EFM Athos True Wireless headphones review

EFM's Athos True Wireless headphones are affordable, but they're quite basic in operation and sound quality.

Relatively affordable
Works with Siri/Google Assistant
Range of colours

Sound output is only average
Touch controls are too easily activated by accident
Weak microphone for calls

Alex Kidman

Last Updated Jan 20, 2021

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Where once headphones aspired to mimic those iconic Apple headphones commercials with trailing white cables – remember those? – these days, the prevailing trend is towards small true wireless buds. They're beneficial for their compact size and unobtrusive fit, especially if you can hide them under your hair.

The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones are a basic set of bud style headphones at a basic price. They're nothing fancy, and they're essentially appropriate for their price, but that's about it.

Design

Sold in a variety of colours
Only two earbud tip sizes provided
Charging case includes loop

The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones as tested were the white style, although EFM also makes them in a black colour if that's more your style. They are a very simply designed pair of buds with an oval-shaped protrusion that hooks into a simple earbud tip. If you're not a fan of the AirPod style of dangling microphone hooks, that could have some appeal.
As with most earphones that use rubber tips, you're provided with spares to help ensure you get the proper fit, although not that many. EFM provides a small and medium set of tips with the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones, so if you already know that your ears suit a larger tip size, they might not be optimal for you.
The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones' charging case would also qualify as a generic charging egg were it not for the inclusion of a hook loop, which is a feature not often seen on this kind of product. I can't say that I've had much need to use it, though. I suppose if you really hated it, you could snip it off the case with no particular consequence.

Performance

Basic pairing
Sound output is a little soft
Touch controls are twitchy
Audio call pick-up is weak

The basic nature of the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones extends to pairing, which uses the standard Bluetooth route of powering up when they're removed from the case, at which point you've got to then go hunting for them in your phone's Bluetooth menu. Pairing over Bluetooth was quick and painless, and if you're not a fan of headphones that want a companion app as well, they could have a lot of appeal.
The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones aren't all that expensive, so my expectations weren't super-high in terms of audio quality. It turns out that this is exactly the attitude you should have with the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones, which deliver a mostly flat music experience with little in the way of nuance.
Listening to Freddie Mercury's rising vocals on "Barcelona" robbed that song of an awful lot of its stadium-style presence, especially in the soaring vocal parts. Not to a level where I didn't want to continue listening, but certainly below the grade that you can get with more pricey wireless headphones.
Switching over to The Beastie Boys "Nonstop Disco Powerpack" gave similar results, with the underlying bass line appearing a little more flat than I'd really like. Again, this is entirely in line with the relatively low price of the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones.
Where the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones did work better was as a basic set of podcast listening headphones because typically there you can forgive more ordinary audio quality more easily. If you're happy with basic and low audio bitrates offered by some music streaming services, the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones could be entirely fine for your needs.
The oval shape of the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones doesn't make them hook all that solidly into your ears, which also means they move around a little when you're walking with them. I didn't have them fall out while jogging, but they did feel more loose than many other pairs I've tested, and that was with the medium tips inserted. Of course, your fit conditions may vary.
The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones go down the very usual route of providing touch-based controls for simple functions such as play/pause, call answering or invoking your virtual assistant of choice. At least, in theory that's the case, but like so many of their ilk, actually doing anything that involves more than one tap is fraught with peril. Pausing and playing off a single tap is fine, but about half the time, the double tap that should skip a track instead decided to fire up the assistant on my paired phone.
The small bud nature of the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones also doesn't lend itself brilliantly to phone calls. While there's a lot of variance in any mobile call, people I spoke to while on the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones said I often appeared rather soft and distant. Calls could be made, but I've certainly had better experiences with other true wireless buds in this respect.

Battery

Four hours of standalone charge

The same story around average but fine performance also applies to the EFM Athos True Wireless headphones' battery life, with a standard four hours of playback time that, in my testing, is accurate almost to the minute. Recharge time is two hours if they're totally flat as per EFM's guidelines, and again that's essentially true. The battery case isn't the heaviest in the hand, and that's because EFM only throws a 500mAh battery into the case, so you won't see too many charges out of it. Annoyingly, EFM doesn't specify how many charges that is, but in my testing, it's averaged two additional charges before losing most of its power, which would equate out to 12 hours of total charge.

Verdict

How we score our reviews

Inexpensive but very basic

Should you buy it?

The EFM Athos True Wireless headphones don't really punch above their pricing weight when it comes to audio quality, but they're not awful either. They're simply average, and if all you want is the convenience of small wireless buds, they're a perfectly fair purchase option. However, if you can stretch your budget out, even a little, it's possible to get much better audio quality than this.

Pricing and availability

Price: RRP $129
Where to buy: Amazon | Kogan

Specs

Where to buy

Build

Category

In-ear

Colours

White

Driver Diameter

7mm

Frequency Response

20Hz – 20KHz

Connectivity

Wired/Wireless

Wireless

Bluetooth

Yes

Bluetooth Version

Features

Noise Cancelling

Foldable

Water Resistant

Battery Life

Up to 4 hours

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Alex Kidman

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A multi-award winning journalist, Alex has written about consumer technology for over 20 years. He has written and edited for virtually every Australian tech publication including Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and more. He has also been the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, PC Mag Australia, CNET.com.au and the Tech and Telco section at Finder. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

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EFM Athos True Wireless headphones review