REVIEW: Privates Headphones by Outdoor Tech

If you remember, a few weeks ago, Will introduced the world to Outdoor Tech, a new brand we’ve started carrying in our stores and online. We received stock this past week and in there were a pair of demo Privates headphones. I love me some headphones and decided that while Will, our Product Manager, was in NYC, I was going to steal (ok, borrow) his pair of demo Privates that were on his desk. Thanks Will!

Here’s my review: I dig ‘em!

End article. Just kidding — there’s more!

Here’s what I love:

• They are wireless. You wouldn’t think that a little cord attached to your headphones would really be that much of a pain — but turns out, it kind of is. You really notice just how annoying it is when you rock a pair of Bluetooth headphones instead.

• They sound great! I have a pair of $200 Beats Solo headphones, and I can honestly say that I think these sound just about as good. Sorry Dre!

• They look like my Urbanears Plattans. They might not come in as many cool colors as Urbanears do, but they’ve got the cool fabric headpiece and I like the matte finish on the earpieces. They’ve also done a good job branding them without making the brand too “loud” on the headphones (which I dislike). Their Sasquatch logo appears on each side and is nice and small, and there’s a little tag that has “Outdoor Tech” written on it — perfect.

• They are comfortable. I wear headphones for the majority of the day while I work. I need something that’s comfortable and isn’t going to hurt my little ears after a while. These do the trick. The soft cushions are nice and flush against my ears. I’ve been wearing them for a couple of hours, but I think I could go longer and they would be just fine!

Here’s what I think could be better:

• The controls on the ear piece. There aren’t many actual buttons, which I love. I think it looks cool — kind of like hidden features. If you take your finger and swipe up or down, that controls the volume. If you take your finger and swipe left or right, that controls what track you’re on. The swipe up and down to control the volume also works great. There is a tactile button that acts as the multifunction button. It will pair the headphones initially, play/pause a song and is what you push when you want to answer/end a phone call.

However, since I use Spotify most of the time versus iTunes, I found that the controls were a bit wonky for my music in that app. Instead of skipping to the next track it would simply skip forward or backwards a few seconds in the song. The multifunction button also did not work at all to play/pause the song I was listening to and when pushed would instead open iTunes and start playing in there.

It’s important to note that I ditched Spotify for a second as a test, and when I tried using all of the controls in iTunes, they worked flawlessly.

Overall I think these are pretty ballin’ over-ear headphones. At $99, you really seem to get a lot of bang for your buck. In fact, I think I might just have to get myself a pair to add to my collection!

Wanna give them a try? Stop into one of our stores or purchase a pair here!