Enacfire E18 Bluetooth Earbuds Review

By Jason Yang January 14, 2019 in Earbuds, Reviews

Enacfire E18 Bluetooth Earbuds

5.1
Sound 3.0
Features 5.0
Design 4.0
Value 8.5

Pros

  • Cheap. The best feature of the Enacfire E18s is the price. While other true wireless earbuds start at about double the money, you can get in on the trend for well under $50.
  • Easy to pair. Pairing a new Bluetooth device is never fun. Thankfully, Enacfire makes the process fairly simple without having to redo pairing for the same device.

Cons

  • Terrible sound quality. Relative to more expensive units from new and well known brands, the Enacfire E18s offer little in the way of sound quality. Tinny highs and muffled, inaudible bass showcase the worst of true wireless form factor technology.
  • Bluetooth 5, sort of... Not all Bluetooth 5 chipsets are created equal. One of the ways Enacfire skimps on cost is through the use of a lower quality Bluetooth chipset. That means signal strength and power consumption aren't that much better than previous iterations of Bluetooth technology.
  • Mediocre battery life. Though Enacfire lists battery life at 15 hours, they are including the charging case battery. The true life of the earbuds themselves clocks in at under 3 hours, which is middling to poor for the current generation of true wireless buds.
  • Poor microphone positioning for calls. If your plan is to make phone calls using the Enacfire E18s, you should rethink your plan. Thanks to poor mic positioning and lack of beam forming technology, callers will hear all of the background noise and none of your voice.
  • No waterproofing. Don't expect the E18s to survive encounters with moisture, be it sweat, rain, or a light mist.

True wireless earbuds that deliver some of what they promise at a price so low you may not care.

If you ask ten people on the street what they think of Enacfire, chances are none of them are going to know what you are talking about. But in the era of new audio brands sporting great features at bargain basement prices, it’s entirely possible that doesn’t matter one bit.

Indeed, unless you’re trying to front with those super stylish $300+ true wireless earbuds from the likes of Sennheiser, Bose, Bang & Olufsen, or Apple an under $50 pair of Bluetooth 5 true wireless earbuds is a sight for sore wallets.

Even so, and despite the sheer volume of product Enacfire sells on Amazon and other e-commerce channels, the E18s warrant more investigation. Does anything – other than the price of course – make the Enacfire E18s worthy of consideration? As it turns out, there are some benefits to going cheap, but you may be better off spending a bit more to get a more robust pair of true wireless earbuds.

Enacfire E18 Features Fact Check

Amazon top seller listings for Enacfire’s E18 model include a few claims that don’t hold up. One of my pet peeves with true wireless earbuds of late is inflating or outright lying about battery life. This is accomplished with a few sneaky tactics.

Manufacturers will often quote the total battery life of the earbuds and charging case, or quote battery life of two earbuds when used separately (only one ear at a time). This effectively doubles, triples, or multiplies many times the real battery life of the earbuds.

Enacfire and their sellers on Amazon are guilty of the former, substituting case battery life for uninterrupted usable time, the stat customers really want to know. The 15 hour playtime is more like 2 hours before the earbuds need to be recharged in their charging case.

Adding to the misrepresentation is name dropping the fabled Bluetooth 5 chipset. While Bluetooth 5 technology from Qualcomm and Realtek chips are lightyears ahead of older Bluetooth tech, Enacfire uses a cheaper generic chipset to deliver signal and wireless functionality. The result is that while Enacfire can technically claim Bluetooth 5, you aren’t getting many – if any – of the benefits of this new technology.

Enacfire E18 Unboxing
Image Credit: Enacfire

Conclusion: You get what you pay for with Enacfire E18s

While Enacfire triggered us with shady marketing tactics and inflated stats, they are selling a product that is cheap relative to other true wireless earbuds, and that can be a positive if you don’t particularly care about sound quality or battery life.

As true wireless earbuds become the norm, expect the cheaper segment of the market to expand as consumers seek pricing below that of the bigger players. That said, buyer beware. The Enacfire E18s may satisfy a casual listener, but won’t do for anybody that wants any semblance of a quality audio experience.