if you're a basshead, this is the option that you would like to go with. But personally, I prefer the Ultimate Sound as it provides a more balanced output, especially while listening to music. If you want, you can even create a 10-band equaliser based on your preference.
Then we've got the option to turn on the Adaptive Sound. We got a dedicated Game Mode. If you turn it on then the low-latency gaming experience will be provided and you can even turn on or off the sound effects for FPS games for a better listening experience and to improve your gaming performance. Then we got the Sound Space which comes with a few downloadable ambient sounds and white noise that you can play directly from your Hey Melody application for a nice calming audio experience. Then we got the Find My Earbuds. If your earbuds are lost, then you can just tap on this and then you can start playing some audio.
A nice, interesting feature is the Themes where it allows you to create custom themes or use some of the predefined ones with your Enco Air 5S. And every time once your smartphone is connected with the Enco Air 5S, you will get a nice popup on your screen.
Under the Earphone Control tab, you get the option to select the commands and gestures that you can use to perform different actions on both left and right earbuds. So you can perform a single tap, double tap, triple tap, tap and hold, and slide gestures. So we got five different gestures that you can use on both left and right earbuds. So you can perform total 10 different commands on your Enco Air 5s. There is also an AI Translate feature available for having real-time face-to-face translation. But it is available only on Oppo and OnePlus smartphones. You can even use your Enco Air 5S as a camera shutter for taking pictures remotely.
Final Verdict
Oppo Enco Air5s is one of the best semi-in-ear earbuds with active noise cancellation. The audio quality is brilliant. The active noise cancellation is super impressive considering this is a semi-in-ear earbud. The battery life is quite nice and comes with plenty of app-based features for a nice user experience.
So if you're planning to buy semi-in-ear earbuds with active noise cancellation, then the Oppo Enco 5S is the best option for you for sure.