We’ve been impressed with Sudio‘s line of earphones over the last few years, and so it is always a delight when they let us know they have a new model coming out and a pair are on their way to us for review – especially a new top of the line true wirelss earphones like the Sudio Tolv.
I’ve been using Sudio’s latest true wireless earphones for the last few weeks and I have been impressed. They are the firm’s second foray into true wireless earphones (earphones without a connecting cable), and it is clear that they’ve built upon what they learned with their Niva earphones with the new and slightly more expensive Tolv.
Look & feel
The first thing you will notice when you open the box for the Tolv earphones is that Sudio have radically improved the case from the Niva line. The Tolv charging case is much smaller and made out of a premium-feeling matte black rubberised material with Sudio embossed on the side. The lid snaps open and shut with a firm click and the whole product just has an immediate premium feel out of the box. The only downside with the case for me is that it is charged via Micro-USB, which makes sense as it is a smaller port than USB-C, but with most phones and laptops now charging via USB-C I would like headphone manufacturers to start following suit.
The earphones themselves are not too different in appearance from the Nivas, which is no bad thing. They come black, white, pink, or pastel blue and comfortably small and light. Made out of a premium plastic, they have a large metal button on each one decorated with tiny concentric circles, which nicely reflect the light.
Setup
There’s almost no setup involved with the Tolvs, but to be clear these are the steps to pair your phone:
- Switch off Bluetooth on your smartphone
- Take the earphones out of their case and they will immediately pair with each other automatically
- Switch on Bluetooth on the smartphone and select “Sudio Tolv” and connect
That’s it.
Once in-use, you can use the buttons to control using the following commands:
- Single-press – Play/Pause
- Double-press – Previous track (left earbud) / Next track (right earbud)
- Triple-press – Reduce volume (left earbud) / Increase volume (right earbud)
In use
Once you have paired the earphones with your smartphone they will automatically pair every time you take them out of their case in the future. And when you’re finished listening to your music or podcast you simply put them back in their case to switch off – it couldn’t be more simple and I wish all Bluetooth earphones paired this easily.
As I have come to expect from Sudio’s line of headphones, the sound quality of the Tolvs is good, with the new graphene drivers offering a relatively neutral sound, with strong bass and clear highs. It is a shame that Sudio decided not to include aptX support, but it is not a deal-breaker for me and I doubt most people will notice much difference.
On the other hand, it is great to see Sudio add Bluetooth 5.0 support in the Tolvs, which is a significant improvement over the 4.2 support in the Nivas, and offers improved battery-life, bandwidth, distance, and more. This new tech means that the Tolvs can hold up to seven hours of battery life, with the portable case offering four charges and six-days of stand-by.
Specifications
- Play time: 7h per charge
- Portable case: Holds +4 charges
- Bluetooth version: 5.0
- Range: 15m
- Google Assistant & Siri support
- Graphene driver
- Weight: 4.5g per earbud
Conclusion
The Tolv true wireless earphones are an iterative but welcome improvement over last year’s Nivas, with slightly improved earbud shape, and hugely improved charging case, and the introduction of Bluetooth 5.0 and the associated improvements to battery life. The sound quality remains strong and neutral, but I would like to see the introduction of aptX support and a move to USB-C charging in future versions.
Buy
Price at time of review: £99
We managed convince Sudio to offer our readers a 15% discount on the Sudio Niva true wireless earphones with the discount code “techsudio15”
