Review: MPOW M30 True Wireless Earbuds

Regular listeners to The Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast will know that I’m not the greatest fan of AirPods (or AirPods Pro). I don’t like the stem and think they are too expensive. However, I do really like wireless earbuds so bought a pair of the MPOW M30s to try out.

MPOW M30 True Wireless Earbuds Pair And Work Easily With iPhone

First things first, pairing the MPOW 30 headphones with my iPhone 12 Pro was super easy. You can also pair them with an Apple Watch for things like Fitness+ walking tours. As well as being available in various colors, they come with various-sized bands and buds in the box, so you can make them feel comfortable and secure.

I have almost exclusively used these headphones to listen to podcasts while I’m out walking. For that, the sound is good. You can hear the conversations very clearly and it’s all balanced fine. Obviously, given lockdown restrictions here in the UK, I have not had a chance to test them out on public transport, but I’d hazard a guess that the lack of noise cancellation means they will not stack up that well in an environment like London’s Tube.

The sound for music is perfectly adequate too. The MPOW 30s claim to offer a bit of bass, which is nice if that’s your thing. Obviously, though they can’t truly compete with really high-end audio products on this front. However, you can still enjoy listening to music on them.

Controls and Calls

As ever, there’s a little clunkiness when it comes to calls. You can hear and speak just about fine, but it’s not as smooth as I gather the AirPods experience is. Another thing I found a little annoying at first, but have got used to, is the controls. This can be done either by holding down the right (volume up) or left (volume down) earbud. However, pausing and resuming can be done by tapping either, so you often find yourself inadvertently starting a podcast. These can even happen when putting them into and out of the charging case.

MPOW says the M30 True Wireless Earbuds have 25 hours of listening time. I’ve certainly never encountered any battery problems. Overall then, these are very good, very useable, and perfectly listenable, low-cost earbuds.