SkullcandyRiff Wireless On-Ear Headphones - Black

Great birthday gift for everyone

I am not a fan of wireless anything. I hate bluetooth so I was not happy about having to switch to wireless headphones. These helped to change my mind because of the ease of connecting them.SET-UP: My biggest gripe with wireless is that it takes more time to connect everything and get it syched and that it's faster to just plug in a wire. Well, these headphones are just as easy as plugging in a wire. Once you connected them once then any other time you use them it's as easy as flipping a switch to turn them on. And the initial setup wasn't actually bad at all. It took maybe 2 minutes tops to go into my bluetooth settings and add the headset.VOLUME: I was a little concerned that they wouldn't be loud enough because they aren't noise-canceling and they don't completely incase the ear but rather rest on the ear itself. Volume is not an issue. These get loud enough to listen to with them on the table. They may not be noise canceling but if you blast your music you aren't going to hear anything else. Also, listening to a podcast on a crowded train was no issue. I could hear the podcast clearly.SOUND QUALITY: Next issue with wireless is that sound quality suffers but this was not an issue either. Music sounds amazing. There is no way you could tell these headphones from a wired pair of headphones. The sound quality is incredible.BATTERY LIFE: I thought it would suck to have to charge my headphones constantly but you actually don't have to charge them often. I have had my headphones about a month and I think I charged them twice. They charge very fast. They actually shipped charged which was nice. I don't know how long the battery life actually is but that is because I've never had them die on me. So you can easily listen to your headphones for an hour or more on your way to work then an hour or more on the way home from work without having to charge in the middle. I don't know if these stats will last as the battery ages or if I'm just getting lucky based on my usage but I hope they stay this good.PHONE CALLS: So to my surprise this headset allows you to answer phone calls. I didn't think it would since there is no microphone dangling from a cord near my jawline, so I was pleasantly surprised. Not only can you make and receive calls with the headset but they actually sound great. The person I spoke to said my voice was clear and it didn't sound like I was on a speaker phone or anything like that. On my end, I heard the caller clearly. So, great for handsfree calling.COST: Great value. Most headsets like this cost well over $100 and close to $200 so at $45 these are a steal.DURABILITY: This is the one area I ding the headphones for. They feel kinda cheap and plastic. I haven't had an issue with them breaking in any way yet but it feels like they could easily get crushed or they could break if handled aggressively. I mean they aren't complete garbage though. You can drop them on the floor from head height (like I did by accident) and they didn't break when hitting the wood floor. They also fold up into themselves nicely so they can easily fit in a briefcase or bag, which is a huge plus. They can handle being tossed around in my bag all day but I do feel like if I had something heavy in the bag or if I dropped the bag hard I could possibly break the headset.OVERALL: Great pair of wireless headphones that I would highly recommend.

First of all, I usually use my headphones to listen to "Spoken Word" things like audiobooks, podcasts, streaming talk-radio. While these would work just fine for casual listening to music if you want the highest sound quality you will likely need to look at upgrading from the "Riff" model.Also, I am a fan of SkullCandy headphones and have had several models that I really liked. If you like SkullCandy, these will perform as well as you'd expect for the price point.PROS--Lightweight - These things are really lightweight.--Comfortable - This follows from "lightweight." But it goes beyond that. Because the ear-pad is full rather than a ring surrounding a "void" they distribute the pressure on the ear/head evenly. This results in an extremely comfortable fit. It also allows it to have sufficient "grip" to not be too loose and move around my head while still not feeling like my head is in a "vise" or creating uncomfortable pressure points.--Flat - I enjoy that that pads can rotate when folded to result in a "flat" profile. Not a huge thing, but it does make them a little easier to store and carry. They also just do a simple fold if that is preferable.CONS--Limited Bluetooth Range - I've had other bluetooth headphones that had better range. I could have my phone charging and go anywhere in the house, even out to my car on the street and still have a somewhat passable connection. That isn't the case with these. I'd say 25-40' is about as far as it will go. Maybe longer if there are no walls to contend with. But if you have your phone with you this isn't really a problem--Flimsy - This one may not be fair. They don't "look" very sturdy. Most headphones I've had had a padded band over the head. These are just the plastic. The padding might make the other headphones "look" more sturdy. I've had these for about a month of normal use and they haven't missed a beat, but when I first saw them I thought, "Yeah, this isn't going to work."--Battery Life - I've heard mixed claims on the battery life. One says 12-hours and I'm pretty sure they exceed that. The other says 30-35 and my thought is, "Nope." I've not been able to get any actual data on battery life but am comfortable in saying 10-20 is pretty reliable. Maybe 25 under really good conditions. I usually just keep an eye on the battery level and if it gets low I will plug them in. I haven't verified the 10-15 minutes of charging giving 3 hours of battery life, but after only a couple hours of charging I have 100% so usually I just do that (I have a "spare" pair of headphones at work/home that I can use while these are charging).Overall, these headphones are really solid for their $40-60 price point. They are not "High End" and SkullCandy can fill that for you if that's what you really want/need. But for just daily/everyday use these are a solid choice. I am only giving 4 stars because I'd like to have more like 30-40 hours of battery life. Otherwise it would be 5+ stars.