Urbanista is a Swedish audio company making a range of wired and wireless headphones, earphones and Bluetooth speakers. They are named after cities (though only one for Stockholm in Sweden itself the Stockholm Plus true wireless fruity clone).
The in-ear unit reviewed is the Urbanista London, more like the fruity Pros, they have silicon tips and fit into the ear canal with short stubs that hang diagonally down and forward. The model reviewed is black (midnight), though it's available in pink (rose gold), blue (dark sapphire) and white (pearl). There's a definite hint of the brand being "fashionista" and targeting a millennial market.
There's 2 tips on the earphones and another 3 different sizes in the box.
The case supports wireless charging (Qi compatible) and USB-C (cable supplied).
The LEDs indicate the charge level when on a charging mat or plugged in.
Opening the case and the LEDs will light showing the amount of charge (a full charge will allow 25 hours of play, but the earphones only actually play 5 hours at a time, so they'll need to be placed back into the case and allowed to charge again if the batteries run out, which isn't instantaneous).
The earphones are held in magnetically which places the stems against the charging points.
There's also a button at the front of the case, between the stems which needs to be held down to put the system into Bluetooth pairing mode. Once paired opening the case and putting the earphones in your ear should just work. Long pressing the button will reset the case/earphones and loose their pairings. The earphones are Bluetooth 5, so battery life with a compatible phone should be maximised.
The earphones themselves are touch sensitive with the sensitive part under the logo and also detect when they are in the ear.
Using the smallest silicon tips, the earphones remained in the ear while moving around and were pretty comfortable. They are IPX4 water resistant so can be used in say a gym environment or playing sports, though sweat is likely to reduce the grip of the silicon and they could slip out. It's a shame Urbanista don't supply memory foam tips which when squeezed then securely fit to any shaped ear canal.
Pairing really is simple, just push the button in the case and Urbanista London will appear as a connectable device and just click on it and they are paired. Then put the earphones in your ears and sound will be heard.
There is a quirk, if the earphones are removed from the case prior to pairing and then the paring button pressed, the earphones will appear as two independent Bluetooth devices and each can be connected to individually, but not together. If that happens just forget them, and start the pairing again. Bluetooth audio codecs supported are HSP, HFP, A2DP, AVRCP. The quoted frequency response is 20Hz to 20KHz but that's pretty unrealistic as Bluetooth compresses things a lot.
Everything is controlled by tapping the logo on the earbuds (both left and right earbuds are used). A sturdy tap is required and it needs to be on the logo area and not on the side.
There are six microphones, which are used for noise cancellation and picking up speech for calls.
To play tap the left earbud twice, tapping twice again will pause.
Volume Up, tap right once.
Volume Down, tap left once.
Answer call, touch left or right twice.
End call, touch left or right twice.
Reject call, touch and hold left or right.
Siri, touch right twice.
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) ON/OFF, touch and hold right for 2 seconds.
Ambient Voice Mode (AVM) ON/OFF, touch and hold left for 2 seconds.
Turning ANC on, turns the volume up and it does block outside noise or speech. It's not perfect but does work, the music is definitely fuller and when off, hi hat drums sounded very fizzy (or is that hissy?). There are other earphones which have better noice cancellation, but they tend to be a lot more expensive.
Turning AWM on makes (banging) music sound washed out, even just listening to a vocal podcast seemed toned down.
When moving away from the Bluetooth source (computer or phone), the audio works, until it doesn't and then starts cutting out randomly.
These probably aren't the earphones for the discerning audiophiles (or just audio snobs), but they look nice and audio quality is pretty decent for the price and with ANC on playing music is a pretty nice experience with warm tones. Also wearing for extended periods is very comfortable.
Definitely worth a look and though not quite as refined in things like ANC, they make a good (much cheaper) alternative to the fruity Pros.
They are available directly from Urbanista or from Amazon for £129.00
