Soundwear SD10 Review

After having such a great experience with the Avatalk Jogger, I thought I'd grab some Bluetooth headphones for home/train use, once again banishing the annoying wires. You can pick up the Soundwear SD10s for less than £20 including delivery from the usual online stores, so there were limited expectations at my end before they turned up, but they turned out to be even worse than I thought.

The reasons for trying the SD10s were that they fold up nicely (my self-imposed requirement being small enough to fit in the front pocket of a rucksack), they came with a case, and were powered by internal rechargeable battery. First up, they do indeed fold up nicely, and come with a small velvet pouch - not so much a case that would provide any protection, but pouches do take up less space than hard cases, so not the end of the world.

That's where the good news ends unfortunately. I tried many times to use the SD10s, but they were so uncomfortable I don't think I lasted more than 3 or 4 minutes on each occasion. The edge of the plastic around the ear hook was far too pointed, almost sharp, and dug into the skin around my ears! They were also I believe too heavy for prolonged use.


There is a claimed battery life of 20 hours, but I couldn't stand to wear them long enough to test this claim unfortunately. Charging is via mini USB on the side of the right-hand earpiece, with a red notification light to let you know progress.

Here you'll also find forward, reverse, volume up and volume down buttons, arranged circularly around a multifunctional button for start/end call and play/pause. All the buttons are on one earpiece, and I couldn't help but think they would be better laid out across both earpieces.


I would've loved to have picked up a bargain here, but I got what I paid for in the end. It would be hard to recommend the SD10s to anyone as they are so uncomfortable and too heavy for prolonged use, hence the short review and swift re-sale on a local forum!