Living with QCY T10

The reason I picked these up is pretty simple: I wanted a pair of TWS earbuds I could use at work.

I’d been using over-ear headphones before, but they felt way too conspicuous. I didn’t like being noticed all the time, so I figured I’d get something a bit more low-key. Requirements:

• Type-C charging port
• Long battery life
• Sound that’s good enough
• Latency as low as possible
• The higher the quality of the supported codec, the better
• The cheaper the better

I happened to see QCY was taking pre-orders for a new model, the T10, with a bunch of random new features. It basically fit the bill, so I got on board. Price was 120 yuan with free shipping, so I hopped on.

Once they arrived, the gap between these and the Google Pixel Buds 2 was visible to the naked eye. They feel flimsy, the build is so-so, and there’s no weight to them in your ear at all. I honestly think it’s just a plain plastic shell.

But I’ve actually used them for almost a month now, and overall I’m fairly satisfied:

• The sound is passable. They say it’s a balanced armature driver, but to me it sounds like someone scraping a piece of sheet metal. The saving grace is a bit of bass compensation. And hey, I’m an adult now, I’m not going to do the teenager audiophile-mysticism flex anymore. This is about good enough.
• Latency is hard to pin down. On Android, after installing the QCY app, it’s actually fine — good enough for watching videos at least. On Linux, sometimes latency is very low, sometimes very high… maybe it creeps up over time? For music it’s fine anyway.
• I haven’t used the mic, so I don’t know.
• I got the “forgiveness green” color. It’s actually not bad, not as ugly as it sounds.
• Out of the case they last about 4 hours, basically enough for half a workday. Pop them back in the case for a bit and you can keep going. Way better than the junk I first bought that only lasted an hour.
• The biggest downside is of course that the build quality is too low-rent, very plasticky. But for this price that’s only normal.

All in all, for 120 yuan I’m basically satisfied. They fit well too, good for slacking off at work. Of course, if you’ve got more budget, I’d still recommend the OPPO W51 — that one has noise cancelling.