Creative Outlier Sports Bluetooth Headphones Review

The brand new Creative Outlier Sports Bluetooth headphones must just be the gym companion you’ve been waiting for. These IPX-4 water resistant buds come with a number of fit options to ensure a comfortable fit that never falls out of your ears. Outliers feature an impressive 11 hour battery, 6mm neodymium drivers, inline ControlTalk with microphone, and Bluetooth with AptX. They also come in some pretty wild colors!

The cable is probably the most noticeable feature of Creative’s Outlier Sports headphones. Between each bud is a .5m cable in bright neon orange, green, or blue. The cable is textured with a clear outer coating. Near the right bud is a really nice inline ControlTalk that features volume up/down buttons, universal button, microphone, status light, and even a micro-USB port for charging. You can skip tracks back and forward by holding the volume buttons. Double tapping the universal button will redial the last phone call — it’s a bit confusing at first.

The earbuds come with three different sized ear tips and three different sized ear stabilizers. The secure fit ear stabilizers are not required, but do a great job of keeping the buds in-ear during intense exercise. The tips and stabilizers are the key to perfecting the audio experience, comfort, and fit with the Outlier Sports. Creative labels the design as behind-the-neck, but we find them more comfortable in front of our neck. There’s a cord clip that helps handle the extra slack by clipping it to your shirt. Instead of clipping the cord to my shirt, I’ve been use the clip to tie the cord under my neck, as there’s a decent amount of slack.

The 11 hour battery is quite impressive considering the headphones are pretty minimalistic. The buds are slightly larger than average, so we’re guessing that’s where most of the technology is housed. The build quality is real nice for lightweight buds. We can confirm that they handle a lot of sweat without issue. To help with protection, they come with a pocket sized hard shelled case, which can also house the micro-USB cable and the extra ear tips. In practice, the battery gets us through a week of gym and commute usage. Micro-USB charging means it’s really easy to charge anywhere. Also, a quick 10 minute charge can be enough to get us through a session at the gym.

While Outlier Sports are marketed as sports headphones, they’re honestly great everyday headphones. They’re definitely comfortable enough for extended use, and the sound quality is pretty solid. They sound perfect at the gym considering they’re a little heavier on bass with a warmer sound signature. In quieter environments, you’ll notice that the mids could be a little clearer, but they’re still better than a lot of bluetooth in-ears we’ve reviewed. They’re well balanced, and no matter where you are it’s a pleasant listening experience. There’s a built-in microphone that works perfectly for making phone calls with quality that’s easily on par with Apple’s Earpods.

Read on for the Verdict….