Lypertek TEVI review

Premium wireless earbuds can often cost you the best part of £200/$200 or more. If this feels like too much to pay for the pleasure of listening to Spotify without having wires hanging out of your ears, newcomer Lypertek is offering its TEVI buds for a more reasonable £100/$100. We spend some time finding out if this is money well spent.

Price & Availability

The Lypertek TEVI are available from the company’s UK reseller HiFi Headphones for £99 as well as on Amazon UK for £99.

Those in the US and mainland Europe can order directly from Lypertek for $89.90. At this price, they are rivals to the Xiaomi Mi True Wireless Earbuds.

If you do have more to spend, we have a round up of the best wireless earbuds.

Design & Build Quality

There’s an old adage that states ‘the first bite is with the eye’, and in the case of the TEVI this is one that make you hungry for more. The charging case in which they arrive is in the shape of a large pill and covered on the top and bottom with a grey fabric that includes a subtle check in the pattern.

A plastic ring goes around the centre and includes the hinge, a USB-C charging port, and four LEDs that let you know how much charge remains.

This is augmented with a real leather strap attached to the right-hand side and an understated Lypertek logo on the upper part of the case. It’s a smart, refined aesthetic that gives you confidence for what lies within. 

Flipping open the case reveals two buds, sunk into their relevant chambers and secured via a pair of magnets. Removing them is easy, thanks mainly due to the fact that they’re both a little taller than many of the other wireless earbuds we’ve reviewed. With bodies measuring 24mm in height, they do stick out somewhat when in the ear, but the light weight and angled construction mean they are comfortable, and you soon forget you’re wearing them.

This size is likely due to the large battery and sound module that Lypertek uses for the TEVI, with the latter including a DAC, amp, Qualcomm 32-bit Tri-Core processor, Kalimba DSP and a graphene driver. As you can see there’s plenty to pack into the chassis.

On the top of each bud you’ll find buttons for controlling playback, volume, and calls. There are also LEDs to indicate the current mode, plus microphones with Qualcomm cVc 8.0 noise cancelling technology for calls and voice commands when using digital assistants.

IPX7 waterproofing is a nice bonus, as it means you can be out in the rain without having to cover the earbuds. Lypertek even states you can wear the TEVI in the shower.

Sound Quality & Features

Listening to music on the TEVI earbuds is a very pleasing experience. The breadth of frequencies means there is space for all instruments, with even the subtle impression of the air moving from amp speakers in recordings being audible at times. The top end remains clean and clear, while bass is solid if not exactly overwhelming.

Spoken word content is also very good, with a fine balance of tones delivered through the TEVI buds. At times it feels as if the low-end has dropped out, but this was usually down to the bud actually slipping slightly out of the ear canal. Pressing it back in immediately restores the full audio quality.

There isn’t active noise cancellation, but the TEVI snuggly fit into the ear and do an excellent job of blocking out surrounding distractions. Riding on the packed London tube at rush hour became far more tolerable thanks to still being able to clearly hear the music and podcasts from a smartphone.

Pairing the TEVI can be a little confusing at first, due to both the left and right buds appearing in the Bluetooth section on the device to which you’re trying to connect them. This is resolved by selecting one first and waiting for it to connect, making it the master, then selecting the other which pairs up as the slave. 

You don’t notice these hierarchical roles until you need to launch the digital assistant on your device, as only the master can trigger it by holding down its button for a second or so. 

For the vast majority of time, the connection to our smartphone, tablet or PC is solid and reliable. There were times though, usually when walking with the connected phone in our pocket, when we experienced flickering audio and some stuttering. This usually corrected itself within seconds but was a little disappointing.

The multi-function buttons on the top of the buds allow a variety of controls. Clicking once will play or pause audio, while clicking three times on the left skips back a track and doing the same on the right bud skips forward.

Volume is a similar method, with two clicks on the right raising the level and two on the left lowering it. Should a phone call come in, you press once on either bud to answer or a long press on either to reject it. 

Due to the height of the bud’s chassis, you can grip its side as you click the buttons, preventing them being pushed further into your ears and adding discomfort. 

Microphone quality is good, with our callers reporting clear audio on our part without echoing or much in the way of muffling our voice. Battery life is frankly ridiculous. Lypertek claims a maximum of ten hours from a single charge if you keep them at 50 percent volume.

This is pretty much the case, with ours lasting all day when running at around 65 percent. Popping them back in the case when exhausted returns two hours-worth of charge in about 20 minutes, making it easy to get back into our John Mayer marathon with hardly a gap. This lifespan is bolstered significantly by the case which can hold enough power for seven complete recharges.

Verdict

With many higher-end wireless earbuds costing upwards of £150/$150 or sometimes lots more, it’s refreshing to find Lypertek offering an excellent product for a good deal less. The TEVI deliver fantastic audio, offer a good level of control options through their buttons, and have exemplary battery life.

The occasional flickering connection does take the brightest sheen off of performance, but during our time with the TEVI we found them to be reliable, robust, and easy to recommend.