Altec Lansing MZW300-BLK Over-the-Ear Bluetooth Headphones Review

Headed for college or office, you’re tucked somewhere near the door of the Delhi Metro. To ignore the discord, you plug in your earphones and transcend into a relishing thought. Just as the gate opens, a swarm of people de-boarding interrupts your reverie by pulling earphones out in a tug. It is then when you hate the concept of wires. This pair of Bluetooth headphones from Altec Lansing is here to remedy your blues.

Neat and simple to use, these over-the-ear headphones wrap the ears in a comfortable cushion. The cushion material is overtly soft and seems that it will fit people’s ear with varied sizes. The headband comes with a comforting padding and is conveniently flexible. During long usage i.e more than two hours in a stretch, however, the headset seems to be gripping the head firmly, and may make users feel uneasy – all this after realizing my head is not gigantic in any way. On the positive note, it helps the headphones stay on the head while you’re running or working out.

The left ear panel features buttons for power, and volume up and down. The power button doubles for functions of play/pause, while volume up and down buttons perform the function of forwarding and rewinding tracks respectively. You cannot seek fast forward or rewind using the buttons. Within a decent range of 30 feet (sans walls in between), Altec Lansing MZW300-BLK Over-the-head Bluetooth headphones can allow you to enjoy soundtracks from a neighouring room or washroom – subtle your stomach’s music with Altec’s.

The sound quality on the Altec Lansing Over-the-head Bluetooth headphones is satisfying, but you will miss being blown away. While the bass and mids seem to balance against each other, treble falls a little short. This is also because these Bluetooth headphones are not really loud. If you’re an audiophile and prefer picking up most notes over the range of frequencies, you’ll do just fine with these headphones, but travelling in public transport or walking a pedestrian’s path is likely to make you cringe over proper noise cancellation. While the background noise is not extremely interfering, you can hear it peep through the ear cups. This is however, lack of ample detail.

Besides wireless music, the Altec Lansing MZW300-BLK Over-the-head Bluetooth headphones host a 3.5 mm jack to be used with devices which do not feature Bluetooth. There is a tiny led light (blue and red) which notifies as intermittently beaming blue while the headphones are connected and alternating red and blue when searching for a device. It connects with a gamut of Android, iOS and Windows devices including iPad, iPod and Windows Laptops/PCs. We, however, faced problem connecting to Windows 10 computers while it could connect easily with Windows 7 and 8.1.

These headphones feature an in-built rechargeable battery that charges fully in nearly an hour using a 1.2A wall brick. You can also charge it via your PC or power banks. The output of the battery is nothing short of pleasing with nearly 8 hours of playback. This is great for a day or two depending on how extensively you use them. Even when you run out battery, you can use an aux cable to play music without the need of external power. There is no indicator of power percentage, unless you use an iOS device, which intrinsically display the remaining power.

These easy to carry around, lightweight headphones come with an MRP of Rs. 4,390 but are available on Amazon India for Rs. 2,899. For the price, these can be a delighting choice if your usage involves sitting indoors and allows you to compromise a little outdoors. You should not, however, choose these if you’re looking forward to being able to distinguish notes.