Ok, I am bored. 

I am freaking bored.  I am not getting any items to review; companies are diverting their resources to helping with the Covid-19 crisis or they are just shutting down.  Everyone is staying home, washing their hands, and hopefully not watching the reruns of Gilligan’s Island. 

Me, I am enjoying my Toshiro Mifune film festival of Akira Kurasowa movies. Did you know he was in over 150 total movies….

Now that we are going through the quarantine process, I find myself needing to take more walks and that gives me the opportunity to try out new earbuds. Alex from Padmate was kind enough to send these along.

What caught my attention was the design and uniqueness of the charging case and of course it never hurts to have a lot of people saying they are terrific so with a price drop from $199 to $89, it was time to give them a closer look. 

The PAMU UniqueB starts off right with some very clever and simple packaging. The first time you open the boxes, you first need to personalize the charging case with a magnetic cover that has some very cool painted images on them. The first thing I wanted to do was to create my own but that is for later. It wraps very easily around the case held by magnetic strips. You pop the earbuds in the case, plug it in with an included USB to USB-C cable and you can see the charging process at one end of the charging case.  If you already have a wireless charging station, you can add the simple included charging adapter to the charging case and you are ready to charge wirelessly.

Once it is charged, you have the option of six different sizes of ear tips and a leather like carry bag. There is a tiny instruction booklet included as well.  As to features of the earbuds; they are water resistant (IPX6), and use a Qualcomm QCC3020 chip.  Bluetooth 5.0 and the case charges in about an hour and a half.  While you only get about 10 hours of playing time per charge, the case will hold two more charges to get you to 30 hours. A quick five minute charge will give you another hour of play or talk.

Technically speaking, it uses Bluetooth 5.0, has a 400mAh battery, dual-Mic noise cancelling technology. You also use touch controls on each earbud. On the left, you can play/pause, go to voice assist, answer a phone call, decline a phone call, and decrease volume. On the right, you can play/pause, track forward, answer phone calls, decline phone calls, and increase the volume.  I will probably need a cheat sheet. But they do have a lot of good information on the website and YouTube video on unpacking your new PaMu Unique.

So, what is not to like. First quibble might be that the size of the case is nearly double that of the others we have around but I like that because it means it will be harder to misplace or lose. With the wrap around painted cover, it looks very cool. I also like the feel of the leather covers as it is easier to grip and hang onto the charging case. One other would be that when you open the case, the left earbud is on the right and vice versa. Of course, they only settle into their own slot but it is different.

When you first pair, it actually pairs two devices, one for sound and one for phone calls and media audio. You get a “pairing successful” in each ear as they connect. No codes are needed so not sure how you tell it to only connect with your one device.

Now that we are connected, time to find music that can test these earbuds and I do have a couple of favorites that might do the trick. “Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb” is a good one as is “The XX’s Fantasy” which is great for testing the low bass and subwoofer in a home system. “Train’s Hey Soul Sister” is also a good one to listen to.

And to me, these sound great. And for the price of $89 at Padmate, you can’t beat them.

Robert Sanborn
May 2020