Say goodbye to tangled earbud cords with the QY8 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones

If there’s one thing I can’t stand about earbuds it’s that they turn into a tangled mess when you’re not using them. Even when I do use them, the cord is often too short and I find myself frequently pulling the headphone connector out of my smartphone by accident.

The QY8 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones aim to fix these problems by eliminating the cable between your earbuds and your smartphone (or tablet or any other Bluetooth capable device). Notice the company who manufacturers the QY8s, Matone, refers to them as headphones. I beg to differ. I think they are clearly earbuds as they fit inside your ear just like any other pair of earbuds. So I will hence refer to them as what they are—earbuds.

Trouble at first

I’m going to be honest with you. When I first unboxed my QY8 earbuds, I was a little disappointed. The instruction manual that accompanies the QY8s is typeset in a ridiculously small font. So much that at one point, I had to use a magnifying glass just to read the instructions.

Even when I could finally read the print, I couldn’t figure out what they were referring to when they told me to press the [QCY] button to power on the QY8s. After several rounds of trial and error, I finally realized that there was a QCY logo on the outside edge of each earbud and you pressed the entire circle on the outside of the earbud (right side only) to power the QY8s on and off.

I also had trouble fitting the earbuds inside my ear. This was mainly due to not being able to figure out which earbud went in which ear and how to use the attached ear hooks. Also, as dumb as it now sounds to me, I wasn’t sure if the cord that connects both earbuds was supposed to go behind my head (yes) or under my neck (no). A few helpful YouTube videos later and I had everything figured out and both earbuds placed securely in my ears. It really isn’t that difficult once you know the proper way to place them.

The QY8s also come with some alternate earbud covers to accommodate those with different size ears.

Things got better

From here on out, it was smooth sailing. I had the QY8s paired via Bluetooth to my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge in just a few seconds. And a few seconds after that I was enjoying music with my QY8s via my Pandora app.

For those who are interested, you can actually pair the QY8s to two devices at the same time. I guess if you have a separate music player and phone this could be useful but I was satisfied pairing them with just one device.

Adjusting the volume was simply using the volume up and down buttons on the side of the right earbud. They are easy to find thanks to the braille-like bumps on each button. Volume up has two bumps, volume down has one bump. These buttons can also be used to skip forward and backward a track while listening to your music by holding the respective button down for one second.

Since you can also take phone calls with the QY8s, the outer QCY multi-function button serves as a simple way to answer or hang up a phone call.

Sound quality

The QY8s sound quality was very good. Matone claims these are noise canceling headphones but I’m not so sure. Yes, they do an excellent job of reducing outside noise but they aren’t quite 100% noise canceling. You do, however, feel like you are in your own little world when you listen to music with the QY8s, especially when you have them fit snugly in your ears.

The QY8s also passed my simple phone call quality test. I had my son call me from his iPhone while I was several rooms away. He said he could hear me just fine and likewise, I could hear him just fine. In fact, my son said the quality of my voice was “really good”.

Battery life

The QY8s do need to be charged occasionally. According to Matone, the QY8s will give you 7 hours talking/playing time and about 175 hours of standby time on a full charge.

When it does come time to charge them, you connect the charging cable (included) to the USB port on the left earbud and connect the other end to a computer/laptop or power adapter.

Helpful tip

One last tip that I found quite useful when testing the QY8s. Have them in your ears when you power them on or off. That way you can hear the on/off confirmation tones that are played when you power the QY8s on and off.

Video Review

Finally, if you prefer video, here’s my video review of the QY8s.

If you can not see the embedded video above please use the following link: QY8 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones Review

Note: The QY8 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones mentioned above were provided to me at no cost by Matone in exchange for this review. They can be purchased on Amazon.com.