The Tronsmart Spunky Pro wireless earbuds appear to have almost every feature you could ask for. Wireless and USB-C charging, touch controls, IPX5 sweat resistance, and the latest Bluetooth 5.0. All for a budget price of around £30 or $30.
I put them through their paces to see how they sounded, comparing them against other budget earbuds from Soundpeats; and the Creative Outlier Air’s, both of which I’ve also reviewed recently. I’m also always on the lookout for the perfect running earbuds – might these be them – read on to find out!
Overview
Inside the box you get the earbuds themselves in a charging case, a small and large set of silicone ear tips to accompany the already fitted medium tips, and a USB-C charging cable. These are the first set of budget earbuds I’ve tested that have the more modern and robust reversible USB-C charging port, which is nice to see. And there’s a multilingual instruction manual.
The earbuds come in a small round charging case 60mm in diameter and 34mm thick which weighs a lightweight 47g with the earbuds inside.
It’s a fairly cheap grade of plastic but it’s an interesting design with a small button around the back that satisfyingly releases the matte, Tronsmart branded lid, which can then be rotated around to reveal the earbuds. Manually rotate the lid and click it back into position to close it again.
The earbuds are held in magnetically and are relatively easy to remove. You’ll need to peel off the plastic film over the charging contacts, then place them back in the case to charge.
The case can charge via USB-C or wirelessly if you happen to have a Qi charger which is another very welcome feature for earbuds at this price. Its 400mAh battery takes around 1.5 – 2 hours to charge. Whilst charging, the 4 LEDs on the front of the case indicate the current battery level.
The earbuds themselves are very lightweight at under 7g for the pair. They’re also made of a glossy, rather cheap feeling plastic, but their matte touchpad with the Tronsmart logo makes them look smart enough for the price. There’s a microphone just below the logo on each earbud.
They have a 35mAh battery which should last up to 3.5 hours which is on the low side. But they can be charged up to 4 times in their case, so you could theoretically get up to 17.5 hours of usage out of them in total. Each earbud’s LED lights red whilst charging, then blue for a few seconds when fully charged before turning off.
The case’s status LEDs flash according to its battery status whilst the earbuds are charging. These LEDs turn off when the earbuds are fully charged, so you can check the earbuds’ charge even with the lid closed. You do have to either charge the case, or insert the earbuds into the case to check its current battery level.
Bluetooth pairing
You can pair to the earbuds as a stereo pair, or individually. This makes them versatile, and means you could have each earbud paired to a different device if you like. But it can make setup more confusing.
Setting up as a stereo pair is straightforward and pretty quick. Just remove them both from the case and wait for the status LED on the left earbud to flash red and blue, indicating they’ve paired with each other and are ready to pair with your Bluetooth device. Locate and tap on them in your device’s Bluetooth settings. The LEDs on both earbuds turn off when they are connected.
You can only pair to one device at a time. If you want to connect to another device, you’ll need to disconnect your current pairing. The left earbud will flash red and blue again ready for pairing.
If you want to pair to an individual earbud the left earbud is the master of the stereo pair, so you could return the right earbud to the case and continue using just the left earbud on the currently paired device.
Otherwise, turn either earbud off with a 5 second tap and hold on the touch button. If they’re both out of the case connected in a stereo pair, they’ll turn off together. Tap and hold the earbud you want to pair for 5 seconds to turn on and initiate pairing. The status LED will again flash red and blue ready for pairing.
Unlike the Soundpeats TrueFree+, there’s no indication of right or left earbud when pairing which can be confusing. But once you understand how it works, it’s nice having the ability to pair to each individual earbud. It gives you a few options including charging one earbud whilst you continue listening with the other, or even sharing them with someone. You will lose some functionality when it comes to controlling your music, but I’ll come to that shortly.
You can check the battery level of the earbuds, from your connected device.
There are are various voice prompts for powering on, pairing etc, which unfortunately use a mixture of voices which isn’t very consistent and I found some of the prompts hard to understand.
Controls, comfort and fit
The touch control buttons work well, and I find them preferable to buttons for these in-ear earbuds. Pushing a button and therefore the earbud further into your ear canal, can be really uncomfortable. The controls are also well thought out and comprehensive with even volume being controllable. Most controls work from either the left or right earbud – you can see how they are configured on screen. But you can only skip tracks from the right earbud – double tap to skip forward, triple tap to skip back. And you can only adjust the volume from the left earbud – double tap to increase and triple tap to decrease the volume.
The multiple taps take a bit of getting used to and it’s harder still when running, where they’d be most useful. But I still like having the option. If you’re only using one earbud, you’ll lose either the ability to skip tracks or adjust the volume.
I found the earbuds very comfortable and I barely noticed them in my ears. Their lightweight and small size really helps. And it makes them very secure too, in my ears at least, with the default medium ear tips fitted. For running, they were even more secure than the Creative Outlier Air’s, which have been my go to running earbuds so far. They never felt like they were going to fall out, even on a hot and sweaty run and fiddling with the touchpad to control playback..
They’re also the most discreet earbuds I’ve tried so far, protruding only a small amount from my inner ear.
Sound quality and performance
The 6mm drivers deliver good sound considering what they cost. They favour bass more than other earbuds I’ve tried at this price point, I think in part due to their good fit in my ear. Mids still come through clearly but highs can sound a bit jarring at louder volumes. They don’t have quite the clarity of the more expensive Creative Outlier Air’s but overall I was impressed with their sound quality. Most earbuds at this price point sound a lot better than you’d expect them to and these are very comparable to the SoundPeats TrueFree+ and TrueCapsules, just with a little more bass.
There’s no aptX support for higher quality audio, which I wouldn’t expect at this price. But they do support AAC for superior sound over the basic SBC codec, even though this isn’t listed in the specs.
They have dual microphones for phone calls and they do a decent job in a quiet environment but are almost unusable if there’s lots of background noise, like in a busy street or cafe. Although this seems to be a tough test for most of the true wireless earbuds I’ve tried.
Audio sync for videos is a familiar story even with the latest Bluetooth 5.0. Only Apple’s own AirPods get close. There’s a noticeable delay with YouTube on iOS but YouTube on Android is fine and so is Netflix on both Android and iOS.
With their good fit, they have decent noise isolation, to the point I would like to see these less expensive earbuds start to include some form of audio passthrough, for environments where you need to hear your surroundings. At least you could just use one earbud in these situations.
Sound leakage is also pretty good, but then they’re not the loudest earbuds I’ve tested.
Their IPX5 sweatproof rating was put to the test is some hot and sweaty runs. I’ll report back down in the comments how they fair after 6 months or so.
Battery life if possibly one of their weakest points although I did get close to their quoted 3.5 hours of playback at around 80% volume. You can of course top them up in the case.
This is generally plenty for how I use them, but might be a bit on the low side for some.
The earbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 and range was good. I had no dropouts in the next room around 10m away and their connection reliability was good. Even in my study with dozens of Bluetooth devices, I didn’t experience any drop outs.
Conclusions
I was pretty impressed with these new earbuds from Tronsmart. Their decent sound quality, comfortable and secure fit, comprehensive touch controls, USB-C and wireless charging options and IPX5 sweatproof rating, make them an almost perfect pair of budget earbuds.
A longer battery life would be nice, but not if it made them heavier. And call quality could be better if you need to use them in a noisy environment. I like the flexible Bluetooth pairing options, but it can be confusing especially if you want to use them with multiple devices. And I would love to start seeing these budget earbuds introduce some form of audio passthrough, so you could choose to hear your surroundings.
But I’m nitpicking. For the price of these earbuds, they offer exceptional value and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. In fact, they have now become my default running earbuds.
If you don’t mind spending a little more money and want better battery life, check out my recent review of the Creative Outlier Air’s which have 10 hours of battery life. If you prefer the Apple AirPod stem-based design take a look at the Soundpeats TrueCapsules, which are another great budget option.
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Tronsmart Spunky Pro wireless earbuds: https://amzn.to/2m2dJLR
Creative Outlier Air: https://amzn.to/2AxuQZH
Soundpeats TrueCapsule: https://amzn.to/2NpOwqE
Soundpeats TrueFree+: https://amzn.to/2NpOwqE
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