SOUL Electronics is no stranger to true wireless earphones. They have several in their product lineup. This review is of the Emotion 2, an update to the earlier generation Emotion from 2018. The Emotion 2 shows that budget true wireless earphones can sound pretty good.
The Emotion 2 was launched in 2019. There are few frills in this budget true wireless earphones, but you do get a decent charging case, simple touch controls, Bluetooth 5.0 support, and HD quality audio.
The budget-friendly nature of the Emotion 2 is evident from the plastic charging case. The glossy finish can be a bit of a fingerprint-magnet. A single LED on the front indicates various battery status. There’s one white flash for every quarter of battery life; four white flashes indicate that the battery is full. While charging, the LED is lit in red, still interspersed with white flashes to show battery level.
Unlike many other earphones which have different orientations for the left and right sides, the Emotion 2’s earpieces are identical. The left and right sides can be swapped and still dock in the charging case. If you’ve somehow gotten the left and right sides mixed up, you’ll have to look at the markings on the earpieces themselves.
Fortunately, when turned on, the earpieces will enunciate their left and right associations. Nevermind the left and right being mixed up in the charging case, I suppose, since what’s important is that you have the correct ones in your ears.
While there’s a tendency for budget gadgets to go with Micro-USB ports, I’m happy to see that SOUL has put USB Type-C ports in the Emotion 2’s charging case. With the charging case, you can get up to 18 hours of on-the-go battery life, up from just 4.5 hours straight from the Emotion 2 earpieces themselves.
The only control on the earpiece is a single touch control surface. The controls on the left and right are identical. They are rather straight-forward. One tap to play/pause, two taps to skip track forward, and three taps to activate voice assistant. Unfortunately, there’s no volume control, and no way to skip track backward.
The Emotion 2 can take calls too. Tap once to answer the call or end the call, and hold for 1 second to reject a call.
Returning the Emotion 2 to the charging case turns off the earpieces, and taking them out automatically turns them on. You can also hold the touch control for 8 seconds to manually turn off, and hold for three seconds to manually turn on. If you need to, holding for 15 seconds resets the Emotion 2.
Like the Sudio Ett I recently reviewed, the Emotion 2 can’t maintain more than one Bluetooth connection simultaneously. So, while you can pair both your notebook and phone to the Emotion 2, you’ll have to manually disconnect one before connecting the other. It’s a bit of a hassle if you like to listen to music or watch videos while working on your notebook, but still be able to make and take calls from your phone.
On the positive side, the Emotion 2 always returns to pairing mode if nothing is connected to it. There’s no need to manually initiate Bluetooth pairing mode from the earpiece.
The 6 mm drivers in the Emotion 2 deliver surprisingly good sound quality. The bass has adequate punch, with a little bit of extension into the sub-bass. The mids were forward. The trebles were bright and clear. Overall, the Emotion 2 sounded great, especially considering its price point, and it was very pleasant to listen to.
SOUL provides three sizes of silicon tips with the Emotion 2. With the right fit, the Emotion 2 felt comfortable and secure. Noise isolation is quite decent too. Weighing only just 4 grams, the Emotion 2 is light enough to be not bothersome.
Included in the retail packaging, the Emotion 2 comes with short USB Type-A to Type-C cable, as well as the aforementioned charging case and three sizes of silicon tips.
The SOUL Emotion 2 is available in black, white, and pink. The official retail price is S$129.90 from SOUL’s website. However, you can get the Emotion 2 at just S$59.90 from SOUL’s official store in Lazada (black, white, pink), which I think is really quite a steal.
Conclusion
SOUL’s Emotion 2 earphones are hard to beat in the budget true wireless earphones category.
Pros:
- Great sound quality
- Easy to pair
- Comfortable fit
Cons:
- Basic controls
- Cannot connect to multiple devices simultaneously