The latest wireless M1BT headphones from Philips bring quality, balanced sound and great battery life to the compact, on-ear headphone market with very little in the way of compromise.
The Philips Fidelio brand has long been known for quality headphones and speaker products, but the M1BTs mark its first move into Bluetooth headphones – a market which has rapidly expanded in recent years thanks to the vastly improved audio quality of new Bluetooth technologies like Bluetooth 4.0 and CSR's aptX.
Distinctly premium design
The Philips M1BT Bluetooth headphones are a wireless variant of the well-received Fidelio M1 wired headphones, and as such match their look and feel almost exactly.
With a compact but distinctively premium design, the M1BTs are very well built and feel robust enough to throw into a bag without having to worry about them too much.
The headband is clad in a soft faux-leather, while the size adjustment has a reassuring resistance to it, ensuring that once sized correctly they say that way while on your head as you go about your travels.
With soft, dense memory-foam ear cups, their on-ear configuration fits snuggly and comfortably while creating effective sound isolation, blocking out the hustle and bustle of the outside world.
Depending on the size and shape of your head and your ears, you might find they pinch after a time as is the case with almost all on-ear headphones, but the M1BTs are some of the most comfortable I have ever worn.
They are also light and slim enough not to be a burden while commuting; there's none of the scalp pain common with headphones.
The left-hand ear cup sports a 3.5mm headphones jack for wired connections when at a desk or when the battery runs flat, while on the right-hand side there is a microUSB port for charging the headphones and the built-in music controls.
Battery life on the M1BTs is rated at 10 hours of listening over Bluetooth, but in my testing I found that to be a significant underestimate. Connected to an aptX smartphone, I got more than 30 hours' listening, meaning that the M1BTs have more than enough playtime to get you through almost any listening scenario, and should power through at least 15 days of an hour-long commute to and from work, for instance.
Specifications
- Frequency response: 15-24,000Hz
- Driver size: 40mm
- Impedance: 16 ohms
- Sensitivity: 107 dB
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0
- Supported codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX
Built for portable listening
The Philips Fidelio range is well known for its decent, balanced sound quality and the M1BTs are no exception.
Built for portable listening they reproduce smooth mids with relaxed treble, tight and punchy bass and decent, if not overly pronounced high notes. Their balanced sound profile will fit a wide range of musical genres, something particularly suited to listening while out and about.
The M1BTs also articulate different sounds well for a compact portable set of on-ear headphones, allowing the listener to differentiate various instruments and sounds clearly within the audio track, while the soundscape is rather closed and direct as a consequence of the form factor.
The M1BTs performance on Bluetooth is indistinguishable from wired, which is an achievement on the part of Philips. They support aptX, which provides higher sound quality over standard Bluetooth, but the drop was not noticeable when connected to devices that do not support aptX.
In fact, the M1BTs sounded great whichever way you connected or used them, while Bluetooth signal strength was excellent with all devices tested including smartphones, tablets and computers, without any drop outs or interference.
Fiddly controls
The M1BTs one area of weakness is the controls. Like most other Bluetooth headphones, they support wireless playback control of supported smartphones, tablets and computers over the Bluetooth AVRCP protocol.
The music controls are mounted on the right-hand ear cup with a jog switch-type scheme, which for the most part moves and functions well enough. But Philips has tried to squeeze too many controls into the jog switch; it would be better suited to separate, dedicated buttons.
The jog switch has to do everything. Flick up or down to adjust the playback volume. Press in once to pause or play. But you also have to press in twice to skip forward one track, or three times to skip back to the track start. This is fiddly: it's easy to change the volume by mistake while trying to skip, and if you click too fast it isn't noticed, while if you click too slowly you'll give the wrong instruction.
Given that the headphones are not short of space on either ear cup, the skip track buttons could easily have been given dedicated controls, making it a frustrating omission if you happen to be listening to an album with a few bum songs, for instance.
Premium price
The £250 price places these at the bottom of the high-end price bracket for wireless headphones. They're premium, though the jog switch feels a little cheap and plasticky compared to the rest of the build.
Verdict: great, on-ear Bluetooth headphones
The Philips M1BT Bluetooth headphones are compact, robust and sound great for general listening.
Their long battery life means that they can go the distance without repeated charging, while the strong, good quality audio performance over Bluetooth means there is no tradeoff for forgoing the wire.
If the battery runs out, or you need to listen to something without Bluetooth, the integrated cable is there and does not affect their sound.
While they don't have the best controls, won’t suit someone looking for a truly high-end expansive soundscape, and the on-ear form factor can cause earache with extended listening, the M1BTs are some of the best wireless headphones available at the moment.
Star rating: 4/5
Pros: Compact, lightweight, long battery life, balanced sound with punchy bass, excellent Bluetooth connection quality
Cons: Unnecessarily fiddly controls, no NFC for one-tap pairing, on-ear design may not suit everyone, relatively high price
