OPPO recently launched the OPPO A92 together with the OPPO W31, their premium wireless earphones.
I’ve been using them for close to three weeks now so here’s my conclusive review.
OPPO A92 Full Review: Ready to Rock
Design
They come in a large round but light plastic case in two colours, black and white. The case is really light. It comes with a USB-C charging port for when you want to quickly juice it up. In the box is a USB-C cable.
On the inside is a pairing button and an indicator light.
It’s easy to get the buds out of the case because they’re grooves to get your finger under when you’re trying to detach the buds from the magnets holding them in.
Different rubber tips come inside the box for different ear sizes. Your comfort will depend on your ear shape. You can choose between small, medium or large.
I went with the smaller size and they fit well in my ears and were comfortable to wear over long periods of time. They have never unintentionally come loose for me.
The earbuds don’t come with active noise cancellation. However, when you put them in your ear, the earbuds seal in nice to provide passive noise blocking to keep out ambient noise.
When you start playing music, you won’t hear other people talking. This comes in handy especially now that we are all working from home(at least for some of us) and don’t want to hear noise from kids watching cartoon shows or your quarantine partner trying catch up and bingewatch with their favourite tv show in the other room.
OPPO improved on the previous Enco Free by bringing dust and water resistance to the OPPO Enco W31 as they now have an IP54 rating so you can work out in them like going for a jog around the neighbourhood.
Controls
The earbuds themselves are also light too and OPPO included touch controls on the stems.
- Double-tap on the left earbud to switch between audio modes(Bass and Balanced)
- Double-tap on the right earbud to change tracks
- triple tapping on either will activate the Google Assistant
- You can also tap to end or answer a call too.
One thing worth noting is that when one earphone is removed, the media playing will take a pause even on different apps such as YouTube, Netflix or Spotify. When you plug them back, your media resumes paying.
However, you can also play tracks with one earbud if you’d like to as they both support Mono and Stereo mode. If you do remove them, controls will be limited.
The OPPO Enco W31 earbuds have plenty of room on stem to grab them either to remove them or adjust them without touching the controls.
The Tech inside the earbuds
The OPPO Enco W31 packs a lot of tech inside. They come with binaural audio transmission and using Bluetooth 5.0, the sound delivered is pretty good with low latency and it’s simultaneous to both earbuds.
The OPPO Enco W31 support AAC codec and there’s a minimal delay when listening to music and watching movies or tv shows.
You can listen around the house doing other chores. I could leave the OPPO A92 in my bedroom and move around the house looking for snacks(the kitchen is like three rooms away), doing laundry and folding it listening to dope Spotify playlists and podcasts.
The primary and secondary microphones on both stems ensure call quality is clear too both indoor and outdoor even with background music or chatter around you – people on the other end of the line could hear me fine.
To connect with your phone, just open the case and press on the pairing button which will switch the indicator light from green to blinking white.
Overall, you won’t experience lag with these earbuds.
Audio Performance
In terms of audio quality, the OPPO Enco W31 pack heat and don’t disappoint. I love the bass mode and so did Martin Githinji.
It gets trippy when listening to 8D Audio.
You get crystal clear and balanced mids and highs with decent instrument separation. The lows are still punchy too.
Even in the balanced mode, the sound is rich and there’s no muddiness or distortion even when you pump up the volume.
The bass mode is slightly strengthened so you’re not overwhelmed. There’s also depth to it that doesn’t compromise the audio clarity.
Overall, the earbuds are loud and powerful and work very well with every genre from genegetone, trap, country, jazz, rock, pop, electronic, Latin and hip hop.
Battery Life
The OPPO Enco W31 gave me 5 hours of listening time which is enough to help me concentrate and get some work done.
You can plug them in to refill in the case. It takes about 30 minutes to fully charge up and you can use the case up to four times to quickly charge the earbuds up.
The case has battery indicators to know when it’s empty, half full or fully charged. There is no app but you can get information about the earphones battery levels when you check on the Bluetooth settings when they are connected. 
It’s worth noting the OPPO Enco W31 don’t come with Multipoint and therefore you can’t have two devices connected simultaneously.
They can connect to two devices automatically if previously connected. They’ll, however, connect to the most recent device first.
One thing I noted when using the OPPO Enco W31 is that when paired with the OPPO A92, the battery percentage and other options are clear from the Bluetooth settings seen below:
On other phones, it isn’t that clear.
OPPO should’ve included an app for the earbuds for EQ controls to personalise your sound profile and checking up battery levels.
Conclusion
The OPPO Enco W31 offers a good balance of design and audio quality. They’re great all-rounders and it ticks all the important boxes as you get great sound, a solid battery life longer listening time between charges, a pocketable case, better than average call quality and an IP54 rating for peace of mind.
Price and Availability
You can get them online and in OPPO’s official retail stores for Ksh 8,000. There’s a Ksh 2000 discount if you decide to buy them bundled with the OPPO A92.
