OPPO Enco Buds (W12) True Wireless Earbuds Unboxing and Review
Launched alongside OPPO Enco Air (W32), OPPO Philippines also released a more affordable True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds - the OPPO Enco Buds (W12), which may give every Filipino audio fan more reasons to enjoy music with their latest smart devices.
Today, I was able to get my hands on one. I’d like to share my unboxing experience as well as the review of the device. So, let's deal first with the unboxing.
Unboxing the OPPO Enco Buds (W12)
The front portion of the package showed OPPO Enco Buds (W12) itself, including the OPPO Enco brand. Other details such as: model number, charging input, Bluetooth details, and the summary of the six important features of the OPPO Enco Buds (W12) are imprinted on the back portion of the box.
You can also find OPPO Enco Buds printed on the left side, while a lone OPPO logo was indicated on the right portion. The color, manufacturing date, and serial number are all found at the bottom, with nothing to look at from the top.
Inside the Box and Accessories
After opening the lid of the box, you will see a - Hear the Wonder - message on the right side. Once the lid was removed, a glossy charging case, protected by a matte plastic lining, is presented. The charging case shall contain the OPPO Enco Buds (W12) earbuds.
Underneath the charging case and its paper cradle, the following items are found: earbud tips in two sizes (S and L with M-size tips already installed by default on the earbuds), a quick start guide, and a safety guide with warranty card. The OPPO Enco Buds (W12) doesn’t come with Type-C charging cable to charge its case – you have to provide your own.
Now, let us take a look at the physical overview and proceed with the full review of the device.
Design and Walk Around
The charging case for OPPO Enco Buds (W12) featured a small pill-shaped design with a glossy polycarbonate plastic shell. As for the color, the OPPO Enco Buds (W12) come in two, namely: White and Blue. My unit comes in White color.
The top portion indicates the lone OPPO logo. There’s nothing to see at the bottom.
The front contains the LED notification, while the hinge of the charging case and Type-C charging port is at the back.
Found inside the charging case are the earbuds and the L/R indicator.
Now, let's take a closer look at the bean-shaped earbuds. The earbud touch control area and a single microphone with intelligent noise call reduction are located at the top portion. Meanwhile, the charging contact pins, ear tip, and L/R indicator can be seen at the bottom.
Pairing and HeyMelody App
The OPPO Enco Buds (W12) comes with Bluetooth 5.2 and uses Google’s Fast Pair technology for pairing. Instead of fiddling with earbuds to activate them, OPPO Enco Buds can automatically turn themselves on by simply opening the charging case using the usual Bluetooth pairing or by downloading the HeyMelody App. Make sure that before pairing, both earbuds must be inside the charging case.
When you open the charging case’s cover, it will automatically reconnect to the most recently connected device. If it cannot find or fails to connect, it will enter pairing mode, which allows you to connect to another device.
To reset the earbuds in case of faulty pairing or when one of the earbuds is not working, just disconnect your earbuds from the device, put them in the charging case, and leave the lid open. Next, you need to touch and hold the touch control of either the left and right earbud. When the indicator blinks red three times, it resets the earbuds to their factory settings, after clearing the original pairing record.
Users are encouraged to download the HeyMelody application. The HeyMelody app is the software for firmware upgrade and function setting of OnePlus and OPPO wireless headsets. Through this, you can quickly view the battery levels of your left and right earbuds, modify the headset operation, and headset firmware upgrade.
OPPO Enco Buds (W12) features smart touch functionality, allowing users to toggle earbuds settings with just a light tap on the touch control area of either of the earbuds. A single-tap pauses or plays music; A double-tap pauses/plays music and skip songs; A triple-tap summons the voice assistant or enables the game mode. Tapping and holding one of the earbuds for 1 second will increase or decrease the audio volume.
Audio Quality and Comfort
As to the audio quality, the sounds that came out are clear. You can feel the bass while it can also get very loud. For the call quality, although there's no active noise cancellation, it features an intelligent deep neural network (DNN) model-based noise cancellation instead. This uses a smart algorithm to distinguish human voices from background noises when you’re on a call. This could handle voices clearly and eliminate most of the ambient sounds.
A single OPPO Enco Buds (W12) earbud weighs just 4 grams per ear and comes with molded silicone ear tips, making it comfortable to wear. It securely fits on my ear but does fall off after shaking, running, and jumping hard.
Latency and Other Features
The OPPO Enco Buds (W12) comes with a super-low 80ms latency Game Mode. The latency-reducing Game Mode works as expected; it improved audio-visual sync which will be greatly appreciated by gamers.
Additionally, the earbuds come with a built-in 8mm dynamic driver and also supports IP54 dust and water-resistant rating (but the charging case is not). Thus, there’s no need to worry about mild rain and tough workouts.
Battery Life and Charging
On their own, the OPPO Enco Buds (W12) earbuds come with a 40mAh battery and have a battery life of 6 hours of music playback at 50% volume. When used with the 400mAh capacity charging case, the battery can last up to 24 hours. Aside from music playback, the earbuds offer a talk time of up to 4 hours on their own, and 15 hours when used with the charging case.
With just 15 minutes of charging, you’ll get 1 hour of playback. It may take two and a half hours to fully charge the earbuds in its charging case.
To check the battery life, just open the lid of the charging case with the earbuds inside and the LED notification will light up to give you an idea of the battery level of the earbuds. When you remove the earbuds from the charging case, the indicator shows the battery level of the charging case. There are different battery level color indicators: red indicates low, yellow indicates medium, and green indicates full or sufficient. The remaining battery of the earbuds can also be displayed in the phone’s Bluetooth list or inside the HeyMelody app.
OPPO Enco Buds (W12) Specifications
Driver: 8 mm dynamic driver
Driver sensitivity: 100.6 dB @ 1 kHz
Frequency response range: 20 Hz - 20 kHz
Bluetooth version: 5.2
Bluetooth range: 10m
Dust and water resistance (earbuds): IP54
Battery type: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Battery capacity: 40mAh (earbuds) / 400mAh (charging case)
Charging port: Type-C
Size (charging case): 67.0 x 40.4 x 27.2mm
Size (earbud): 22.2 x 19.6 x 22.7mm
Weight (entire device): 45g
Colors: White and Blue
Price and Availability
The OPPO Enco Buds (W12) retails for Php1,699 and is available in OPPO Stores nationwide, Shopee, and Lazada.
Verdict
If you’re planning to get new budget-friendly TWS earbuds that will give you all-day music enjoyment and long-lasting battery life, which costs below 2k, I highly recommend that you shortlist this one.
The OPPO Enco Buds (W12) ticked all the boxes---from its decent audio quality, compact and minimalist design, and small but important features: intelligent call noise reduction, open-up auto-connection, low-latency Game Mode, and long battery life.
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