Review: Logitech Freepulse wireless headphones

If you're fed up of the daily struggle to untangle your music player's headphones, Logitech's new Freepulse Wireless Headphones may well be the answer.

The headphones aren't much bulkier than standard over-the-ear phones. The headband sits behind your neck and is flexible enough to be curled up in a bag while a rubber hook on each earpiece ensures they won't slip off your head when moving around.

Data is sent between the transmitter and headset via Bluetooth, which results an operating distance of around 10 metres. They're simple to set up – press the connect buttons on the transmitter and then on the headset and the two will pair with each other in a matter of seconds.

Volume controls are found on the right-hand earpiece, but since the device connects through a standard 3.5mm jack, advanced functions such as track navigation aren't available. By pressing the connect button on the headset you can mute the music, but it will still carry on playing on whichever device the transmitter is connected to. Holding down the volume up button for a second or so activates the Bass Boost mode.

Although the transmitter unit will connect to any audio device with a 3.5mm headphone socket, it's clearly designed for iPod owners. Six plastic iPod adapters are included to ensure the transmitter fits snugly, but if you're planning on using a non-Ipod audio player, you'll find the transmitter swings around rather ungainly. Measuring 39mm wide, 35mm high and 14mm deep it also makes the likes of the iPod Nano slightly less pocket friendly.

We gave the Freepulse Wireless Headphones extensive testing and, in the main, found them easy to use and reasonably comfortable to wear. Audio quality is excellent, although we didn't notice a huge difference when the Bass Boost feature was turned on.

During a half-hour test period audio very occasionally dropped for around a second at a time. At one point, the transmitter actually turned itself off, which meant we had to pair the two devices before normal service was resumed. Logitech suggests you place the transmitter in a right-hand pocket since the receiver in the headset is located in the right earpiece, but when we experienced our sound outages the transmitter was placed on a table very close to the headset.

It's important to bear in mind that these glitches were reasonably rare and, overall, we found the Freepulse Wireless Headphones a good alternative to a set of standard wired phones.

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