Beoplay E8 2.0 true wireless buds from Bang & Olufsen have a feature that Apple Airpods still lacks

Hopefully wireless charging, true wireless buds will also be less buggy than before, as well as even more premium

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay E8 2.0
Duncan Bell
By Duncan Bell
published

It's in our list of the best true wireless earbuds but Bang & Olufsen's Beoplay E8 was quite annoying to use due to various software and connectivity 'quirks'. I was so enraged that my head nearly exploded, but then I'm an irritable guy. On the other hand, they sounded notably better than Apple AirPods 

However, now there is a BeoPlay E8 2.0 with wireless charging case. Hopefully as well as adding wireless charging, these will keep the sonic classiness of the E8 1.0 and terminate with extreme prejudice the connectivity issues and deeply annoying software upgrade process that dogged version 1. Technological progress is marvellous, isn't it?

IMPORTANT UPDATE Yes, that wireless charging case does appear to be made of human flesh but that's okay; it isn't really. You can also get these buds in Black, Indigo Blue and Limestone, in addition to the colour above, which B&O is calling 'It Puts The Lotion On Its Skin'.

The big news here, apart from the use of skin, is that Beoplay E8 2.0 are not just true wireless headphones but true wirelessly-charging true wireless headphones. They keep the total convenience and great sound of the original but allow you to charge on any wireless (Qi) charging pad. 

Although there isn't a wireless charging pad provided with the E8 2.0, you can use any one you have lying around already, or you can buy Bang & Olufsen's official pad, at a 'retail price yet to be disclosed' (!)  

If you don't want to recharge wirelessly, don't worry; there's also a USB-C input.

Responding to other complaints from their punters, B&O has also upgraded the E8's leather charging case 'with a new, more exclusive form factor' (!)

BeoPlay E8 by Bang & Olufsen

BeoPlay E8 gives you 4 hours of music, then the case can charge it for a further 12 hours

The E8's battery life is 4 hours, and the wireless charging case holds 'three full charges' so you can go through 16 hours of play time before you need to recharge the case (the original could only muster 12 hours). LED lights indicate both how well charged the buds are, and how many more times the case can juice them up.

Another highly important improvement is that on the inside of the charging case, 'the earphones are now surrounded by a beautiful inlay of brushed single or double anodised aluminium depending on colour.'

The charging pad, whose retail price cannot yet be revealed, is lavishly hand-tooled by artisans in brushed aluminium and leather, 'designed to last and to age beautifully' and supports both regular (5 Watt) charging and fast charging (10 Watts).

If you bought version 1 of the E8 you'll be glad to know that you can upgrade to wireless charging, simply by giving Bang & Olufsen £200 (!) for the official wireless charging case.

BeoPlay E8

If you don't want to charge wirelessly you can USB-C

Here's what B&O has to say about the sound: 

'Just like the original Beoplay E8, the new earphones come tuned by Bang & Olufsen’s acclaimed sound engineers for a rich, full-bodied and precise soundstage that will leave your ears wanting more. Each earpiece has a 5.7mm dynamic speaker, a small electromagnetic transducer, NFMI technology (Near Field Magnetic Induction) and a Bluetooth 4.2 chip with Digital Sound Processing that allows for dynamic sound tuning and sound without interruption. Users will also be able to tune the sound themselves in the Bang & Olufsen app for Android and iPhone.'

I can definitely confirm the original E8 sounded very good. 

Finally, and rather brilliantly, you can buy individual left or right buds. Why? Two reasons: so you can use one as a more stylish Bluetooth earpiece for phone calls, and so you can replace buds when they fall out and get lost.

• BeoPlay E8 2.0 will be available from February 14 (Valentine's Day) for £350. 

• The Wireless Charging Pad, in matching colours, has a retail price that is yet to be disclosed. 

• Separate Beoplay E8 2.0 left and right buds retail for £125 and the wireless charging case (not pad) will be £200, from April 2019.  

CATEGORIES
Audio
Duncan Bell
Duncan Bell

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years. 

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."


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