OPPO Enco W51 review: Good earbuds for music and calls, comfort is an issue

Good value-for-money despite limitations. Its distinct and premium looks and ingress protection rating make it a solid contender in sub-Rs 5,000 earphone segment

The OPPO Enco W51 is an affordable pair of true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones with noise cancellation feature. At Rs 4,999, the Enco 51 is one of the few TWS earphones with in-ear design for noise isolation, an array of six microphones for digital noise cancellation, and an ingress protection rating (IP54) for water and dust resistance. The earphones are touted to be as good for attending voice calls as it is for listening to music. Is it? Let’s find out:

Design

The OPPO Enco W51 looks similar to the OPPO Enco W31 (review), which is another budget in-ear TWS earphones, but without noise cancellation feature. The earphones look premium and have a touch of novelty. Being an in-ear earphones, the Enco W51 offers secure and snug fit besides good passive noise isolation. However, the earphones’ hard silicone tips and oval design make them unsuitable for extended usage as they cause discomfort to ears after some time.

Like the earphones, the Enco W51’s charging-cum-storage case boasts a premium design. It is a petite case, convenient to carry and fits easily even in the most cramped places like jeans pockets. Made of plastic, the case has a glossy texture with OPPO printed on top and a USB type-C charging port at the back. Unlike the Enco W31’s case, this one supports Qi-based wireless charging.

Performance

The OPPO Enco W51 is a capable set of earphones with decent audio output. Besides, its noise cancellation feature works optimally to filter ambient noise, improving both music-listening and voice-call experiences in loud environments. As for the audio quality, it is neither loud nor muted but balanced. Thankfully, it is tuned for both voice and music, and feel to have a neutral output and not bass-heavy one that most of its peer offer.

The earphones support touch controls for basic operations — double-tap the right earphone to move to the next song, triple-tap any earphone to activate and wake up the digital assistant, and double-tap the left earphone to enable/disable active noise cancellation. The touch controls are customisable but only if you have the OPPO smartphone with ColorOS 7 and higher. The dependency on OPPO smartphone here subdues its utility to some extent by hampering the user experience for those using a non-OPPO smartphones.

Battery

The earphones keep you going for around three hours on a single charge with ANC enabled. This extends to around four hours without the ANC. The case has a 480mAh battery of its own, which is good for three charging the earphones at least thrice. With the case, the earphones sail through a day before asking for another charge. Charging time is slow, both through wired and wireless charging. Through wired charger, it takes about two hours to charge the unit. Wireless charging extends the charging time by about an hour.

Verdict

The OPPO Enco W51 is a value-for-money product despite its limitations. It is a good pair of TWS earphone suitable for both attending calls and listening to music. Comfort is a subjective thing and the earphones hard silicone tips with oval design might not cause discomfort to everyone. That said, the Enco W51 is a capable pair of earphones good for music and calls. Moreover, its distinct and premium looks, and ingress protection rating round up the package to make it a solid contender in sub-Rs 5,000 earphone segment.