Hands-on review: JBL Tune 220TWS

Ever since Apple took the earbuds truly wireless, audio providers scrambled to get into the wireless earbud market – out of a huge selection to choose, from the JBL Tune 220TWS wireless earbuds are a pretty good result.

Design

JBL did a great job with the design of the Tune 220. The charging case is compact – even more compact than Apple's original case, which means it will fit in any pocket.

The case and the earbuds both have a metallic finish with a soft-touch paint that makes for a sleek and elegant product.  Colour options include black, white, grey or even blue and pink. This gives the consumer the chance to get the colour that matches their style the most.

Another great part of the design is the earbuds themselves. Most other earbuds on the market can't be worn for more than two hours at a time because of the amount of pressure they put on ear canals. Thankfully, the JBL Tune 220 were designed with all-day wear in mind.

The tip of each earbud sits just outside the ear canal which leaves enough air to flow in and out to relieve pressure. That comes with a sacrifice, however, as the Tune 220 have no noise-cancelling features.

Sound

When I looked at how small the Tune 220 are, I didn't expect them to sound this good. I was pleasantly surprised as they do not skimp on sound quality. They feature JBL's pure bass sound which is one of the best there. If that wasn't enough, the earbuds are professionally tuned by Harman engineers to precisely produce a clean sound.

Controls

Both earbuds have physical buttons on them which is great. The buttons allow you to skip tracks, play, pause and activate the voice assistant. Each press is accompanied by a beeping sound so that you are sure you clicked. My only complaint is that there are no volume buttons, and I refuse to ask Google and Siri to reduce the volume of my device while I walk down the street.

Battery

The battery on the JBL Tune 220 has 19 hours of combined battery time. They can be used for three hours at a time until they need to be popped back into the battery case. The case can then provide an additional 16 hours of battery, which is great for such a small case.