Price (RRP): $249
Manufacturer: OPPO
The OPPO Enco W51 Bluetooth, True Wireless, Noise Cancelling, earphones are it’s top-of-the-range with Qi charging, three mics per bud, and IP54 dust and water resistance.
OPPO Enco W51 is part of the ‘good, better, and this is the best’ scenario. The entry-level Enco W11 is more a standard in-ear design, does not have ANC and is USB-C charge only. The mid-range Enco W31 is more an AirPod style without ANC and Qi charge.
So what better way to test the OPPO W51 than with the latest OPPO Reno4 (review here 4.5/5) and its full range of BT 5.1 codes as well as Dolby Atmos for headphones.
OPPO Enco W51 True Wireless earphones
- Website here
- Price: $249 plus freight if applicable
- Colours: White and Black
- Warranty: 12-months ACL
- From: OPPO Shoppo, Bing Lee and Officeworks
- Other OPPO news and reviews here
First impression – EXCEED
I am not a ‘bud’ person, so it takes a lot to impress me. These look so much better than the AirPod although they could be mistaken for those dorky stick things hanging from your ears. These are more refined with a shiny subtle iridescent effect.
You have a wide choice of silicon tips – Small, medium, large and extra-large.
The white ‘ring’ box is quite small and has Qi charging – that is a huge plus as far as one who is addicted to wireless charging is concerned.
The gift box is a bit of a masterpiece as well. Thick glossy cardboard, a beautifully laid out interior with replacement silicone tips and a cradled charge box. Very much worthy of a premium product (and not bad under the Xmas tree).
Being BT 5.0, you can pair with up to eight devices. Depending on the source device, it should auto switch as long as your original paired device is off or out of range.
Setup – EXCEED
There is no app – yea! But it probably needs one.
The first time you open the case, it is in pairing mode. It will auto pair if you use it with the later OPPO ColorOS 7 or later. It is fine with the Qualcomm based Find X2 and Reno4 5G series.
You can manually connect by pressing the pairing button in the case and then finding OPPO Enco W51 in your BT devices.
In our tests it auto connected and would pair with a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 if you switched the Reno4 5G BT off.
Battery – PASS
OPPO claims the 25mAh battery life is 3.5/4hrs with ANC on/off. The 480mAh charge case adds up to another 20hrs. The case has fast USB-C charge – 15-minutes for 9 hrs use.
OPPO’s claim uses the standard 50% volume measurement. That is listenable, but I feel that 60-70% is more realistic.
In tests, I achieved 3.34 hours with ANC/on, so the claims are valid.
As there is no app, you rely on your BT device to tell you how much juice you have left.
You can charge with any 5V/2A or greater USB 2.0 or USB-C PD charger. Out test with a PD charger was 75 minutes. Qi 10W takes about 2.5hrs, and 15W takes that to under 2 hrs.
Sound – PASS+
OPPO claim 20Hz-20kHz and 103dB@1kHz. BTW that is loud! But good old ‘nanny states’ limit BT devices to 80dB. Let’s just say that these are pretty loud.
It has a 7mm dynamic driver along with Dual TPU composite graphene diaphragms.
I can’t measure earphone frequency response so its back to subjective tests. For that I play three genres – Blues Brothers Peter Gunn Theme (Blues, trombone, lots of bass), Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (amazing orchestral music) and the Beach Boys Good Vibrations (vocal and synth).
As an overall comment, regardless of genre, these buds are easy listening. There is just enough upper bass to satisfy all but a metalhead. Mid for clear vocal is excellent. Treble is not harsh, and I compared these with Samsung’s Buds+ and Google Pixel Buds, and they are all up there. Only the Jabra 75t with its amazing EQ performs marginally better.
BTW – Dolby Atmos via any SBC codec sucks! But I n
oticed a slightly more elevated stage.
To get better sound, you would have to spend a lot more for Sennheiser Momentum, Sony WF-1000, etc.
ANC – PASS
No earphone can get good ANC because they lack the physical sound isolation needed to cut the bass rumble of plains, trains and automobiles. What they do is generate anti-noise in a certain frequency band.
As soon as you stick them in your ears, the ANC is noticeable. OPPO claim a 35dB reduction – I can’t measure that.
But you don’t have much control. It is either on or off – not adaptive mode and/or ambient pass through.
An interesting note is that there is no app or EQ because OPPO has three mics per bud. One on the stalk for voice (and it beam forms quite well), one outside and one inside. I would put its noise reduction up there with Bose, especially during calls.
Latency – PASS+
These have SBC and AAC (Apple) codecs. Latency should never be an issue for music. But I did notice a small latency watching YouTube content and games.
Control – PASS
There is no app for Android or iOS. But interestingly when paired to an OPPO Reno4 5G headset functions appear under the paired device. Here you have AAC Codec select, choice of the connection type (audio or UC headset) aND Earbud controls (what double and triple tap will do), and firmware update. I suspect OPPO need to develop an app or limit the Enco to OPPO phones.
On a hardware level, it supports basic tap and multi-tap gestures. You can summons Google Assistant (or whatever) by three taps.
It has auto pause and resume sensors.
Comfort – PASS+
Each bud weighs a minuscule 4g. The buds and case are 55.5g.
I wore them for up to eight hours a day over two weeks (typically in two sittings). They are comfortable – you don’t know they are there. And when the battery runs out, remove them, charge for 15 minutes in the case and go again.
Single bud use – PASS
Because they are True Wireless, you can just use one bud for mono. This is very handy for walking as it lets enough ambient noise through.
GadgetGuy’s take OPPO Enco W51 True Wireless earphones offer quality and performance for a great price
Unlike AirPods, these look stylish. ANC is good, and they are a pleasure to listen to with a warm and sparkling performance.
Battery life is not as good as some, but the trade-off is these are very light only needing a 15-minute fast charge to get going again.
Let’s just say that this is the beginning of OPPO’s phone audio products.
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