Wiresto TWS BTH-241 Review: Weird Shape, But Surprisingly Decent Sound Quality
March 6, 2021Cheap earbuds aren’t terrible anymore, but should we even care?
Type: Wireless
Functionally: Bluetooth v5.0, USB charging
Colour: Black
Battery Life: 3h Talk-Time per charge (Total 9h with charging case)
Active Noise Cancelling: No
Rating: 6/10
Price: RM30.90 (Affiliate Link)
The budget earphones market has an endless supply of substandard garbage. Build quality, connection reliability and battery life are terrible across the board. But that isn’t the case for every budget pair of wireless earphones. Wiresto makes a number of ‘budget-friendly’ devices that cater to a variety of tastes and needs.
The TWS-BTH-241 is an example of how cheap earphones can be somewhat bearable. They come in a long cylindrical case, which is a bizarre shape for such a device. I can’t think of any reputable manufacturer who has attempted this. The most logical reason is that it wouldn’t be convenient to carry in a pants pocket or keep steady on a table.
The magnetized cover has to be pushed up for you to pull up the inner cylinder, which feels rather cumbersome. Its top section has a USB Type-C port for charging and an LED charge indicator that lets you know how much power is in reserve. The entire thing feels clunky and inconvenient.
Barring the unusual protrusion, the earbuds themselves aren’t bad. They consist of flat front surfaces that houses touch sensors. The somewhat curved, rectangular body wraps around the flat surface to form a decent sized earbud. It’s quite slender and lightweight, so there is little chance of it flying off your ears with a quick turn of the head.
These are surprisingly nice looking earphones, that fit firmly in each ear. Tapping once on either earbud pauses the music. Tapping twice on the right skips to the next trick while doing the same on the left earbud returns to the previous track. Tapping thrice, either reduces or increases the volume respectively.
Despite being this cheap, the earbuds do have a voice assistant that lets you know the connection status, battery life and whether you have an incoming call. However, you can access the Google Voice Assistant by pressing and holding the touch surface. Besides that, there’s nothing else going for it.
Music Quality
The sound quality however, is nothing to scoff at. It’s quite good, considering the asking price. There’s a decent amount of clarity throughout the range. But it gets a little muddled when there is too much happening in the background. A substantial amount of distortion can be heard, which ruins the entire experience.
For simpler stuff, the earbuds can reproduce crisp and precise audio quality. The clarity is quite decent, allowing you to truly appreciate the different instruments being played. However, it lacks depth and bass. The richness in mids and lows aren’t expressed well, which doesn’t do justice for tracks like T.N.T from AC/DC.
And you can forget about a good surround sound experience. The effect of having music shift from one earbud to the other to provide for an immersive, studio -like experience – is non-existent. The BTH-241 does the bare minimum in terms of music delivery – but that’s ok, because it already does enough for the asking price.
Unlike more expensive earbuds, the BTH-241 doesn’t have an Android or iOS app that can be used to alter its functions or fine tune music settings. Though this wouldn’t have made a world of difference in terms of music quality, but minute tweaks here and there could have helped somewhat.
Each earbud is equipped with a 50mAh battery, which should be enough to offer close to 3-hours worth of battery life. The carrying case has a 900mAh battery. In total, you should get close to 9 hours of battery life. All things considered, said battery life is acceptable considering the asking price.
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro is able to provide close to 18 hours of juice and are far superior, but cost significantly more than the Wiresto BTH-241. When low on power, the earbuds will beep periodically, to remind you to charge them.
Overall Experience
The first of said reminders is announced by the voice assistant, “Low Battery Please Charging.” Yes, you read that right. These nuances are to be expected of budget Chinese earbuds or Bluetooth speakers. And if you aren’t willing to put up with such annoyances, then forget about this product. Spend a little more money for something from the likes of MPOW.
This may be a deal breaker to some, but not to me. I was especially impressed with the way the earbuds were able to seamlessly detect each other, and connect to my smartphone accordingly. Neither left nor right earbud is dominant to the other, and can operate independently of each other. If you pull out one of them from the case, it will turn on and connect to your phone.
When you pull the other one out as well, they talk to each other, then connect as one to your smartphone. This happens fairly quickly, close in swiftness to that of more expensive earbuds. It’s a testament to how good budget earbuds have become that, interference, signal drops and intermittent reliability issues aren’t problems that you need to worry about.
The only qualm I have pertains to the touch surfaces, they are far too sensitive. Accidental touches resulting from reseating one of the earbuds, pauses your music or worse still, ends an active call. And because these touch surfaces are rather wide and flat, they make up most of the front portion of each earbud. That’s the reason you’ll accidently activate them.
The Wiresto BTH-241 are relatively cheap and basic earbuds yet have so much to offer. Most products of its ilk come with weak magnets that struggle to keep them seated when in their carrying case. Over time, they get weaker, which causes the earbuds to jostle about with movements. This unnecessarily causes them to power on and off.
Wiresto equipped the BTH-241 with strong magnets which keep them firmly in place but also difficult to take out. Sometimes it feels as though you have to forcefully remove them, which can be inconvenient at times. But it’s an acceptable trade off, if they can keep the earbuds from powering on while stored away in the case.
Should I Buy This?
If you’re looking for a pair of cheap earbuds that have passable audio quality, then look no further. Nothing else in this price range comes remotely close to what they offer, which includes overall reliability. I didn’t encounter any malfunctions, volume bias or intermittent Bluetooth problems.
The Wiresto TWS BTH-241 kept pace with my demands, all day. If you want something that sounds ‘good’ for a budget device, then buy the Wiresto BTH-241. You could do a lot worse than this for a lot more money. They have recently come back in stock recently, so if you’ve been on the fence about purchasing a spare pair of earbuds, take the plunge and buy this odd looking thing.
