Mpow’s H10 Bluetooth headphones have hybrid active noise cancellation, up to 30 hours of battery life and a foldable design. They’re about the cheapest headphones I can find with this supposedly more effective noise reduction, at around £50 or $65.
But how do they compare to other budget noise cancelling headphones I’ve reviewed recently, namely the cheaper Mpow H5s and the more expensive Taotronics BH-046s. Let’s find out!
Overview
Inside the unassuming box you get the headphones themselves in a soft pouch, a micro-USB charging cable and a 3.5mm audio cable. There’s also a brief user manual. There’s no airline adapter.
They have a foldable design that makes them nice and compact for over ear headphones. They weigh 243g and measure 170mm by 130mm by 80mm when folded with their length increasing to 200mm when opened up. Overall they’re slightly bigger than their H5 relation. But smaller at least when folded than the non collapsing Taotronics.
They fit comfortably in the soft pouch when folded, but I prefer the hard case of the Taotronics.
The ear cups have a gun metal finish with Mpow branding clearly visible. They don’t have the super glossy finish of the H5s but the smooth plastic still attracts fingerprints. Overall the build quality is just ok. The plastic ear cups and headband feel a little cheap and the very positive click as you unfold each ear cup sounds a little like you’ve broken something every time it engages.
The headband expands with fairly positive clicks revealing a graduated scale on the outside metal band. Although you may never need to expand them, since they start off on the large side. They’re a little loose on my head without any expansion, and way too big for even my teenager’s head.
The synthetic ear pads feel comfortable and are a little softer than the H5s. They don’t appear to be replaceable.
The ear cups rotate over 90 degrees, so even unfolded they could still be stored flat.
Overall I would put the build quality just above the H5s but a step down from the Taotronics BH-046s. I wouldn’t be treating them too roughly but I’m sure they’ll be fine for general use. I’ll report in the comments of the YouTube video how they fair after a few months.
The left ear cup has the Active Noise Cancelling switch which lights green when it’s activated. ANC can be turned on without the headphones being on. There’s also a 3.5mm port for using the headphones wired, if you’ve run out of battery or want to connect to a device without Bluetooth. Bluetooth turns off when you’re connected via the 3.5mm port, but ANC can still be activated.
The right ear cup has the power | Bluetooth button, volume controls and a micro-USB port. They don’t have the more robust USB-C charging port unfortunately and there’s no fast charging – a full charge takes 2-3 hours charging the 500mAh battery at around 0.2A. The status light turns red whilst charging and Bluetooth turns off, although you could still use a wired connection.
A three second press of the power button turns the headphones on and off, both accompanied by audible prompts. The LED flashes blue and red for pairing mode when you first switch them on. Locate Mpow H10 in your Bluetooth settings to connect. There’s an audible confirmation and the LED blinks blue every few seconds whilst the connection is maintained.
To connect to another device, turn the power off and press and hold the power button for 5 seconds to restart the pairing process.
You can connect to two devices at the same time and if you pause playback on one device, you can continue playback on the other device without having to re-enter Bluetooth settings.
You can reset the headphones and clear all pairing records by pressing and holding the volume up and down buttons when the headphones are turned on, until the headphones beep twice with the LED flashing purple.
The headphones feel very comfortable with the soft cushions and not overly tight fit. They’re light enough that you could possibly use them in the gym or even for a run but there’s no IPX rating, and they don’t have the most secure fit, so they’ll move around a bit.
The headphones are mainly controlled from the right ear cup. Holding the volume up and down plays next and previous tracks respectively. A single press of the power button plays or pauses your media and answers phone calls, a double press ends a phone call and a two second press activates your voice assistant. You have to be careful to not hold down the button too long and turn the headphones off!
The controls are well positioned so you do get used to them quickly. Unlike the TaoTronics you only need to use your left and right thumb to control playback and switch ANC on and off, which feels quite natural.
Performance and audio quality
The H10s like the H5s only have Bluetooth 4.1 support which is 2 generations behind 5.0 in many newer devices. And connection reliability wasn’t their strong point. In the office where there are loads of wireless devices all sharing the same spectrum, I experienced dropouts quite often. But away from all this interference, the connection was generally stable. Range was on the low side just reaching the next room of my 1950s brick built house.
They don’t have support for the aptX codec with its supposed better audio quality over Bluetooth.
Audio sync was actually a little better than I was expecting. The YouTube app on iOS which always seems to struggle only had minimal delay. YouTube on Android, and Netflix on both platforms was also fine.
Battery life of the H10s is quoted as a massive 30 hours with ANC off but I had ANC on most of the time and still got around 20 hours using the headphones at around 60-70% volume. It’s more likely you’ll accidently leave the ANC switch on, which will easily drain the batteries overnight!
The headphones use a noise cancelling microphone with Clear Voice Capture or cVc technology for supposedly clearer phone calls. The microphone sounded quite clear in a quiet environment and was quite acceptable even with a noisy gym fan in the background. Received call quality was also fine.
Noise cancellation was far more effective than than the H5s but not as good as the Taotronics BH046s. And unsurprisingly nowhere near Bose or Sony’s ANC headphones costing over 5 times as much.
They use hybrid noise cancellation that uses mics on both the inside and outside of the headphones to capture and cancel out noise, rather than just one or the other. You can turn ANC on even without listening to music. You do get a faint hiss, but lower frequency background noises like the hum of computers fans or dehumidifiers are noticeably reduced. More so once you start playing music even at low volumes, and the background hiss becomes barely noticeable.
Passive noise reduction is pretty good at cutting out a fair bit of noise even with ANC off. But they do leak sound significantly – so not the best option if you like you music at high volume on public transport or flights. The Taotronics perform best in both passive noise reduction and sound leakage.
The 40mm drivers deliver very good sound for the price of these headphones – better than I was expecting. You’ll want ANC on – turning it off makes them sound flat across the range.
Bass sounds particularly good even at higher volumes, and doesn’t generally overpower the vocals. I enjoyed listening to them across a whole range of music. I actually preferred their sound overall to the more expensive Taotronics BH046s. They have more clarity and are also louder, but the Taotronics have better ANC.
At louder volumes, high frequencies started to sound harsh but at below 80% volume this wasn’t an issue.
Compared to the H5s they’re pretty close but the H10’s bass sounded better and the ANC is much improved.
There’s no app to control the headphones or adjust EQ settings although many music apps on iOS and Android will let you make adjustments if need be.
Be sure to check out the sound test comparison in the video at the top of the page that compares the H10s to the H5s and TaoTronics BH046, recorded using binaural 3d sound microphones. Listen with headphones for the best experience!
Conclusions
The Mpow H10 headphones have good sound, excellent battery life, decent ANC and look ok. And I like their foldable design.
The band is on the large side, and they feel a little plasticky but my main issue was Bluetooth connectivity still based on the older 4.1 standard, which could be unstable at times.
Overall, if you’re after a good sounding, comfortable set of wireless headphones with active noise cancellation at an affordable price then these should definitely be on your shortlist. If you want slightly better build quality and improved ANC take a look at the Taotronic BH046s I reviewed recently, although I slightly preferred the H10s for audio quality. And for an even more budget option, the H5s I also looked at recently sound good too but their ANC is very primitive and I prefer the look of the H10s.
Don’t forget to take a look at my YouTube video at the top of the page, and subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you’re subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
Mpow H10 ANC wireless headphones: https://amzn.to/2Ma2NY3
Mpow H5 ANC wireless headphones: https://amzn.to/2Z35CjP
TaoTronics BH046 wireless headphones: https://amzn.to/2M6J2k1
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