Cowin's latest earbuds and headphones balance budget and battery life
Neither will set you back more than $150.
While it’s not exactly a household name in the space, Cowin has spent the last couple of years making and selling affordable audio products. The company’s CES 2021 slate promises more of the same. On Monday, Cowin announced two new Bluetooth headphones with active noise cancelling: the in-ear Apex Elite and the over-ear SE9.
With the Apex Elite, two things stand out. The first is battery life. Cowin claims you can get more than seven hours of playtime from them on a single charge. Oh, and that’s with ANC on and the volume turned on to full no less. With the included 500mAh charging case, the Apex Elite should have enough power to get you about 30 hours before you’ll need to plug in both the earbuds and case to charge.
The other thing that stands out about the Apex Elite earbuds is that Cowin is selling them for $90. To put that price in perspective, the lowest we’ve seen a pair of Bluetooth earbuds like the Jabra Elite 75t sell for is $100. Granted, the Cowin buds don’t look as good as the 75t, and Jabra has done a better job of supporting its products than most other manufacturers.
Cowin’s SE9 headphones offer a similar value proposition to its Apex Elite earbuds. They feature an 800mAh battery, which the company says will get you more than 30 hours of playtime on a single charge — that’s about the same amount of playtime Sony says you’ll get from its best-in-class WH-1000XM4 headphones, which also come with a hefty $350 price tag. Other notable features include support for Bluetooth 5.0 and Qualcomm’s aptX audio codec. The earpads are also detachable, in case you need to replace them at any point.
When they go on sale later this year for $150, you’ll be able to buy them through Cowin’s website and Amazon. You can buy the Apex Elite earbuds starting today on Cowin’s website, and they’ll be available through Amazon this March.
