To accompany a beautiful smartphone, you have a beautiful helmet. But it is difficult to distinguish the segment of in-ear. OnePlus achieved this with a new headset called Icons and whose position reflects that of OnePlus X.
Yesterday we introduced you to the OnePlus X third smartphone in Chinese start-up Carl Pei and Pete Lau. A launch under the sign of design and feel, with beautiful materials for touch, including zirconium to dress the hull of the more expensive models, and technologies meant to flatter the eyes, as the AMOLED screen, the photo sensor ISOCELL and 8-megapixel webcam. The rest chose OnePlus security with a chipset that he knows quite well, since it is the Snapdragon 801 quad-core that animated his first “flagship killer.” The OnePlus X goes on sale in a week at a starting price of 269 euros (add a hundred euros for zirconium version).
But that was not the only product that the young company unveiled yesterday. It accompanies its new smartphone in fact a design-ear headphones also licked and called Icons. Inspired by the organ, the asymmetric design of this headset is very characteristic. Visible branches are composed of aluminum and the helmet body has an angle of 51 ° to enter the ear canal. The diaphragm that creates the sound measuring 11 mm, for low rounder. Inside the cable which is 1.25 m (to a weight of 15 grams), the connections are made of enameled copper. And a three-button remote with microphone is integrated there.
Among the few technical features to remember, the sound level of the headphones is 110 decibels, the impedance is 32 ohms and the frequency range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz (which is purely classical, as it is frequencies audible to humans). OnePlus promises a harmonic distortion of less than 0.5%, which is quite low, even for an in-ear headphone. Remain vigilant vis-à-vis the latter. However, the helmet will certainly minimum: a good sound, sufficient sound insulation (3 pairs of tips will be delivered), a satisfactory level of comfort and the convenience of a headset. As many criteria as headsets offered by most manufacturers do not provide.
We come to the price. For the OnePlus X, like its predecessors, does not come with a headset. The Icons will cost 50 euros, 15 euros more than the in-ear developed in partnership with JBL (E1 + Earphones). And just under 40 euros more than the Silver Bullet, the first headset of OnePlus. The young start-up clearly goes upmarket in its accessory offer. Logic: this is above it spent most of its margin. Still unavailable to date, the Icons should be marketed (uninvited) along the OnePlus X or in a few days.