Customer Reviews

TENQA HP-109 Bluetooth Headphones

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The promise of stereo Bluetooth is great. Who wouldn't love to listen to their favorite music and shows without wires, with the ability to take make a phone call with the same unfettered freedom.

Unfortunately, no one has been able to get it quite right. I've used a variety of stereo Bluetooth headphones, including the Motorola MotoROKR S9-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headsetand the Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800 Stereo Bluetooth Headset (Black)and none of them are perfect. The sound quality isn't great and the connections are wonky. Sometimes they work well, other times there are frequent drop outs - who knows why? They tend to do better with a direct line of "sight," Motorola, for example, places the Bluetooth receiver in the back of their headphones and caution you not to put your phone in your front pocket or on your front hip - well, where else would you put it? Who carries their phone behind them?

That being said, the Tenqas are in some ways pretty good for their low price. The sound is decent and I don't find their connectivity any less robust than other models I've used. If you want to wear them around the house, they're probably a cost-effectively solution. They feel a little cheap, but they are cheap. So, at least you get what you pay for.

But beware - if you're thinking of wearing these out in the world, you better be comfortable looking like the ultimate dork. These eyesores put the ugh in ugly. The models I listed above are at least sleek looking and kind of sexy - the Tenqa's look like something the Borg would wear. They're big, bulky and call attention to themselves with a brightly flashing blue light that will make you look like a nut. What were they thinking?

Pros:
Good price
Work as well as some higher-priced models

Cons
Build quality matches the low price
Tragically ugly - children will point and laugh

I used these headphones on my HTC Hero. The synching up was very smooth and I had no problem with that. The sound quality for the most part is decent. However, this is just an average bluetooth headphone and in fact, is probably worse than some of the other ones I've had. The headphones itself sat very comfortably on my head.

The biggest con of this is that when I am listening to music on my phone, it will skip at times and if I walk away even just downstairs, it would skip like a broken casette tape. The singer's voice will suddenly speed up for no reason at all and then it would be all broken up.

I also tried these for a phone call and was not impressed. While the headphone is sitting on my head, the other party can hear themselves echo, which did not make any sense as their voice was not being fed back to them. This was not even an issue when I had speakerphone on.

I would probably give this 2 1/2 stars. It has a lot of potential but fails to actually work right when needed.

I have my doubts when I received this headset, having gone through many and was never happy with any of them. Anyway, initial charging the headset took over an hour, then pairing. I paired this headset with several devices; my Mac Book Pro and Ipod Touch. Pairing took about 5 seconds for each and pretty straight forward.

I am no audiophile, but the sound is excellent. I guess it is not at the level of a good pair of wired headphones, but it is plenty good for me. I walked away from my Ipod at one point to another room, but can still hear the music with absolutely no noise!

The manual came with the headphone is sufficient for operating and pairing the headset, only that it has very small print. Had to put on my reading glasses to read it.

Overall, it is an excellent product. I think I will buy another one.

I got the Tenqa HP-109 as a Christmas gift this year. I don't use headphones, mainly because of the wires... but this fixed that. And since I'm not an audiophile I didn't feel that I needed something more elaborate (read: expensive). I wanted these to use when working around the house. So far, they've met my expectations.

They are kind of big, but I expected that just based on the picture alone. It doesn't bother me since I won't be wearing them in public. They are comfortable, up to a point. If you wear them for extended periods of time you will definitely feel it.

As others have mentioned, the light is big. This would only be a problem if you're wearing them in public and don't want your ear to blink as your walking down the street. For me, I don't really care. I can't see the light when I'm wearing them.

My only gripe is that the charging cable that came with it doesn't work. I don't know why... but I tried plugging it into a USB port on my computer and into a USB wall adapter. Neither worked. I looked through some old cell phone charges and found another mini-usb charger and tried it. The red LED lit up letting me know it was charging. This small inconvenience makes me give it 4 starts.

It's nice to not have a cord in the way & the sound IS good, but they don't get loud enough to overpower the music or equipment at the gym. Also, they need to be charged after every use, and when they die, they just die.

I bought two Tenqa products last year from Amazon - a BT transmitter and a BT headphone. Headphone stopped working only after a month. The headphone looses connection after 1 minute or so. Tried to contact Tenqa in vain.

I shall update this if I hear back from Tenqa. You are better off buying a more expensive Motorola product. I have two Motorola BT earphones; both work great after 8 months of use.

Update: Tenqa did replace my defective product with a new one. The new headphone works well, as of now.

The TENQA HP-109 are nice stereo bluetooth headphones for the price. The sound is clear with minimal distortion, except at times there are loud "cracks", or breaks in the music which can be annoying. I assume these are caused mostly by the distance between my phone and the headphones.

The call quality is not the greatest. The biggest problem is the speaker volume on the headphones when on a call compared to the speaker volume when listening to music. On a call, you can barely hear the caller, and the caller can barely hear you. You can remedy this by angling the headphones closer to your mouth. But, for a short call, they work fine. I bought these mainly for music, though call quality could be better.

Overall, I will give these 3.5 stars. They offer good music quality with a few quirks and marginal call quality. They are pretty good for someone wanting to listen to music and not miss that important call. The price is right, too.

TENQA HP-109 Bluetooth Headphones exceeded my expectations. I was afraid that the sound quality will be sub-par and that headphones would suffer from interference, but none of those fears realized. The sound quality is great, the volume is sufficient, the buttons, once you memorize their locations, function perfectly. The fit is very comfortable, and the headset is light enough to wear for some time. The headphones isolate enough external noise to let me enjoy my music. The promised listening time of 15 hours is impressive.

Pairing to my BB 8900 was very easy. As soon as Tenqa was paired and connected, BlackBerry 8900 routed the sound from the media player (music an video) to the headset and it was amazing. All functions are controlled from the right earphone. Volume control worked just fine and track forward/back worked as expected. Headphone use mini-USB charging connector and do not come with a charger, but rather a USB-to-miniUSB cord is included. I used one of my older mini-USB chargers to charge Tenqa HP-108.

Pairing to my HP dv2000 laptop running 32b Vista was a whole lot harder, but it is NOT Tenqa's fault. I found a solution after running a few Google searches: there are a lot of results, but the one that clicked with me was this one [... see comment ...]. My laptop does not have built-in bluetooth, and I was trying to use one of the older bluetooth USB adapters. The default drivers that Vista selected for my adapter, apparently, did not support A2DP protocol. Furthermore, the Blusoleil driver disk that came with my bluetooth adapter would not run in Vista (no explanation, just nothing happens after I click setup.exe > Run as administrator). I downloaded and installed the latest TRIAL version of Bluesoleil 6, and, after restart, Tenqa HP-109 connected and the laptop started routing audio to it. I do not expect to use Tenqa headsets with my laptop, so I may or may not try to find a more permanent solution such as buying a newer bluetooth adapter that would run between five and ten bucks. Regardless, it is confirmed that Tenqa works with both my BlackBerry and my laptop.

Now, the only gripe I have and for which, if I could, I would take a half-star off is the silly blinking blue light. It is located on the right earphone, it is quite bright, and it blinks once every second. It annoys me, and I do not understand why some manufacturers insist on putting these bright blue blinking LEDs on bluetooth devices. I had a couple of bluetooth headsets by Nokia and they were much more discrete - they still had LEDs so that headsets could communincate its status, they just were not bright blue and did not blink frequently.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Tenqa HP-109 to anyone looking for a quality headset. You should have your expectations set right - you are not going to get home theater quality sound from a bluetooth headset in this price range. Tenqa HO-109 is best for using at a gym, work, or on airplane. It's hard to beat the features and quality given headset's price and Amazon's support.

Bluetooth Stereo Headphones are fairly common now due to the proliferation of stereo cell phones and music players that allow bluetooth headphones.

I have tried several but so far, the best set I have tried in terms of sound and comfort is thePlantronics 906/R US BackBeat Headphones so that is the standard I used to evaluate this headset.

First, setup for the headset is very easy. The earpieces are large (and somewhat heavy) but that allows for a nice clear user interface. Pairing is a breeze and follows a standard procedure that most users are familiar with at this point.

In terms of fit, as I mentioned, the ear pieces are fairly heavy and they are designed to fit "over the ear and behind the neck". However, I found that the ear pieces were too heavy and were continually sliding -- the back of the neck design was rigid and not as "customizable" as my Plantronics -- which features a flexible cable in the back and an in-ear design to stay in place better. The picture shows a women wearing these while running on a treadmill -- I have a hard time believing these would stay in place while walking much less running.

Sound quality was ok -- about what you would expect for a headset in this price range. If you are using these primarily for cell phone communications, then you'll be just fine. However, if you are expecting audiophile quality, you will be disappointed. Bass is thin and there really isn't much "nuance" in terms of the sound. Sound quality reminds me of a transistor radio as opposed to decent headphones. But again, you get what you pay for.

Battery life is decent but doesn't last the full 18 hours that they are rated for. In addition, it only comes with a short USB cable designed to charge through your computer. In my opinion, this is a poor choice. As a bluetooth headset, by definition, these are designed to be used "on the road". As a result, you aren't always going to have access to your computer to charge these up. You can get an AC adapter that will accept the USB connection. However, that is one more thing to buy and keep track of. In addition, if you want to charge these while driving, once again, you are out of luck unless you want to buy yet another adapter. Before long, you can have more invested in power adapters than you have invested in these headphones alone.

As I said, the Plantronics have been my favorite headphones for "on-the-go" communications and listening. Despite the lower price point, the Tenqa's still fall short in terms of sound quality, comfort, and flexibility.

If you're looking for an average, every day Bluetooth stereo headset, this might be okay for you, but it's definitely not for you if you're a music lover. The sound quality in the pair that I received is really pretty poor. Don't even look for quality bass sound from these - it's not there.

I found that, with these positioned exactly where they should be over my ears, the sound coming from this headset, for some reason, seemed to be getting filtered in from far away. It wasn't a matter of the volume - the sound quality from the TENQA pair that I got just seems really substandard. Any bass sound seems to strain these, causing an annoying crackling sound accompanying the music that's playing.

Having asked callers how I sound during our calls, I've been told that the sound is "hollow", as if I'm "in a chamber", and I found the sound to be the same on my end of the calls, as well.

As far as the headset's appearance goes, it looks like it's average quality, and these are quite lightweight - you may consider that a good thing, but I like to know that the products that I'm buying have a decent weight to them, and seem to be strongly made. I wouldn't say that either of those conditions are met by this headset.

Overall, if I were to place a value on this headset for the quality that they appear to be, I wouldn't price them any higher than a ten note. These just don't stand up to the other headsets that are out there in their current price range. If you're willing to drop thirty for a Bluetooth stereo headset, keep looking - these just aren't worth it, in my opinion.