Oppo Enco W31 review: Great performance at an affordable price

Brand: Oppo

Product: Enco W31

Key specs: 3.5 hours of battery life, IP54 dust and water resistance, USB Type-C port, Bluetooth 5.0, 7mm dynamic drivers.

Price: ₹3,999

Rating: 3.5/5

Oppo ventured into the wireless earbuds segment with its Enco series. One of the latest is the Enco W31 which appears to be heavily inspired by the Apple Airpods 2. At ₹3,999, it is much cheaper than Apple's. 

It’s no news that most wireless earbuds we see these days are inspired by the Apple Airpods. But if you can get over the fact that the Oppo Enco W31 looks like a copy of the AirPods, you should go for it. Here's why.

Starting with the case of the Oppo Enco W31, it’s a cute and appealing circular one. It also looks like a CC cushion and could definitely be mistaken for one. The charging case isn’t of premium quality though and you can feel that it’s not really firm. It has a USB Type-C port for charging which adds 15 hours of music playback.

The wireless earbuds which come in white and black colours have a glossy tinge on them. The earbuds fit quite comfortably and it has different sized eartips as well. I had the black coloured Enco W31 and the design overall looks pretty decent. Nothing to complain about here.

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I was quite surprised by the audio quality of the Oppo Enco W31. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much since audio isn’t Oppo’s forte. But the overall audio quality was pretty impressive and I really enjoyed listening to music with the Enco W31. The library was pretty mixed with pop tracks, hip-hop tracks, and even live music.

Oppo Enco W31 offers a balanced mode and bass mode. To activate bass mode you need to tap the left side twice. It delivers extra bass quite well even on bass-heavy tracks. You can switch to the balanced mode for a more neutral sound.

To move to the next song, you have to tap twice on the right side. Since there are just two touch controls it doesn’t require much work. But the touch controls don’t respond properly. I had myself tapping ‘twice’ multiple times to switch between the two modes or play the next song.

Phone calls with the Enco W31 were pretty clear on both ends. I couldn’t test it outside for calls in a noisy environment. This is an area where most wireless earbuds don’t do well. But indoors it works really well.

The Enco W31 also supports voice assistants which you can access by tapping thrice on either side. This, however, works only on Oppo phones. You can still use Google Assistant or Siri manually on your phone with the Enco W31.

Another Oppo-exclusive feature is quick pairing along with battery status of both earbuds and the case. There’s no app either for customisations or firmware updates. Oppo will probably introduce one soon now that its audio lineup is pretty packed.

In terms of battery life, the Enco W31 lasted for around a week. It’s supposed to offer 3.5 hours of music playback, and 15 hours with the charging case.

Verdict

Overall experience with the Oppo Enco W31 has been pretty good. It does lack some features but gets all the important details right. For its price of ₹3,999, the Oppo Enco W31 ticks all the key boxes, and yes it’s a definite buy.