The best headphones for running with your iPhone

Publié le 26 avril 2011 par 321run

I am mad about headphones and earphones. I must have at least 8 of them, plus the ones that died along the way, and not counting the stock earphones Apple provides. I read all comments about headphones and earphones cause I like to feel comfortable and to have it easy on my ears. But I’m just a user. So all this advice comes as a user, nothing else.

And the winner is

Let’s start by the end: one of the best earphones to run with your iPhone is the one Apple prvides :

  • light
  • with a remote
  • leaves the sounds around you come through
  • doesn’t hit when you walk or run

Its major flaw is that it’s not adapted to all ears. I talked yesterday with a young woman who had exactly that kind of issue. She used to lose them when running. Even simply walking.

Why the other are less than perfect

Let’s start with the most hip headphones, those from Dr Beats, Wes, etc. First Dr Beats are expensive, but are cheap plastic. Poor quality that breaks sooner or later. I personally have a more pair of less hip, but much more classy Bose On-ear. They are fine, as long as you don’t move your head. Which you do a lot when you run.

The other Bose are even bigger. They don’t come with an iPhone remote. Use them at your desk. Running with it, they’ll jump everywhere.

My pair of Bose were also very unfortunate to get old quite fast. And you can’t change the leather stuff.

The case of the in ear headsets from Apple or how I almost got run over by a car

Noise isolation is very nice, but dangerous. When running, you’ll be crossing roads, railways (I run against the tramway here because he has a nice, green way). You have to hear what’s happening around you, for your security.

And usually, that kind of in-ear falls from your ears when running (try to stop every 100 meters to put them back in). And they somehow echo your footsteps. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll never use my BowersWilkins P5 (that and the fact they’re much too expensive to break them while running).

Finding headphones just for running

Better than normal headphones are headphones for sport activities. Sennheiser has a series of headphones compatible with iPhone iPad made with Adidas.

I recently found my master in the Nokia Bluetooth headset BH-505. It works flawlessly with my iPhone, I have remote control over play/pause, volume, skip or reverse, and I can even call my step mother using voice control while running. It’s a neck band headset so it fits all kinds of ears, is pretty light and has a good autonomy.

What about yours

I couldn’t talk about all brands. What’s your preferred kind of Headphones?