15th December 2022 – Written by Nick Rowe @ Technuovo.com
These are the brand new Urbanista Copenhagen earbuds, I’ve been using them over the last month and here are my thoughts.
Typical earbud set-up, buds and a charging case. Traditional-looking earbuds, I will say like AirPods because most people know what they look like but Apple didn’t create that look by any means. Shaped for your ear, they sit inside but there is no rubber tip for extra support and sound isolation. They include a shortish stem to them as well. They are very lightweight and fit well within my ears, although it’s not all that snug or secure.
The case, is black, with some matte and gloss finish to it, with some subtle branding on the top. There is a USB C port to the side for charging, plus four white indicator lights just below the lid that indicate the battery life of the case, not the buds. The buds and case come in four colours, black as I’ve got here, plus white, dusty pink and sage green.
Overall, a pretty sleek and compact affair. Well built, and easy to store or carry around with you and I think they look pretty good in the ear as well.
As for features, there is a total of 32hours playback between the buds and the carry case, which is about 8 hours in the buds, then 3 extra charges. There is a noise-reducing microphone apparently, touch controls, they’re water resistant IPX4, they’ve got Bluetooth 5.2 and there is app support but more on that later. The retail price, is £69.99 here in the UK so not the cheapest, far from the most expensive and about middle tier in the Urbanista earbud range.
Given the price and spec, the audio performance is as expected and I’ve enjoyed using them. They offer a fairly neutral sound profile, fine to just pick up and go, however, I would say out the box, the bass is lacking and I do want a little bit more. This can be linked to the Urbanista app to personalise your sound, which you kinda can but it’s very limited. The app shows the battery level in each bud, you can mod the controls and select between 6 preset EQ’s. Default is just that, default, plus you’ve got bass boost, treble boost, energise, balance and speech. Switching between them is instantaneous so you can straight away hear if that profile is better suited for your content or not. I said I wanted more bass, so I went straight for the bass boost but that muddied the sound so much, it wasn’t what I wanted. I then tried Energise, which does offer more bass and the clarity remains so it does sound better than the default, for me anyway. There is no ANC with these, there are no rubber tips, so yeah, you will hear the outside world while wearing these.
I did take several calls while wearing the buds, they worked fine, conversations were heard, no complaints at all.
These do include touch controls and the sensitive part of the bud is the stem. Controls are limited, there is no volume control out of the box but that’s fine because we’ve got play/pause or answer/hang up a call with a double tap, or if you want to change to the next track or previous, its triple tap. To activate voice assistant if you have it set up on your phone, touch and hold. If you want volume control, you can set this within the app and swap the triple tap to it. The controls work ok, you have to make sure you tap at the top of the stem and there is slight delay but it’s fine, I had no issues with double-tapping to pause my music. If you remove a bud, your content will not automatically pause. If you wanted to use just one bud, you can and the other can go back in the case and it will turn off.
Other worthwhile mentions, there is no wireless charging which is a shame but you are pushing your luck with that as a feature at this price point. No mention of IP rating either, although by looking at them, probably sweat proof so you could use them while exercising.
Overall, they’re alright. They’re somewhat budget-friendly, they look good and come in four different colours. Performance is ok, it didn’t blow me away but nor did I think ‘put these in the bin’. Battery life is good and they are comfortable in the ear, although on that secure. I think if you can get these in a sale, maybe around the £50 mark, they’re worth buying. At £69, if you can add a little bit more, you’ll get something with ANC and rubber tips, which will likely perform better.
For more info, head over to the official Urbanista website.
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