Oppo Enco Air3
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Model: Oppo Enco Air3
Price: MSRP approx. $30
Website: AliExpress, Oppo
Review Reference: RC099
Manufacturer Specification:
1 x Pair Wireless Earbuds
1 x USB Type-C Charge Case
1 x USB Type-C Charge Cable
1 x Quick Guide: Chinese
YouTube Review:
Coming soon
Introduction
When a new semi in-ear bud comes to the market, I'm on it - especially if it's this cheap! The Oppo Enco Air3 is available from AliExpress for the ludicrously low price of £22.13 at the time of review, which seems like a steal given the rather impressive specifications - including the provision of multipoint connectivity, app support, programmable controls and quick charge.
Today I'll walk you through the product and compare it to some of the other popular semi in-ear buds on the market currently which are pitched at a similar price.
Unboxing
Make no mistake at all, you aren't buying the Oppo Enco Air3 for the unboxing. I took the Chinese version given the global edition hasn't made it to market yet, and was surprised to discover it didn't even include a charge cable!
The manual is in Chinese only, and it's more of a user guide - but operating the earbuds is pretty straightforward so no major issues there.
Charge Case
The charge case for the Enco Air3 is semi-transparent, with a frosted lid with the Oppo logo screen printed across the centre. It measures around 5cm across the height and width, with a depth of 2.5cm. It weighs just over 38g fully-loaded, making it an attractive, portable case.
Flip the friction-hinged lid back, and the buds slot intuitively into the case with precision, aided by the appropriately-weighted magnets. You're greeted with an LED that gives you a green, amber or red denomination - when you open the case the LED colour represents the battery remaining in the buds, when you close it it's the battery remaining in the case. Simply, yet extremely effective. The case supports hall-switch mode, connecting a second or two after you open the case. This conveniently allows you to set up your multipoint connections and button configuration in the app while the buds are still in the case - fantastic.
The battery capacity is 300mAh, giving you 3 additional full charges, and it takes around 2 hours for a full charge. The buds charge fully after 80 minutes, and there is Oppo's trademark quick charge feature which provides a very handy 2 hours of playtime from just 10 minutes juice. There's no wireless charging - it's USB-C only, and the socket is located at the base - again, the LED denotes how much charge is remaining, staying solid throughout the charge duration.
Ergonomics
The Enco Air3 are a semi-in-ear bud, meaning there is no silicone tip and no seal. This design is for those that don't like the stuffy feel of a silicone tip, and it allows you to hear your surroundings better without messing around with transparency mode. As far as semi-in-ear buds go, the Air3 is a fairly standard design, with decent workmanship and quality - the bud weighs around 3.7g and measures 33mm in stem length. If there was a 'standard' in terms of dimensions, this would probably be it.
On the inside, you've got a vent for the tuning hole and mic, and the speaker output is perpendicular, meaning the earbuds wear slightly straight. There are battery connectors on the inside, slightly recessed from the stem. There's an attractive-looking 'teardrop' style semi-transparent edge, that matches nicely with the case.
The design is slightly different to some of it's peers. It lacks the curvature of the QCY T20, Yobybo X-Boat, Edifier W220T and SoundPEATS Air3 series, instead fitting perpendicular like the FIIL Key alongside it. This means it wears rather straight as a result, otherwise if you tilt the speaker will be aimed away from your ear canal. However, unlike the FIIL Key, the edge is narrow and targeted, which means it actually sits a little more securely in your ear.
The speaker opening is narrower than any other model you see here, which actually gives it a shade more stability as a result. It requires that you 'push it in' a little - once you do, it will stay there, provided you aren't too active. Sitting at my desk they were absolutely fine, but get a jog on and you will notice them start to move a little. Part of me think perhaps they would have been better off angling the driver downwards a little - this would have increased the stability further, or going a bit bulkier like the Soundpeats Air4 and QCY T20, because there's not enough inherent stability to really take advantage of the IP54 dust and moisture resistance unless you have particularly small ears. The stems are a bit thicker than the other models there too, which looks more attractive but probably doesn't help the weight displacement, adding to further potential stability woes.
The touch controls are at the top of the stem - they can be initiated accidentally from time to time, although the absence of curve at the top at least means they aren't as easily set off as the SoundPEATS Air3 series.
Above shows the way the buds should be worn, and how they fit in your ears from the sides. It's a subtle, attractive look which stamps it's own identity on the archetypal Airpod-style design.
Audio & Sound Signature
The Enco Air3 have a single dynamic driver and are the first earbud in their price category to use the Cadence Tensilica HiFi 5 DSP. This high-performing chip brings a number of tangible benefits, including enhanced audio processing - it's a whopping 25 times more powerful than the chip used in the Enco Air2. In terms of codec support, they default to AAC, and via the app they have three preset equaliser settings - Original, Bass Boost and Clear Vocals.
On the original setting, you've got a lower frequency response which is quite similar to the SoundPEATS Air3 Deluxe HS - strong in the centre, giving instruments a little body, and a gradual slope off in the high bass - enough to retain the harmonics and not too much to sound muddy. It's the kind of tuning that works with semi-in-ear, because their design means you automatically lose some of the sense of bass regardless, so over-cooking this can be highly detrimental, to the depths of distortion in the case of the 1More Comfobuds 2, for example.
Where the Enco Air3 differ is in the mids. The uplift between 1.5-3k adds more brightness to claps, percussion and vocals. Vocals are far more forward than the Air3 Deluxe HS - pianos and guitar chords hit a little more prominently and kick drums have a bit more bite, but this can border on excessively-bright at times. Switch to 'Bass Boost' and you get a little notch in those frequencies, but a slightly muddier mid-bass. 'Clear Vocal' kills the lower frequencies and boosts the upper mids and trebles even more - steer clear of that one!
Despite the trebles tailing of from 6k onwards, it's a bright, clean sounding TWS with forward vocals with plenty of bass given the form factor constraints. The soundstage is reasonably wide, with very moderate depth. Clarity is OK, and instrument separation is reasonable too.
There's another little treat - Oppo Alive Audio. This is another goodie facilitated by the chipset, and it's Oppo's answer to spatial audio. There's no head tracking, and the effect is almost placebo-like, but switch it on and you'll notice the perceived soundstage widen.
The Enco Air3 are one of the better sounding budget semi in-ear offerings, certainly up there with the Soundpeats offerings at the same sort of price.
Call Quality
The Enco Air3 feature on my 2023 Call Quality (Part 1) test which you can find below:
Outdoors, you can hear how they fare here:
It's very quickly evident that the AI/DNN algorithms they use for noise reduction are, like most earbuds, far better equipped at dealing with wind and traffic than they are at coping with the consistent sound of indistinct chatter. If you're making and taking calls on the move on the daily commute, the Air3 perform pretty well, elevating your voice with authority, albeit not always perfectly clearly. Indoors, they suffer the same fate as other budget buds, although performance really isn't bad - don't go thinking you can make presentations with them when it's noisy in the scene.
Battery Life
Battery life is the semi-in-ear standard fare of up to 6 hours. I got just under 5 first time around, and just over 4 with multipoint and making a number of calls. It isn't market leading or anything like that, but the quick charge feature of 2 hours playtime from 10 minutes worth of juice offsets this nicely, preventing the capacity from being a problem for most users. The total battery life of advertised 24 hours can thus be scaled back pro rata, but it's about what we expect with a set of semi-in-ear buds, especially in the budget category.
Other Features
The HeyMelody app is a BBK app which works for Oppo and OnePlus buds (amongst others). It is a straightforward app with a clean, easy to follow interface - the main page gives you case and earbud battery indications, there's an EQ toggle which has no custom EQ, but allows you to choose between the three audio presets. You can also toggle 'Oppo Alive Audio', 'Gaming Mode' (which reduces latency even further) and 'Dual Connection'.
Latency is pretty good - for YouTube videos the synchronisation is more than good enough, and for games, gaming mode gets you close to alignment, but it's not going to be perfect, even despite the impressive advertised 47ms latency.
Dual Connection is Oppo's answer to Multipoint, and it works extremely well. The connection isn't limited, so you can easily pause one device and then play on another, and there's no delay or lag. It actually seems to work better than on the Enco X2, a much higher priced and more premium product. You also get a list of connected devices in the app and the ability to toggle the connection - very impressive.
The app also allows you to customise controls - by default, single tap is play/pause, double tap left toggles tracks backwards, double tap right toggles tracks forwards. Triple left for Gaming Mode, Triple right for Voice Assistant. Holding the touch control for a couple of seconds for volume control - left is reduce, right is increase. All of these can be changed in the app, and there's a tutorial to walk you through controls too.
The global version of the product features 'Google Fast Pair', but given this is the Chinese version, it was not included.
Connectivity is using Bluetooth 5.3 - it's stable and you get 10m quite easily with line of sight. I did encounter a minor glitch, with the sound quality periodically dropping every so often when using Multipoint. It isn't the first set of earbuds I've encountered this occasional issue on, so I wonder what is causing it? It's a minor quibble and doesn't happen too often, but worth a mention.
Summary
When it comes to semi-in-ear buds, choice is very limited - other than Huawei, Sony and Samsung, the premium non-apple options are quite limited. Instead, the budget buds fight for supremacy, and SoundPEATS have had it their way for a very long time. The Air3 Deluxe HS are still the bud to beat - their sound is a little more natural with a tighter lower frequency and a more refined upper midrange, but the Enco Air3 isn't that far away, delivering a better sound than the Edifier W220T, Tronsmart Onyx Ace Pro and FIIL Key, and far better than the QCY T20 & 1More Comfobuds 2.
The Enco Air3 has a better case than the SoundPEATS offering, multipoint and controls which are less sensitive to sudden movements. Their app is also far better. Call quality marginally edges it on the SoundPEATS - but again, not by much, but it is some way short of the excellent Edifier W220T in this regard. Had Oppo angled the nozzles down a little to give more stability, they would have nailed the ergonomics too.
The Enco Air3 finally gives users some options outside of SoundPEATS for semi-in-ear users, and provides a budget alternative to Huawei for those looking for the ability to use with simultaneous connections. The Enco Air3 will feature in my 'best under $30' video on YouTube, which goes live later in the year - they are a steal at the price, and some minor quibbles aside - are a great all-rounder.
Instagram: regancipher
YouTube: regancipher
Squiglink: regancipher
Socials: Biolink
Model: Oppo Enco Air3
Price: MSRP approx. $30
Website: AliExpress, Oppo
Review Reference: RC099
Manufacturer Specification:
- Brand: Oppo
- Model: Enco Air3
- Driver: 13.4mm Polymer Composite Dynamic Driver
- Chipset: Cadence Tensilica HiFi 5 DSP
- Mic: 4 mics with DNN noise reduction for calls
- ANC: No
- Codecs: AAC, SBC
- App Support: Yes - HeyMelody app
- Multipoint: Yes
- Volume Control: Yes (hold for 1s)
- Gaming Mode: Yes
- Earbud Weight: 3.68g
- Earbud Dimensions: 133mm stem length
- Gross Case & Buds Weight: 38.64g
- Case Dimensions: 51.8mm (width) x 56.3mm (height) x 26mm (depth)
- Case Charge Capacity: 300mAh
- Quick Charge: Yes - 2 hours from 10 minutes
- Wireless Charging: No
- Charge Time: 80 minutes (buds), 120 minutes (buds and case)
- Single Use Playtime: Up to 6 hours
- Playtime with Charge Case: Up to 25 hours
- Bluetooth Range: 10m advertised
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 5.3
- Bluetooth Protocols: BLE/ HFP 1.7/ A2DP 1.3/ AVRCP 1.5
- Water Resistance: IP54
1 x Pair Wireless Earbuds
1 x USB Type-C Charge Case
1 x USB Type-C Charge Cable
1 x Quick Guide: Chinese
YouTube Review:
Coming soon
Introduction
When a new semi in-ear bud comes to the market, I'm on it - especially if it's this cheap! The Oppo Enco Air3 is available from AliExpress for the ludicrously low price of £22.13 at the time of review, which seems like a steal given the rather impressive specifications - including the provision of multipoint connectivity, app support, programmable controls and quick charge.
Today I'll walk you through the product and compare it to some of the other popular semi in-ear buds on the market currently which are pitched at a similar price.
Unboxing
Make no mistake at all, you aren't buying the Oppo Enco Air3 for the unboxing. I took the Chinese version given the global edition hasn't made it to market yet, and was surprised to discover it didn't even include a charge cable!
The manual is in Chinese only, and it's more of a user guide - but operating the earbuds is pretty straightforward so no major issues there.
Charge Case
The charge case for the Enco Air3 is semi-transparent, with a frosted lid with the Oppo logo screen printed across the centre. It measures around 5cm across the height and width, with a depth of 2.5cm. It weighs just over 38g fully-loaded, making it an attractive, portable case.
Flip the friction-hinged lid back, and the buds slot intuitively into the case with precision, aided by the appropriately-weighted magnets. You're greeted with an LED that gives you a green, amber or red denomination - when you open the case the LED colour represents the battery remaining in the buds, when you close it it's the battery remaining in the case. Simply, yet extremely effective. The case supports hall-switch mode, connecting a second or two after you open the case. This conveniently allows you to set up your multipoint connections and button configuration in the app while the buds are still in the case - fantastic.
The battery capacity is 300mAh, giving you 3 additional full charges, and it takes around 2 hours for a full charge. The buds charge fully after 80 minutes, and there is Oppo's trademark quick charge feature which provides a very handy 2 hours of playtime from just 10 minutes juice. There's no wireless charging - it's USB-C only, and the socket is located at the base - again, the LED denotes how much charge is remaining, staying solid throughout the charge duration.
Ergonomics
The Enco Air3 are a semi-in-ear bud, meaning there is no silicone tip and no seal. This design is for those that don't like the stuffy feel of a silicone tip, and it allows you to hear your surroundings better without messing around with transparency mode. As far as semi-in-ear buds go, the Air3 is a fairly standard design, with decent workmanship and quality - the bud weighs around 3.7g and measures 33mm in stem length. If there was a 'standard' in terms of dimensions, this would probably be it.
On the inside, you've got a vent for the tuning hole and mic, and the speaker output is perpendicular, meaning the earbuds wear slightly straight. There are battery connectors on the inside, slightly recessed from the stem. There's an attractive-looking 'teardrop' style semi-transparent edge, that matches nicely with the case.
The design is slightly different to some of it's peers. It lacks the curvature of the QCY T20, Yobybo X-Boat, Edifier W220T and SoundPEATS Air3 series, instead fitting perpendicular like the FIIL Key alongside it. This means it wears rather straight as a result, otherwise if you tilt the speaker will be aimed away from your ear canal. However, unlike the FIIL Key, the edge is narrow and targeted, which means it actually sits a little more securely in your ear.
The speaker opening is narrower than any other model you see here, which actually gives it a shade more stability as a result. It requires that you 'push it in' a little - once you do, it will stay there, provided you aren't too active. Sitting at my desk they were absolutely fine, but get a jog on and you will notice them start to move a little. Part of me think perhaps they would have been better off angling the driver downwards a little - this would have increased the stability further, or going a bit bulkier like the Soundpeats Air4 and QCY T20, because there's not enough inherent stability to really take advantage of the IP54 dust and moisture resistance unless you have particularly small ears. The stems are a bit thicker than the other models there too, which looks more attractive but probably doesn't help the weight displacement, adding to further potential stability woes.
The touch controls are at the top of the stem - they can be initiated accidentally from time to time, although the absence of curve at the top at least means they aren't as easily set off as the SoundPEATS Air3 series.
Above shows the way the buds should be worn, and how they fit in your ears from the sides. It's a subtle, attractive look which stamps it's own identity on the archetypal Airpod-style design.
Audio & Sound Signature
The Enco Air3 have a single dynamic driver and are the first earbud in their price category to use the Cadence Tensilica HiFi 5 DSP. This high-performing chip brings a number of tangible benefits, including enhanced audio processing - it's a whopping 25 times more powerful than the chip used in the Enco Air2. In terms of codec support, they default to AAC, and via the app they have three preset equaliser settings - Original, Bass Boost and Clear Vocals.
On the original setting, you've got a lower frequency response which is quite similar to the SoundPEATS Air3 Deluxe HS - strong in the centre, giving instruments a little body, and a gradual slope off in the high bass - enough to retain the harmonics and not too much to sound muddy. It's the kind of tuning that works with semi-in-ear, because their design means you automatically lose some of the sense of bass regardless, so over-cooking this can be highly detrimental, to the depths of distortion in the case of the 1More Comfobuds 2, for example.
Where the Enco Air3 differ is in the mids. The uplift between 1.5-3k adds more brightness to claps, percussion and vocals. Vocals are far more forward than the Air3 Deluxe HS - pianos and guitar chords hit a little more prominently and kick drums have a bit more bite, but this can border on excessively-bright at times. Switch to 'Bass Boost' and you get a little notch in those frequencies, but a slightly muddier mid-bass. 'Clear Vocal' kills the lower frequencies and boosts the upper mids and trebles even more - steer clear of that one!
Despite the trebles tailing of from 6k onwards, it's a bright, clean sounding TWS with forward vocals with plenty of bass given the form factor constraints. The soundstage is reasonably wide, with very moderate depth. Clarity is OK, and instrument separation is reasonable too.
There's another little treat - Oppo Alive Audio. This is another goodie facilitated by the chipset, and it's Oppo's answer to spatial audio. There's no head tracking, and the effect is almost placebo-like, but switch it on and you'll notice the perceived soundstage widen.
The Enco Air3 are one of the better sounding budget semi in-ear offerings, certainly up there with the Soundpeats offerings at the same sort of price.
Call Quality
The Enco Air3 feature on my 2023 Call Quality (Part 1) test which you can find below:
Outdoors, you can hear how they fare here:
It's very quickly evident that the AI/DNN algorithms they use for noise reduction are, like most earbuds, far better equipped at dealing with wind and traffic than they are at coping with the consistent sound of indistinct chatter. If you're making and taking calls on the move on the daily commute, the Air3 perform pretty well, elevating your voice with authority, albeit not always perfectly clearly. Indoors, they suffer the same fate as other budget buds, although performance really isn't bad - don't go thinking you can make presentations with them when it's noisy in the scene.
Battery Life
Battery life is the semi-in-ear standard fare of up to 6 hours. I got just under 5 first time around, and just over 4 with multipoint and making a number of calls. It isn't market leading or anything like that, but the quick charge feature of 2 hours playtime from 10 minutes worth of juice offsets this nicely, preventing the capacity from being a problem for most users. The total battery life of advertised 24 hours can thus be scaled back pro rata, but it's about what we expect with a set of semi-in-ear buds, especially in the budget category.
Other Features
The HeyMelody app is a BBK app which works for Oppo and OnePlus buds (amongst others). It is a straightforward app with a clean, easy to follow interface - the main page gives you case and earbud battery indications, there's an EQ toggle which has no custom EQ, but allows you to choose between the three audio presets. You can also toggle 'Oppo Alive Audio', 'Gaming Mode' (which reduces latency even further) and 'Dual Connection'.
Latency is pretty good - for YouTube videos the synchronisation is more than good enough, and for games, gaming mode gets you close to alignment, but it's not going to be perfect, even despite the impressive advertised 47ms latency.
Dual Connection is Oppo's answer to Multipoint, and it works extremely well. The connection isn't limited, so you can easily pause one device and then play on another, and there's no delay or lag. It actually seems to work better than on the Enco X2, a much higher priced and more premium product. You also get a list of connected devices in the app and the ability to toggle the connection - very impressive.
The app also allows you to customise controls - by default, single tap is play/pause, double tap left toggles tracks backwards, double tap right toggles tracks forwards. Triple left for Gaming Mode, Triple right for Voice Assistant. Holding the touch control for a couple of seconds for volume control - left is reduce, right is increase. All of these can be changed in the app, and there's a tutorial to walk you through controls too.
The global version of the product features 'Google Fast Pair', but given this is the Chinese version, it was not included.
Connectivity is using Bluetooth 5.3 - it's stable and you get 10m quite easily with line of sight. I did encounter a minor glitch, with the sound quality periodically dropping every so often when using Multipoint. It isn't the first set of earbuds I've encountered this occasional issue on, so I wonder what is causing it? It's a minor quibble and doesn't happen too often, but worth a mention.
Summary
When it comes to semi-in-ear buds, choice is very limited - other than Huawei, Sony and Samsung, the premium non-apple options are quite limited. Instead, the budget buds fight for supremacy, and SoundPEATS have had it their way for a very long time. The Air3 Deluxe HS are still the bud to beat - their sound is a little more natural with a tighter lower frequency and a more refined upper midrange, but the Enco Air3 isn't that far away, delivering a better sound than the Edifier W220T, Tronsmart Onyx Ace Pro and FIIL Key, and far better than the QCY T20 & 1More Comfobuds 2.
The Enco Air3 has a better case than the SoundPEATS offering, multipoint and controls which are less sensitive to sudden movements. Their app is also far better. Call quality marginally edges it on the SoundPEATS - but again, not by much, but it is some way short of the excellent Edifier W220T in this regard. Had Oppo angled the nozzles down a little to give more stability, they would have nailed the ergonomics too.
The Enco Air3 finally gives users some options outside of SoundPEATS for semi-in-ear users, and provides a budget alternative to Huawei for those looking for the ability to use with simultaneous connections. The Enco Air3 will feature in my 'best under $30' video on YouTube, which goes live later in the year - they are a steal at the price, and some minor quibbles aside - are a great all-rounder.
