Tronsmart Spunky Pro review

With so many expensive headphones and earbuds out there, it’s difficult to find a good pair without digging deep. Tronsmart’s latest Spunky Pro wireless headphones are aimed at the budget end of the market.

When you consider that Apple’s AirPods cost £159.99, the Spunky Pro is appealingly cheap at just £32.20. They are currently sold only through Geekbuying, but shipping from Europe which eliminates import duty and long postage delays. Right now Tech Advisor readers can get the Spunky Pro for just £25.42/$29.99 using the code SPUNKYPRO1.

In common with many wireless earbuds Tronsmart’s Spunky Pro have their own compact carry case, which will easily fit into a pocket and is nicely designed with a button-operated carbon-fibre effect lid and a soft protective lining inside. It’s black to match the earbuds themselves.

This is a 400mAh battery case, and interestingly as well as a USB-C port for fast charging from the mains there is support for more convenient Qi wireless charging. It enables you to get 18 hours of playtime from the Spunky Pro, which will be more than enough for most users. (The buds themselves last 3.5 hours, while the case adds 14.5 hours.)

The wireless buds themselves feature touch controls for playing and pausing music, and adjusting the volume. They are IPX5-rated, too, which makes them sweat-proof and rainproof, making the Spunky Pro an ideal exercise companion.

During setup we noted that you must pair each bud individually, which seems an unnecessary extra step, but enables you to use a single bud rather than two – useful if you lose one, want to share with a friend, or simply don’t want to be completely blocked off to what’s going on around you. Use both to achieve stereo sound, and switch to mono audio simply by placing the other earbud back in its case.

Having paired the buds they will automatically connect to each other whenever both are removed from the case, and then to your phone over Bluetooth 5.0. If no device is paired within three minutes they will automatically turn off to save power, at which point you can press a button to reactivate them.

Despite their low price in comparison to the likes of AirPods, we found audio quality from the two 6mm drivers is pretty good in the bass and mid areas of songs with vocals and instruments. Volume can be very loud when required.

There’s no built-in voice assistant, but by tapping and holding the button on the earbuds for a couple of seconds you can access the voice assistant installed on your phone.

The earbuds have a snug fit in the ear, which helps to cancel out background noise, making it easier to focus on music or podcasts in busy places such as public transport or office environments.

We did find, however, that after around an hour and a half the Spunky Pro made our ears begin to ache to an uncomfortable and distracting level. Their chunky design doesn’t help here, and neither does the angle at which they must be positioned in order to use the touch controls. We found ourselves repeatedly re-adjusting them and tapping the outside of our ear when we meant to tap the surface facing into our ear.