There is a wide array of high quality headphones available today, many of the best ones are slightly on the pricier side. A good place to start would be around the AED 1,000 (~$270) mark. But just like in the world of cars or smartphones, you have those brands or models that provide amazing quality at half the price. The key here is value.
Here we take a look at the PH805, which is Philips headphones from their 8000 series lineup. At almost half the price, does it have the muscle to take on the likes of Sony? Let’s break it down and find out.
Design
Philips is not a company known for design, however I would argue that their Hue lights and medical equipment are the best designed products in their respective categories. Yes those are products where design doesn’t matter, so the question remains.
From your first look, it is clear that the PH805 has been inspired by the Sony XMs. This is not that earth shattering, because in headphone design, most of the devices end up looking very similar. A tried a tested form factor that would feel comfortable to anyone.
The colour scheme is black, with a mix of matte and glossy. It’s an interesting combination which gives the headphones a more expensive look than it’s price tag.
You get a decent amount of customization with the headband, the cups rotate very freely. Some might find it a bit too free rotating, but I am indifferent and liked these as well.
The folding design is great, and the included case is brilliant, making the headphones pretty compact and easy to carry around for work or travel.
While some aspects of the headphones feel cheap, the overall design is far more premium that what you end up paying for it.
Features
The Philips PH805 comes with quite a few options. If you enjoy good sound quality, chances are that you want to plug in your headphones to get the most out of them. Thankfully Philips has thought of that since the PH805 comes with a headphone jack and includes the wire in the box.
You also get bluetooth 5.0 which means a pretty great wireless listening experience.
Sadly the headphones charge over MicroUSB, which is one of the biggest oversights.
All the buttons and functionality is on the right side. You get a rocker, for changing the tracks, which also double as the power/pairing and Noise Cancellation button.
Yes the Philips PH805 has noise cancelling, and even an ambient sound mode, more on this later.
The right ear cup doubles as a touch control, which is a trend that I personally hope dies, but I’m sure is here to stay. Many people prefer touch controls, and yeah it’s easier than fiddling around with buttons. But my personal preference is to have tactile buttons.
The touch controls are for volume, play/pause and call actions (i.e. answers, rejecting, switching calls etc). It is also the way to activate Google Assistant. If you want it to work on the iPhone you need to get the Google Assistant app and deliberatly set it up, and have the app running in the background, not the nicest setup. However on Android phones, the setup is seamless and smooth.
Once I got the Google Assistant to work, the experience was impressive. The activation sound was very inviting as the sound moved from the left to right ear. The Google Assistant seemed to work in the background of the phone and worked as you would expect. The response was a little slower than using Google Assistant directly on the phone, but it beats having to take out your phone to do an action.
Sound
The sound of the Philips PH805 was surprisingly great. Philips says that the PH805s have 40mm free-edge full-range drivers, which sound brilliant. The moment you see the price tag of these headphones, you might automatically assume they are bad, but you would be wrong.
The PH805 has a sound profile that is punching well above its price tag.
Since these are budget phones, we decided to do a real world test using Spotify Premium, with the quality settings on max.
Listening to classic rock or punchy rap. The PH805 was able to handle everything we threw at it. The lows and highs were very impressive, but it was lacking a bit in the mids.
Our standard instrument isolation test was also impressive, but don’t expect it to blow you away. Instruments do get drowned out but the quality of the audio keeps you happy throughout your listening experience.
The area the PH805 seems to fall short is in Noise Cancellation. When Noise cancellation is turned off, it actually sounds like you are pretty isolated. Which means the seal around your ear is pretty great. Once you turn off ANC, you don’t notice much of a difference with enough ambient noise coming in for you to think it’s still off.
Thankfully the moment you turn on the music and get lost in it, only the noisist of cafes or criengest of babies on a plane will distract you. Another overall win at this price point.
The Ambient Sound mode was strange. There was a fizzy noise that was ever present and got quite distracting. I would personally stay away from this mode, stick to either ANC On or Off, and enjoy your little world of minimal isolation.
The Mic is brilliant, having used these headphones for a few online meetings there were no issues whatsoever. These calls were made in an office/home setting, so the ambient sound was low to begin with, but regardless the quality was top notch.
Fit and Comfort
The PH805 is very comfortable to wear. They are not the best, but thanks to the size of the drivers and the cup size being huge, the headphones would fit comfortably over any ear size for reasonably long periods of time.
I did feel that the band on top doesn’t reduce enough for me. It took a bit of fiddling to get the headphones on snugly, but once on, they were comfortable for an hour or 2 of use at a stretch.
With any headphones you will eventually feel the squeeze and these are no different. Maybe take a sip of water every hour, and take the headphones off when you do so.
As far as temperature goes, these headphones do tend to start feeling warm early on. If you are sitting in a cool room that’s not an issue. This is probably the biggest factor that plays into the 1 hour at a time usage method that I applied while using the Philips PH805.
Battery and Connectivity
Philips claims that the PH805 can give you 30 hours of playback. Pfft! That’s just way too much. If you read the fine print it’s about 25 hours with ANC on, and blimey it was pretty close. Getting me about 23 hours or playback, granted this was because I was connecting the headphones to different devices, testing features and also the volume was being juggled up and down.
These headphones are great for work, where you can get 3 to 4 days of use from them on one charge.
The PH805’s connectivity is about as good as you would expect. The Bluetooth 5.0 streams content flawlessly and you can also connect a headphone jack if that is more your jam.
I must point out that the PH805 didn’t seem to work well with my Mid-2015 MacBook Pro over Bluetooth. The audio quality was strange and everything sounded like it was being played through an empty tin. This was an anomaly and the headphones worked beautifully with all my other devices and computers.
You can also connect to the headphones via AUX. The connection on the headphones is a 2.5mm jack, thankfully you get the cable that converts from 2.5mm to 3.5mm, making it work for any device (that has the aux jack or a dongle). Wiring in is the way to get the best audio quality on these headphones.
Negatives
There were a few aspects of my user experience with the Philips PH805s that did annoy me.
For starters, the Google Assistant functionality is limited on iPhones. You need the Google Assistant app to get this to work, and it needs to be running in the background as well. Most headphones will activate whatever voice assistant that you set as default on your phone. Since the headphones work in the background, I understand why Philips went in this direction. I personally don’t use voice assistants on my headphones all that much, so it doesn’t affect me, if this is a concern for you, then keep it mind.
The other minor issues were that I didn’t enjoy the controls. The swiping was not obvious to me, cupping the headphones sometimes didn’t work. Yes I am nitpicking here. But it’s a matter of getting used to it, many of the people who I showed these headphones to loved the controls.
The cycling between ANC on, off and awareness mode being on was slow and tedious. It was quite invasive and would basically take over the content you were listening to. A 3 way switch would have been a much better and more instantaneous experience. Again a minor issue, mostly I would pick the mode I liked and just stick with it, thus again not a deal breaker for me.
Another shortcoming is that the PH805 have a microUSB port, it’s about time everything gets the USB-C form-factor.
However, having pointed all these out, I can still recommend these headphones wholeheartedly.
Price
The Philips P805 can be found for less than AED 600. Yeah! Buy these headphones, you won’t regret it, that’s a lot of bang for very little buck!
Let’s not forget that you also get a case, the USB cable, and an Aux cable.
Verdict
Philips have never been a brand I have considered when it came to audio. I have used headphones and earphones in the past, and it’s a brand that instills confidence, but It just never came up. The PH805s have changed that opinion of mine.
With a brilliantly made headphone, with sound that should not be delivered at this price point, the Philips PH805 is very easy to recommend to casual listeners, especially those on a budget.