TOZO T10 Bluetooth 5.3 Wireless Earbuds with Wireless Charging Case IPX8 Waterproof

I had a couple of pairs of apple airpods along with some Beats earphones that go in the ear with the over-the-ear clip. Apple sounded nice but were expensive and did not hold up well over time. The Beats sounded good but were uncomfortable. I got these earbuds for $26 with a $6 off coupon. I figured “what’s the worse that can happen? If they’re no good I’m only out $20.” Let me start by saying they sound awesome. They fit pretty well and are not uncomfortable. They appear pretty sturdy. I downloaded the app and can change the EQ sound of them, which is something the others do not offer. I have not tested the waterproof feature and hopefully never will. They charge quickly and hold a charge so far. I just cannot find a thing to knock about these, I really like them so far.

The picture attached to this review shows the case charging while closed. The blue charging indicator lights show through the closed lid, which was a pleasant surprise! Thats going to be helpful to be able to tell at a glance if charging is done or not without having to even open the case. It comes with its own little charging cord which plugged into my charging port that I already had. It has 6 sizes of earbud covers/tips, which I think is a great idea! I have never had earbuds in for this long without one or both of them either falling out or poking my ear weirdly and getting really uncomfortable. I am very excited that these are staying in my ears, they are so far not at all uncomfortable, and the sound is GREAT! Bonus: I didn’t see a separate setting to turn on a noise cancellation feature, but it seems to be part of the automatic features. I say this because there was a very animated conversation going on in the next room and I didn’t even hear it. This Never happens, even with other noise cancellations products. I have not tried to figure out the touch controls yet, and I’m perfectly fine just hitting play on my phone for music or audiobooks, even though the options are there to control volume, skipping or rewinding, and even taking calls from the earbuds.
It comes with a pretty long cord that you can loop through one end of the case and it is adjustable to various lengths so it will be easy to attach the case to anything like a backpack or purse or whatever you need. As you can see in the picture the case is a very portable and convenient size.
I ordered the blue, and it looks more black, but that is not a dealbreaker for me. It still looks very nice. I’m very happy with this purchase. At this point I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others. The price is fantastic for what I’m experiencing so far with these earbuds.

Since posting my original middling review on Amazon, the company’s customer service proactively reached out to me with concerns that the earbuds I received may have been a defective item. I must say that floored me because I had previously stated in my review that I had no intention of returning the earbuds… and I am still within window to return them as I write this updated review.

Tozo’s customer service offered to either give me a gift card for the purchase price I paid or to give me an upgraded set of Tozo earbuds. Not really interested in the cash, I took them up on the offer of the upgraded earbuds. I received the Tozo T6 earbuds and could not be happier. A quick note on the differences for folks who may be comparing these two:

Tozo T10 – I think the bass is better on this pair and after I purchased a fast charging USB-C cord, I am able to get the charging base to fully charge. The key benefits of this one over the T6 is that you can pair each earbud as if it was a separate blue tooth device AND you can pair each/both to two devices at a time. So I would say the Tozo T10’s are for the guy/gal with multiple devices they use daily and bass lovers.

Tozo T6 – In hindsight, this is the pair I should have purchased. The charging case is essentially the same size as an Airpods case, it’s IPX8 waterproof has very good bass. The case is noticeably smaller (in a good way) in your pocket. These earbuds have the same quality that I often describe Apple products with: “it just works.” You won’t pair these earbuds separately and with multiple devices at a time… and I don’t care. I love them.

So all in, I love Tozo’s products and especially their customer service. Read up on the differences between the Tozo T10 and T6 and make the best decision for yourself… and know that their customer service folks are responsive and want you to be happy! That’s rare and I’m eternally grateful.

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ORIGINAL REVIEW:

It hard for me to rate this product because I want to love it. Here are my pros, cons, things to consider and final thoughts:

PROS:
-The bass is legitimately excellent. The speaker drivers are better than any wireless earbuds I have ever used. I am not an audophile nor do I buy $150+ headphones but the sound is legit for hip hop, dance, and other similar music.

-the sound is also very good. Not excellent, like the base, but it is very good. No complains here.

-Other miscellaneous features that I liked were true to description: water protection, battery life, overall build quality.

-Price is extremely affordable compared to other higher end alternatives. I’d rather buy three of these than one pair of Beats headphones.

-the earbuds batteries never have run out on me. I run/walk for about two hours each day, so I admittedly have never tried to really drain them. When you read the problems below, this will seem more like a pro point.

-these earbuds can pair to two devices at the same time. So I usually have my iPad and iPhone paired up without having to switch between them in the settings.

CONS:
-bluetooth connection – if you follow the instructions, the separate earbuds pair automatically with each other with no problems. the problem is that I feel like there is a 1-10 minute period where the headphones are “searching” for my phone no matter how close it is to me for a successfully, no drop pairing. The sound can cut out or dip for a minimal period while it is going through this phase, but it’s annoying.

-Using two earbuds at the same time – My usual usage case is walking/standing with my earbuds in and my phone in my pocket. If i tilt my head in one direction or another one or both headphones lose the connection momentarily BUT they do automatically pair back up. It usually goes away the longer I have them in my ears but I am afraid to leave my phone on a table and walk any reasonable distance away. i am not confident they will stay paired if I was on the opposite end of the same room with no obstructions.

-Turning off the earbuds. I think this annoys me the most… I may be wrong in this desire, but I wish the earbuds would automatically shut off when I put them in the charging case. They DON’T! I have put them in the charging base for hours and then realized that they were on the whole time. Which means that they do have a charge, but they were draining the base unnecessarily while I thought I had it plugged in and was charging the base and the earbuds. I’ve bought a fast charging USB C to micro USB charging cord in hopes that it’ll help. The current safest thing I can do to get them to turn off faster/automatically is to have both my iPad and iPhone “forget the device” so that it times out versus remains on and draining the batteries.

-the base takes forever to fully charge. related to the above point, I have NEVER had a fully charged base unit.

Things to consider:

If you’re still reading this, these are true wireless headphones. I am currently within the return window, but I won’t be returning these earbuds. This is mostly because my expectations are low given the price point. My core headphones are a pair of Apple Airpods Pros. So this pair suffers from me comparing them to a $200+ pair that “simply works.” Some additional thoughts and tips that are neither pros/cons to me:

-You can use each earbud as a separate “device.” When you turn on bluetooth you see each earbud listed as a separate bluetooth device. So, follow their recommendation when it says ONLY use the right earbud as your connection via our phone/device. The right will automatically “add in” the left earbud, but the reverse is not true. What this means is that you can pair one earbud to one device and one to another. This sucks when you then want to pair them together again.. so I use the “forget this device” setting after every independent use of the left earbud.

In summary, I want to love these earbuds, but the annoying fickle ways that the bluetooth works or momentarily drops whenever I first put them in my ears was something I could have accepted because of my use case. Add in the fact that its an annoying process to get the earbuds to turn off 100% of the time which effectively makes it near impossible to fully charge the base and you understand why I am writing this review. Again, I am not returning them! I love the sound. I almost always use them in exercise use cases or when I know I am going to be acting carelessly or around water/rain or in a situation where I am concerned about potential theft of my Airpod Pros. So as a second bluetooth device, these are excellent. As your primary headphones, I give them a three out of five stars.

They are great! I have dropped them in water several times and they are holding up strong. I love how they fit in my ears and have size adjustments. The charging case lasts a long time and doesn’t die as fast as other brands when you don’t use them continuously. They have sat in the case for a week unused and the case only lost a small bit of power. They last a long time too when using them. I own several pairs for work and home. They cancel out noise very well when usings 2 buds, and if you need to you can use just the right one so you can have an open ear. Very easy to use too. Quick charging. The charging case is wireless charging as well. I refuse to pay high priced for quality that does not match Tozo. They also have T12 Pros that have literally gone thru my washer (ear bud got left in my pocket accidently) and still work great! The T10s have been okay after an accidental washing….but not always. I will continue to use Tozo!

CAN IT BE WORTH KEEPING?
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<preface this review noting the following was gleaned with over 1 month of usage, on 2 different units, as the inital order was VERY susceptible to cutting out/losing phone pairing. Hardly worked at all, actually – just enough that i liked the potential and opted for a replacement to see if something got past QC…whatever form QC takes for Tozo>

<second context provider: this is the only pair of wireless ear buds i’ve ever used. it’s easy to see on Amazon, as well as crowd-funded sites, that this form-factor is the currently, predominate iteration. case/dock that serves as recharger; buds very close, if not exactly the same, shape and general layout; claims of Bluetooth 5.0 and typically IPX6, 7 or 8, although these T10s are the only IPX8 rated i recall seeing.>

<CAVEAT each and every one of us really should keep in mind as we happily shop away online, wherever that may be: WHO or WHAT centralized agency, reputable or not, is testing and certifying these products?
by exactly what measure is it that products are found to actually be and do what the things “marketing” indicates is so? Hmmm???…lets think on that for a moment…instead of blindly swallowing whatever hook is cast before us and then complaining that we’ve a hook embedded in our mouth.

that said – IDK where to go to get reputable answers to the obvious questions regarding online (only, typically) product in 2019. if someone does, please post under this review cos I damn sure would like to explore that further.
moving along to this item…>
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it is unfortunate, really – as otherwise, there is MUCH to like about this ear bud set up:

* the price was outstanding, at least for this purchase as it was made during a lightning/gold box – whatever Amazon calls their countdown-timed deal opportunities. in my case, it was $29.99. what i paid is actually the teetering point for me as my inner-monologue vacillates between “when they work, i really do like these…and they were astoundingly inexpensive” to “when they cut-out or lose bud-to-bud pairing, no price compensates for resulting escalation of irritation to aggravation…” but as far as evaluating on price relative to sound, feature set and (mostly present) functionality +2

* surprisingly good sound, incl much more low-end than was expected, particularly as one ought remember, they’re wireless, fairly small form, ear buds. think about that for a moment…personally, i’ll put them firmly between a good set of cans and any of my wired buds, of which i have a half-doz, incl some decent Sony’s and a set of Bose sports – granting the Bose are not in-ear buds; which makes a CONSIDERABLE difference in sound quality, as well-fitted in-ear buds both better block outside noise and seal desired audio’s path, directing toward the eardrums. +2

*voice calls show well, both from the send and receive side. i have one colleague who routinely complains about calls made either through my car’s bluetooth-connected system (mic is in steering wheel) or the now out-of-production Jawbone Icon – yet he’s made no comments about my use of these buds, which tells me they’re doing the job and then some. i have also made calls to other parties, for the purposes of testing call quality, and no one has observed any issues. my ability to hear and communicate effectively has been surprisingly good, although i haven’t yet tested the buds on a call driving down the road with the windows open, or through a call standing outside on a windy day. the Jawbone did a pretty nice job with purported, military-grade noise-cancellation; not sure what/if considerations are employed to that end in these T10s. +1.5

* fit/form is comfortable and stays in place – albeit w/o any running around. my most active conditions involve wearing while operating a residential, riding mower over uneven terrain, getting on/off, sweating were the most vigorous, operational conditions. they can droop some, and they do get a bit uncomfortable after a couple of hours, but then, show me some ear-buds that don’t. +1

* battery life was good (roughly 3-hrs) and the recharge time (via an unplugged, but charged, case/dock) seemed to be about 45-minutes in very generally observed times. IOW, i did not run down the buds, break out the stopwatch, note start/stop times; just looked at the clock when initiating recharge and then again when lifted. +1.25

* i get that this form-factor—charging a case/carrying buds in case for on-the-go, cord-free recharging, IS the way these many, many iterations of wireless, BT earbuds are presently made—can’t really be attributed to Tozo, but the functionality of the “case as charger” has real value. specific to this case, Tozo appears to use rare-earth magnets, resulting in small form and commensurately strong magnetism. very good for keeping that lid closed and your buds in the case where they belong. i’ve had my case hanging on my technician’s toolbag for a couple of weeks now and have yet to find the lid opening on its own, or of course, my buds out of the case other than when i pull them out. the buds themselves are magnetically drawn into the form and onto the charging contacts, once you’ve got them most of the way inserted. +1.25

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS:

*most necessarily, and glaring, is the frequent and random connectivity drop: some times it was the Rt-ear (phone pairing) bud from the phone, despite the phone’s proximity sitting next to me in my mower’s cup holder or in my front shorts pocket, ALWAYS on my right side. other times, it was Lt-bud connectivity loss to Rt-bud, despite the buds having recent charge. this happens FAR TOO FREQUENTLY and does so while they’re worn – making it an obvious engineering/technical flaw. Surely the distance through a human’s head is so similar that nailing down electronics appropriate to afford solid connectivity across this distance and through incredibly similar material (flesh/bone/brain/bone/flesh) or around the same, should be made certain before this product hits market.
add the pairing drop that i easily—with about 90% consistency reproduced—initiated by tightly cupping an ear with one hand…now that i type this, would seem the bud-to-bud pairing is made with shockingly short-range/weak electronics. so, forget going through the head, these have trouble going AROUND the head and are interrupted by nothing more than the composition of an ungloved, human hand and some of the time, nothing more than…air?
back to the drawing board or lab, Tozo… -5.5

presuming that deal-breaker gets corrected, next suggestion is

* add a feature that makes it clear that the buds are fully charged. update the voiced component to include current battery-life status, or put a meter on the case that provides visual status of the same, or change that LED series (essentially serves as a meter, but with 4-LEDs lined up vs a numeric display) from blue to green, or even better, have the earbuds’ go from red to green? there is no way to know how much life left the buds have, other than the voice prompt that kicks in and repeats 3 or 4 times that the battery is low. the auto power-off function comes pretty swiftly thereafter, which is fine, but outside of this, the user has no way to know the buds current, charged state of being. this is kind-of irritating, really.
as it is, appears the display times out. If the buds are lifted from the charging case with a full charge (?), the buds change to blue. Put them right back in the case, they revert to red and sit that way until timing out – unless the battery life is so erratic/poor that a full-charge isn’t really a full-charge, or is until lifted from direct charge contact, or…see what i’m saying, Tozo? -1.5

Nit-picky suggestion here, but valid all the same:

* make the charging case/dock’s molded loop a wee bit larger. not sure what Tozo expects would be looped through this, but it is too small—without modification—for anything other than a string. i have several cables w/screw-together, end crimped connectors that are typically used for/found in; keeping together keys. the 1/8″ threaded end of this cable would not fit through the loop. i took a very small, sharp utility knife and shaved off little bits of plastic on the case-side (not the loop-side) of the loop, until i was able to get the threaded end of my cable’s connector through the opening.
my workaround now ensures i can easily and securely attach the buds’ case to a carabiner, a tool bag, a belt-loop (although haven’t done that), etc. -1

RESULTS: with this highly unscientific and also highly arbitrary summary of my Tozo T10 observations, based on just a a couple of week’s sporadic usage with the initial purchase, followed by several, much more intensive weeks now with the “replacement” unit…it’s a wash.

would i say to someone who doesn’t already have a strong interest in wireless, ear-buds, “rush out and buy these”?
i would not.
would i encourage someone to try this or a different maker to see if another has defeated the paramount and absolutely necessary condition of consistent and persistent pairing to both phone and bud-to-bud? sure, why not – return them in within the appropriate time frame if they’re no bueno.

what’s to say that should i go to and through a third set of Tozo’s T10s they’d not work splendidly? seems unlikely, but…or that another manufacturer has nailed some technical shortcoming and consideration that appears to have eluded Tozo’s grasp? w/o going down that road, can’t know.

for me, relative to my specific instance and most definitely considering the price paid and approximately 80% up-time in which the buds work as expected, coupled with already having backup, alternatives if/when the T10s get too exasperating, i’ll probably just keep them. reach out to Tozo–if that’s even possible w/o further time-suck as has been already been spent in grappling the issue, contacting Amazon multiple times to correct some bizarre-to-me SNAFU in which reviews for this product were disallowed due to (my paraphrased summary here) some goofiness with reviews and legitimate account, product purchases and now the subsequent, even-further time-suck of typing out this loooong overview…but roll the dice and pay full price ($49.99 as of this review’s post)…nah.

i suspect the technology is suuuuper close, but just isn’t.quite.there.yet to pull off what is trying to be done with the wireless ear-bud market.