Bluedio A2 review: Stylish, affordable Bluetooth headphones with USB-C

Who said good-looking Bluetooth headphones with USB-C charging had to cost an arm and a leg?

USB-C has been around for years, and yet the vast majority of Bluetooth headphones still use older Micro-USB charging cables. Earbuds with USB-C charging have been slowly filtering in — like the OnePlus Bullets — but most over-ear headphones to offer USB-C charging have been in the wallet-scaring range — like the Bowers & Wilkins PX.

While Micro-USB cables are a dime a dozen and certainly not hard to pack along, I missed the days when my phone and my headphones could charge from the same cable, and so I sought out a pair of USB-C charging Bluetooth headphones that wouldn't break the bank or grate on my music-loving ears.

Bluedio checked all the boxes and then some with the Bluedio A2 Bluetooth Headphones, including a box that I had all but given up on: cuteness.

Bluedio A2 Bluetooth Headphones

Price: $47.99

Bottom line: These affordable headphones fit heads big or small, charge with the same USB-C as most of our phones — including fast charging — and come in a cute, bright blue pattern.

The Good

• Good grip, even on smaller heads
• Simple, fast USB-C charging
• Double as wired headphones if battery dies
• Great price and value

The Bad

• The styles are a bit extreme
• Long-press to change tracks get old fast
• Mic is a bit tinny
• Sound gets a little muddy at times

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Bluedio A2 Bluetooth Headphones What I like

The nickname for the Bluedio A2 headphones is Air, and the headphones are aptly named. Lightweight and flexible, it's easy to wear these headphones for hours on end, whether you're sitting and watching a movie, running errands around town, or jumping around to your favorite songs in the dark. The A2 headphones grip my petite head firmly, so much so that they almost do a better job blocking noise passively than some of my active noise-canceling headphones do. If you have a petite head and find headphones slipping off frequently, these might be perfect for you.

These may be the cutest headphones I've ever owned.

Bluedio offers 2 styles for the A2: Doodle is the darker gray-orange model with a graffiti motif, and China offers a refined blue and white pattern with silver and white accents. I'm normally hesitant to purchase white headphones, afraid they'll discolor with use and prolonged contact with my sweaty, oily head, but China's pattern was too darling to say no to.

Now don't go thinking these are all style and no substance. The sound from these headphones is surprisingly crisp for a pair of $50 Bluetooth headphones, and while bass gets muddy from time to time, the A2s sound just fine for streaming music and movies. These Bluetooth headphones were easy to pair and held a connection three rooms away at the TV station with my Samsung Galaxy S9+.

If your battery runs dead, you can also listen to music with the A2s using a standard 3.5mm aux cord or via USB-C, which can be used for charging and data. The headphones fold up for easy stowing in your bag, backpack, or the included hard-shell carrying case, which also holds the included USB-C charging cable and auxiliary cable.

Bluedio A2 Bluetooth Headphones What I don't like

These are affordable Bluetooth headphones, so I can forgive them for not having active noise-canceling or NFC pairing. Pairing Bluetooth headphones the old-fashioned way still takes less than a minute, and the grip on the A2 headphones is good enough to passively block out much of the noisy world, even when listening to soft music. But would it have really broken the bank to separate the volume and track controls into separate buttons?

The controls on the Bluedio A2 headphones rely on a simple three-button setup that integrates into the silver Bluedio panel on the right earcup. The multifunction button is fairly standard and easy to use, and volume control is a quick tap away, but I'm a notorious track skipper. Skipping tracks with the Bluedio A2 headphones takes 2-3 seconds, and that can feel like an eternity when YouTube Music's mixtape serves up a dud. It's not the end of the world — it's encouraging me to use Google Assistant's voice controls more often — but it is a definite compromise.

It's also worth noting that while some phones — like the Google Pixel 2 — will showcase the A2's battery level, other phones will not, in which case you're not going to know what the battery level is until it gives you a low battery warning. Bluedio claims the A2 headphones are good for up to 33 hours of listening or a whopping 1300 hours of standby, and while I haven't seen a low-battery warning yet, I've also been topping them off so I don't get caught with dead headphones.

Bluedio A2 Bluetooth Headphones Should you buy them?

These headphones are affordable, fitting, functional, and undeniably adorable. The Bluedio A2 headphones may not have professional-grade sound or active noise-canceling, but the battery will get you a long weekend easily before it asks for a charge. And since it uses the same USB-C to charge that most new phones and Chromebooks do, you don't need to dig out an old Micro-USB charger just for your headphones.

4 out of 5

I think these are going to be my daily driver headphones for a while. They grip my head better than the Samsung Level On Pro headphones do, and costing less than $50, I'll feel a little less guilty for how hard I am on them. The A2's are about 50 times cuter than the Samsungs, too, and after decades of bland, black headphones, I am ready for some cute.

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