Zealot B5 headphones

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Decent headphones with good functionality

These are pretty good headphones, which were sent to me for review.  You get a lot of functionality for the price and they're decently made, but there are a few snags.

Positives first:  the 'phones are nicely boxed, they look good and they seem pretty robust.  Mine are "silver" and you may like to know that the padded parts are brown rather than the normal black.  That's fine with me, but some people may not be so keen.  They are fairly comfy and I can wear them for quite extended periods without any problem.  They seem robust and I'd expect them to be durable.

They have wired and Bluetooth inputs, both of which work well and without difficulty.  (No NFC, by the way – standard pairing only.)  There's also a micro-SD slot on one earcup which is also fine, although navigation with just skip forward and back controls isn't easy if you have a lot of music on it.  As well as this, they have an FM radio built in, which isn't bad.  You need a strongish signal, but for most normal strength stations it works OK.  It scans and stores stations and you can scroll up and down between them.  All the controls work well for controlling music and phone calls and the microphone is perfectly adequate.

The sound is pretty good.  They have a very strong bass, but this comes at the expense of really sharp trebles, so for classical music they're not great, with everything sounding a bit muted and a lack of real clarity of articulation.  However, for rock and the like they're very good and especially if you like a real kick in the bass the sound is very pleasing.

Some things aren't so great.  Nothing major, but:

- The manual is very basic.  There is not even an indication anywhere of which is the right and which the left cup.  I had to resort to an on-line stereo checker to find out that the AUX input is on the right-hand cup.  Once you're used to them, it's all fine, but be prepared for a bit of trial and error to start with.

- The charging lead is a pin-connector, not a standard micro-USB lead, so you're completely dependent on this one and will have to carry an extra lead with you to charge them.

- The limitations of the sound, especially in classical music, mentioned above.

Overall, though, these are pretty good headphones for the price.  They work well and give decent sound quality, especially for music which needs a powerful bass.  The card-reading and FM radio can be useful functions, and for everyday headphones with flexible connectivity I can recommend these.