Editors Rating
4.6/5
4.6/5 stars
This is the golden time of truly wireless or TWS earbuds. From big and established companies to small and start-ups, there are so many TWS earbuds in the market right now. Some earbuds focus on highest music quality while some are aimed at gaming with very low latency. Some buds have noise cancellation while some have extremely long battery life. Clearly, the market for TWS earbuds is filled with a variety of products that you can choose from as per your needs and requirements. Mobile gaming industry, on the other hand, has seen an incredible growth in the last 5-years. Some play them as a fun, casual activity while others are pretty seriously involved with competitions and long gaming sessions with friends. If you fall into the second category, then you might want to invest in a good TWS earbuds as wired options can cause distractions or large over-the-ear gaming headphone might make you feel fatigue after sometime. With serious mobile gaming in mind, we tested the EKSA GT1 Cobra True Wireless Gaming Earbuds.
This is the review of EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds. We are writing this review after properly testing the earbuds with gaming, music, workouts. Continue reading to find out more about the same.
What Do We Get?
Let us start this review by going through the contents of the box. The earbuds come in a small little package. After sliding it open and lifting off the lid, it reveals the charging case. The case has the earbuds in them. We will talk about the earbuds in the next section. Taking out the case, we have a small plastic bag containing USB-C Charging cable and two extra pairs of ear tips / cups (small and large, while the earbuds come installed with medium tips).
Just below that, we have the user manual, which is in English and contains all the features, important connection steps, touch controls with nice diagrams. Do read the manual before using the earbuds.
After taking out the earbuds and holding it in the hands for the first time, they felt very light weight. The ‘Cobra’ inspired design elements are clearly visible, with blue LEDs lighting up as eyes and the long and curved body to mimic that of a snake.
The overall design might look familiar with other similar style earbuds but the glossy black body with blue lighting, triangle texture and curves definitely are unique to EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds. The charging contacts on the earbuds are covered with small plastic so that they don’t make contact with the pogo pins on the charging case. Make sure to peel off the protective sheet before inserting the earbuds into the case.
The EKSA GT1 Cobra True Wireless Gaming Earbuds are extremely light weight at just 4.4g each. Due to the design and their light weight, you can wear them comfortably for long durations.
Coming to the charging case of the earbuds, it is also black in color but unlike the earbuds, the case is having a matte finish. The design elements from the earbuds, especially the triangle shape accent lines, are also on the lid of the case just below the EKSA branding.
On the front of the case, there are four strips on each side. They also light up in blue and indicate charge status or when the buds are inserted and charging them.
The lid of the case and its hinge are also good and you get a satisfactory sound when you close the lid. The USB-C port is on the back of the case and we are extremely happy that all the modern-day electronics makers (except those stubborn ones) are shifting towards the universal USB-C.
Before looking at the performance of the EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds, let us first see how to pair these buds to a Bluetooth device such as a smartphone or a laptop. All the instructions are clearly mentioned in the user manual. So, do read it.
If the earbuds are outside the case, place them in the case and close its lid. This will power down the buds and charge them. Now, open the lid of the case and take out the earbuds. This will make the GT1 earbuds to go into pairing mode. During this time, the blue LEDs on the earbuds (snake eyes) will blink at a faster rate.
You can now turn on the Bluetooth in your phone or laptop and pair with the earbuds. They will come up as ‘GT1’. Once connected, the led blinking stops and the light blinks every 10s.
In addition to the LED indication, the earbuds also voice read out of the status during power on / off, waiting to be paired, connected, game mode and music mode.
Let us now see how the EKSA GT1 Gaming Earbuds perform. First, we tested with music.We played all kinds of music with these earbuds: classical, alternate rock, bass boosted, EDM. The music is really well balanced. Vocal are very clear and the mids and lows are also nice.
To test out its IPX4 splash resistant rating, we used these earbuds during workout. The sweat during our workout session did not cause any performance issues.
Now, its time for some gaming. Initially, the buds are in ‘music mode’ and we played a couple of games involving guns. There is a slight delay between the input of the trigger on the screen and the sound being transmitted to the earbuds.
Then we moved to the highlight of these earbuds, its ultra-low 38ms latency in game mode. Just double tap on the earbuds to activate game mode and the buds acknowledge with a voice saying ‘game mode’ and also the blue LEDs on the buds change from blinking every 10s to breathing LEDs.
In game mode, the audio transmission delay is significantly less and you can clearly observe the difference from regular music mode.Gamers will definitely love these earbuds.
Although these buds are targeted towards gaming, the integrated microphones can be very useful while making calls. We tested with regular phone calls, skype chats and zoom calls. The voice was very clear without any disturbance. Other parties never complained about voice quality.
As this is a Bluetooth device, you can pair with smartphones, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles (except PS5 as it doesn’t support audio over Bluetooth) or any device that has Bluetooth and supports audio. The range of the connection is pretty standard. In regular homes and offices, you can easily expect the buds to work up to the next room. But beyond that, the connection drops.
Finally, the lightweight design of the EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds make them very comfortable to use. Even after hours of continuous wearing, we did not feel heat around the ears. There are no fatigue or pain and you can choose the right ear tip from the three provided in the package.
It is very easy to operate the earbuds as all are touch / tap based controls. The main touch sensing area is slightly between the eyes that light-up on the earbuds (the exact location is clearly mentioned with a nice diagram in the user manual). Using the touch controls, you can power on / off, play / pause music, answer / end or reject calls, switch between music mode and game mode, invoke voice assistant and clear the Bluetooth Pairing.
Let us now see how to do all these functions using touch controls:
We are truly impressed with the battery life of the EKSA GT1 Gaming Earbuds. At 80% volume, we consistently got more than 7 hours of playback from the earbuds after a full charge.
Once the battery is down to 10%, we charged the earbuds using the case. It took less than 1.5hours for completely recharging the buds to 100%. Using a fully charged case, we could recharge the earbuds 4.5 times.
The LED lighting on the case(four on each side)indicate the status of the charge in the case. Four LEDs for four levels of charge: 0 – 25%, 25 – 50%, 50 – 75% and 75 – 100%.
While charging the earbuds, the LEDs on the case stays on for the entire duration of the charge until the earbuds are fully charged. Even though it looks cool, we though it unnecessarily consumes battery power and a time-out would have been better.
Also, the blue LEDs on the earbuds light-up during charging with a breathing effect. The only way to know the status of the battery of the earbuds is in the smartphone or laptop Bluetooth settings. We thought a simple app to control the earbuds along with charge level indication and some music tuning would have been nice.
The EKSA GT1 Cobra True Wireless Gaming Earbuds are priced at $49.99. Considering the price point, the performance of the earbuds is excellent. The playback, low-latency gaming mode, charging and runtime are all very good. EKSA also supports the earbuds with a 1-year warranty.
Overall, we are impressed with the performance of the EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds. The ultra-low latency audio transmission is definitely a stand-out feature and it is very useful for gamers. Coming to normal music mode, we enjoyed listening to songs on these earbuds for long durations as they are really light-weight and comfortable. The quality of the music is good with clear vocals and bass. Sad that there is no tuning software or a smartphone app. Controlling the earbuds is also very easy but it might take a day or two to get used to position of the main sensing area and the amount of force of the tap. Call quality is very good as we tried these earbuds with normal phone calls and online office chats. You can easily get more than 35hours of playback from the earbuds and a fully charged case combined. If you are planning to buy a set of gaming earbuds with very low latency, then the EKSA GT1 True Wireless Gaming Earbuds are a worthy consideration.
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