Sharp HP-TW30 Review: Decent Pair Of Beater Earbuds? | Tech360.tv
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  • Cheryl Tan
    • Oct 20, 2021
    • 3 min read

Sharp HP-TW30 Review: Decent Pair Of Beater Earbuds?

When you think Sharp, you think TVs, air purifiers, maybe even phones right? Well, Sharp has true wireless earbuds too, the HP-TW30.

When it comes to design, it’s a bit of a letdown. I mean, the exterior has a nice soft-touch coating, and you get the standard LED indicators on the front for charging and such. There’s a USB-C port on the rear, luckily, and the case even supports wireless charging! My one major problem with it is the lid. It feels flimsy, it’s hard to open and it’s not like those nice, magnetic lids or anything. It hooks on physically, which means if you’re planning on using these for a long period of time, it’s not quite as durable.


As for the earbuds themselves, they look okay. There’s a gold ring on the top of the earbud that demarcates the touch control area, which is fine. I’m not a big fan of the Sharp branding on each earbud, but it is what it is. That being said, the earbuds do sit quite comfortably in the ear, even though the stem does extend quite a bit and it does rub against my face a little.


You get touch controls here and they’re pretty interesting. A single tap raises or lowers volume, a double-tap controls play/pause while a triple tap pulls up the voice assistant. A single tap and hold skips tracks, while a double-tap and hold switches ANC on or off. It’s definitely quite different from how most earbuds do their touch controls, and it took me a while to remember these.


There’s also… no app seemingly, which means no touch control customisation and the like. It’s really just a simple pair of earbuds, you get what you get out of the box. There’s no in-ear detection here though, so if you’re prone to taking your earbuds out and leaving them around for a while, you might want to remember to pause your music.


You get Bluetooth 5.0, pretty standard, and there’s only SBC and AAC here. Now, the earbuds are independent, so you can use either side as you want. It’s something that I really didn’t expect from these.


Sharp claims 6 hours of battery life with ANC off, and I did my testing with ANC on, which ended up with me getting around 4 hours and 35 minutes on 30% volume. It’s not fantastic really, pretty mediocre, especially since a lot of earbuds with ANC nowadays are getting around 6 to even 8 hours.


There’s IPX4 water resistance, which means these will stand up to sweat and rain, and surprisingly, I’m gonna say these can be used for exercise if you really want to. They sit securely enough in the ear, there’s an interesting coating on the earbuds which should provide some grip and they’re light enough to not really be a big problem for long periods of time.


ANC on these is just okay. They’re really just quite average. In cars and on trains, it didn’t really make much of a difference. There was a noticeable difference in terms of cutting out the noise from my fan, but really, don’t buy these if you’re looking for something that has strong ANC.


Sound quality, though, surprised me. I wasn’t expecting all that much, considering the price tag of around S$249 Singapore dollars, and these definitely aren’t going to be in the running for earbuds with great sound quality, but overall, the earbuds aren’t too terrible to listen to. The bass is definitely very emphasised though, with a dip in the mids. Vocals still have a decent presence, but the bass is really just in your face. It might be a good thing for people who love bassy earbuds though, but yeah, you just get a lot of bass here and not all that much else. It feels like if there was an EQ feature, it was tuned to just solely focus on the bass. There’s not much vocal layering or separation to speak of, and the soundstage is pretty average, about what you would expect from a pair of true wireless earbuds. Pretty V-shaped signature, although the treble isn’t particularly energetic.


So, who would get these? Well, you’re not going to get these if you want the best sound or ANC, let’s say that. But, if you want something that’s slightly more affordable, you want something that has plenty of bass, like, plenty, and you want something that’s light enough to wear to the gym, these work fine.


Personally, I’m definitely not part of the target audience these are made for, so I wouldn’t get a pair, but these are apparently like US$70 in America or something, and for that price, I’d say these are a very decent option for gifts or just as a pair of beater earbuds.

 

Content by Cheryl Tan

 

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