Sabbat Vooplay TWS Review

Truly-wireless earphones have been around for quite some time now. When Apple released its Airpods back in 2016, in-line with their decision to get rid of their headphone jacks, it was not long until other competitors started making their own. Much like any product or concept that takes off, there will always be Chinese brands with their own versions that hit the spot for many of us on a budget.

But of course, at that price range, trying to match the quality against their premium counterparts is a stretch—Once in a while, though, we do come across some Chinese products that tick our boxes when it comes to being both affordable and of good quality. And a good example of that is this TWS earphones by a company called Sabbat. They’ve been in the market for a couple of years now, with the X12 being one of their most famous models. Well, today, we’re going to be checking out their latest one yet, the Sabbat Vooplay.

Starting with the box itself, we do get this really premium looking package. As you can see, we have the Glacier colorway with us right now, which you’ll get a closer look at when we open this thing up. Off the bat, though, we can see we get Bluetooth 5.0 as well as APTX support, so that’s very good to know. On one side of the box is a quick rundown on the specs, and you’ll actually see that these earphones also have Qi Wireless Charging built-in, which can be convenient for some people.

Unveiling this box’s contents, we are first greeted with a smaller box with your instruction manual and some paperwork. Next, we have a guide in both English and Chinese that tells you how to pair this up to your device, which should be easy enough, and finally at the bottom are the earphones themselves, plus another smaller box that holds your USB Type-C cable and a convenient pouch to keep your case nice and safe.

Moving on to the star of the show, the first thing you’ll notice when you see the Sabbat Vooplay is how sleek and simple it looks. These are actually the first TWS earphones I’ve seen with a leather finish; although synthetic, they definitely add some class to the overall look and presentation.

We have the Sabbat logo on the lid of the case, while at the back is your type-C port for charging. We also have the hinge made out of metal, not plastic, so opening and closing the case feels quite snappy and doesn’t feel like it’s going to break that easily. If you’ve ever played around with hard frame eyeglass cases, this is pretty much a similar feeling but in a smaller form factor.

The case has a smooth matte texture where you can find 4 LED indicator lights to know the battery status. The earphones themselves also share the same matte texture and have a unique circular design that can really look like an ibuprofen tablet without even trying.

If you noticed, we didn’t get any extra ear tips in the box since these are actually half-in ear earphones and have a fit similar to Apple’s non-pro Airpods. Taking a closer look, we get LED indicators on the earphones themselves and physical buttons to pause, play, skip, answer calls, and adjust volume, which we’ll get into in a bit. Unfortunately, there are no proximity sensors for automatic ear detection, although I think it’s alright.

Now, being half-in earphones, there will be two concerns: Noise isolation and comfort/fit. With no rubber tips, the sound will generally be more open, meaning you are not completely closed off from external sounds. Generally, this type of configuration offers less bass, but this can be good, especially if you enjoy a wide variety of music. Nice and balanced, plus you’ll still be able to hear your surroundings just in case you need to.

The second concern is the overall fit. Popping these in your ears can be a hit or miss since they don’t have anything to keep it snug. These fit perfectly on my left ear, though, but on the right, there are times it can feel like it’s about to come off, although that hasn’t really happened to me yet, to say the least. The good part about these earphones is that ear-fatigue is much, much less since they’re just hanging there instead of being lodged. But if you’re planning on going wireless for extraneous activities, consider earbuds instead since those really stick on your ears. For casual use, though, these are quite perfect.

When it comes to sound quality, we already mentioned that this would be relatively less bassy, but with 14.2mm Drivers, lows are still very decent, with the sound leaning a bit more on the hi and mid’s. Listening to music with many instruments like rock and roll works out very well, especially for those vocals and cymbals. Other genres, like hip-hop, also sound very clear and aren’t mushy at all. The Vooplay also supports Qualcomm aptX, AAC and SBC codecs, A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSP Bluetooth profiles, and has a transmission distance of about 10m.

Call quality performs exceptionally well even in windy situations like when you’re biking or if you’re somewhere outdoors. Now audio most likely won’t be as clear and crisp as the built-in mic of your phone but is still very audible, so the person you’re talking to won’t struggle to understand you.

When it comes to gaming, the Sabbat Vooplay’s don’t come with a built-in game mode, so there will be some latency here, although I find them still quite usable whenever I need some privacy when playing games. For serious players, though, this will probably be the biggest caveat for these earphones and are obviously not suited for that particular purpose, but! They’re still pretty good for a casual gamer if you ask me.

As for battery life, the earphones themselves are capable of lasting for around 6-7 and a half hours at 70% volume, while the 390 mAh charging case can hold for roughly another 4 full charging cycles, which totals to about 35 hours of use before you completely run out of juice. Not bad at all!

We have a very basic Qi Wireless Charging station over here, which actually came with the earphones themselves. Still, for some reason, upon trying it out, the base heats up and reaches uncomfortably hot temperatures to the point where it could potentially damage the case itself. We are not sure if this is because of the actual charging station or not, but if it is, then hopefully, using this with a more reliable Qi Wireless Charger won’t give any heating issues. For now, I’m gonna stick to juicing this up via Type C, which takes only about an hour and 15 minutes to charge fully.

The Sabbat Vooplay is available in a plethora of color options in Lazada and Shoppee and is priced at PHP 2,790USD 48INR 4,030EUR 45CNY 346. If you’re looking for earphones that sit in between style and function, have good soundstage, and are comfortable to wear for long periods of time, then these truly wireless earphones might be the one for you.