[General Accessories] a.cid:
This is a review of the J&L-103 Bluetooth Earphones. I have previously reviewed the J&L-100 for the XDA Portal, so I was curious on what this particular brings over the previous pair that I own.

Disclaimer: While I received this product free of cost, I do not have any agreements or bias for or against the company, nor do I get paid to review them. The review below is my own opinion after around a week of usage (and only a week, you'll know why).

Starting off with the delivery and experience before hands-on, I left off the previous XDA review with a note on the delays in getting the product. This same exact situation happened again, which leaves a sour taste in the mouth. The representative promised shipment via DHL on September 10. Then informed on September 22 that it was stuck in customs a week ago. And I finally received the earphones on 10th October, a month later from when they shipped apparently. Your mileage with Amazon will vary, but beware of purchasing it outside of Amazon.

Moving on to the product itself, the J&L-103 come in a small box much akin to the J&L-100. For about $30, I would not make fuss about the packaging as it does the job well and I had nothing to complain about really.

Included in the box was the main headset, two extra set of tips (S and L, M comes pre-installed), two extra set of flyer hook tips/stabilizers (S and L, M comes pre-installed), a very small USB cable for charging, some documentation and a pouch for storage.

Since my review of the J&L 100, I have gotten myself a pair of Xiaomi Mi Pro In-Ear headphones. I did find the previous J&L 100 pretty big in size, and the subsequent possession of the Xiaomi pair affirmed my dislike of their size. This pair of J&L 103 are thankfully smaller than the J&L 100, but they are larger than the Xiaomi pair. I'd cut them some slack here as Xiaomi's are wired while the J&L 103 are semi-wireless.

As much as the size was a contrast, the comfort levels are contrasting as well. The 100's were comfortable despite being large, while the current 103's are uncomfortable despite being small. One of the main reasons for this is the side remote. It adds on weight to just one end of your ear, throwing off the balance. For short sessions, you will face difficulties in rotating your neck around as the remote often gets stuck in collars or other clothing. For longer sessions or when clothing is not an issue, the disproportionate weight just makes you want to take them off as the right side/ear gets tired much earlier than your left side.

The difference in weight between the 100 (0.58 oz) and 103 (0.6 oz) is barely half a gram. But due to the build quality and how it is constructed, the 103 with its metal build feels much denser and heavier.

With regards fit: The stabilizers have an incline to them, which is good for fitting inside your ears, assuming your ears are not flat :p

The main drivers are a bit on the larger side, so you cannot put these on and lie down on your side. The tips included form a good seal and help in creating the perfect sound stage.

Coming on to the sound quality, the sound is decent. There are hints of bass, but these vanish if you are outdoors, which is the usual use case for these. The earphones get adequately loud, but the higher values have a lot of distortion and cracking. For the price and within the normal volume ranges, the earphone performs as per expectations honestly. Not over, not above, just okay and I am fine with that since these are not that expensive.

There is an issue with calls. Making calls is alright and works as expected. But when you do receive a call (incoming), initially you get 3 beeps on the handset. If you pick up the call during these beeps, the person on the other end will not receive your voice. If you wait the beeps out, there's a hit or miss chance that the call will go through without any issues. As it turns out, the issue exists on the J&L 100 too, and on multiple devices like OPO, OP3, OPX, Mi Max, Elephone P8000 and more. I mainly tested outgoing calls in my previous review, so I managed to skip over without facing the issue.

The earphones feature a remote on the right side, so we'll go over the buttons and functionality once. The volume rockers are used for volume control, while the power button (with its small nub which helps in differentiating -- nice touch, I may add) is used to power on/off, connect to devices and to pick and end calls. There is an LED too, which shows battery low/charging status. The micro USB port used for charging is hidden by a rubber flap. The individual earpieces do have a magnetic back end, so you can avoid any tangling at all by just letting them stick to each other.

For images, you can either view (some of) them in the attachments, or see all of them in my imgur album.

I'll add in my section on battery and more thoughts as soon as I get a chance.