Samsung Gear IconX (2018), Thoughts
Not a review. Some thought about using Samsung IconXs by a long time non-Samsung Android user.
Background — why I bought Samsung again?
After my Parrot Zik-3 over-ear headphones encountered a very scary software failure I was in market for a new set of headphones.
I couldn’t make myself buy the Pixel earbuds. Reviews that came out weren’t really convincing and with the price of Pixel Buds they need to be good.
This time I wanted to try something smaller. Something easier to travel with and hopefully something with a bit more tech packed in.
I looked through many options but nothing quite fit my requirements. I, for sure, weren’t going to buy any device with a Micro-USB port for charging anymore. This left the Bose over-ear ones out even if they now come with Google Assistant.
I looked into couple of simple USB-C Bluetooth in-ear ones as well but the ones recommended to me weren’t available in Europe. I actually started to feel a bit frustrated at this point.
I also had some concerns about Bluetooth connectivity after some very bad experiences with the Parrot Ziks with my phone so anything promising a step up from basic Bluetooth would be welcome.
I recently switched to a Samsung phone for a year due to professional curiosity. Samsung is not my favourite brand. I tend to leave them as the very last resort when buying hardware. But when everyone else fails Samsung seems to deliver. I ended up with the IconX (2018).
Samsung Ecosystem easily rivals Apple’s (when it comes to hardware)
I already have the magical Note 8 Samsung LED case. It’s part of the tightly coupled but seamless-user-experience offering Samsung ecosystem. The IconXs continue the same approach. With a Samsung Phone nearby the pairing process was completely seamless.
With other Android phones you need to go through a normal BT pairing loop. Not fan of that idea anymore.
IconX hardware in practice
I really like these. The headphones immediately became my travel companions on long flights. With the possibility to charge the case separately a single USB-plug of a Lufthansa long haul flight keeps your phone and headphones charges fully for 8+ hour flight easily even if you play offline Netflix all flight.
Battery life is a solid check.
These things connect magically. The Bluetooth improvements Samsung has done have removed all the pain I used to feel with my previous BT devices. When I open the case the connection process gets started automatically. By the time I have them in my ears everything is ready for playback. A friendly sound confirms connectivity and you don’t have to worry if you’re about to blast your music from your phone’s speakers instead.
Same happens the other way. When you place the headphones back to their case they automatically disconnect from your phone without issues.
They also never dropped connectivity when I didn’t want to.
..maybe Bluetooth can actually be done right.
Connectivity is a solid check.
IconX Software in practice
Software is where Samsung usually fails. Their strange design decisions in customising Android are still baffling me (I hate that they’ve done to my beautiful Android notifications).
When you connect the headphones the Samsung Gear app adds a notification telling you that the connection has been formed as well as adding a shortcut to the companion app. I actually like this. I like that the notification icon is an IconX headphone and not a generic headphone icon. I feel that Samsung has actually thought about usability and user experience here.
The Gear IconX headphones are configured via the Samsung Gear app (not really surprising). I don’t own any other Gear devices so I cannot comment on inter-Gear device functionality but alone the IconXs fit perfectly fine in the Gear app UI.
Changing settings and seeing what is going on is easy and actually doesn’t even look awful like some other Samsung software I’ve seen do.
Gear Software on phone is a solid check.
Like with many other headphones you can also control many aspects of the headphones directly from the headphones. Both of them act as touch surfaces and you can use right or left equally. Nice tough.
This is the area Samsung could improve the most. When you touch the headphone’s touch surface you receive a pleasant beep confirming the action. However, the sound arrives with lag. I’d estimate that you get the touch feedback 1 sec after your touch. This is too long. I’ve yet to get used to changing volume vs. tapping to pause.
It’s also possible to trigger commands when the headphones are not in your ear. When in airplane I managed to start workout couple of times when holding the device on my hand when ordering a beer from a flight attendant.
I know I don’t really have to remove the headphones to hear outside word. There’s an “ambient sound” setting. By turning it on you will hear things around you and can maintain conversations (it actually makes it very easy to follow a conversation right behind you).
Turning ambient sound off/on is really slow from the headphones. You have to tap and hold the touch surface and cycle through menu options for 5–10 sec before the right option appears. I really wish there was a way to set the shortcuts to what I want. double tap for ambient sound would certainly be nice.
Software on the device itself is OK, not great but OK.
One great surprise I got with these things was the voice command. Voice commands pipes through to Google Assistant and NOT to the awful and useless Samsung Bixby. I’m very happy that Samsung chose not to force their own assistant on me with these.
Some missed opportunities
For some reason there is no edge panel for Gear or IconX for Note. I’ve still not managed to figure out what to use the edge panel for but I think an IconX control center could be a great use case.
Conclusion, TL;DR
I think these things are great! I’m getting a lot of value from the headphones and they’re certainly a step forwards from my previous experiences with BT headphones. I’m happy with my purchase.
For any Samsung users these are probably worth the money. Especially if you use them for workout tracking as well (which I do not). For others, I don’t know..
