Setup & Usage
Getting the T8505’s setup is very easy. First you want to make sure they are charged up, so plug in the charging case and place them inside. Once you have a good charge open the top of the charging case and then press and hold the button on the back of the charging case for 3 seconds. Now on your mobile device you should see “Philips TAT8505” show up under available Bluetooth devices. Select it and you’ll be paired, it really is that easy.
Once paired each time you simply open the charging case the earbuds will connect to your device, which makes things just so much easier than having to turn on each earbud etc. Placing each earbud in my ears they were pretty comfortable, but they did stick out a bit. As I mentioned earlier these are definitely on the large side when it comes to earbuds. For those wondering if these would be good for working out, they did stay in my ears through most of my workout, but when I went to do sit-ups they fell out. These are not marketed as “action” or “sport” earbuds so I wasn’t expecting much in terms of staying in my ears during a strenuous workout. They are however very comfortable and I had them in my ears for well over an hour without any real discomfort.
One of the really cool features of these earbuds is that they have infrared sensors in them so they know when you take them out of your ears. Each time you remove one it will pause your music. This is really great as many times I will be listening to a podcast then someone would ask me something and I would take my headphones or earbuds out then miss the part that I was listening to. The capacitive button on each earbud works as expected although I did find myself accidently pressing it while adjusting the earbuds. The buttons allow you to play and pause music, skip forward and back, answer and pick up calls, switch between different modes, and activate Siri / Google assistant.
Philips does offer their own “Philips Headphones” app for both iOS and Android. Opening up the app it will let you know what set of earbuds you have connected and the battery levels of each earbud as well as the charging case. Then you can select between the three different modes (active noise cancelling, awareness, and adaptive). There is also a “Sound Effect” panel which acts as an equalizer. You can select one of the predefined modes or use the custom setting to set your own. Overall the app is pretty useful, especially for checking battery levels and switches between modes.
When it comes to sound I am not an audiophile by any means but I’ve tested my fair share of headsets and earbuds. I was pleasantly surprised at how well these earbuds sounded. I’ve been using them for a couple of weeks now and I’ve done everything from listen to music, podcasts, watch YouTube videos, and even played some games. The sound is deep and rich and I have to say this is a set of earbuds that you could easily replace your over-ear headphones for, they really sound that good! I think the great sound has to do with their larger size and 13mm driver. These earbuds support AAC and SBC over Bluetooth, but not aptX
One of the big selling points to these earbuds is of course the active noise cancelling. When you hear about active noise cancelling on earbuds you are pretty skeptical, as I was quite surprised at how well it worked on the T8505’s. I was sitting on my couch with the earbuds on listening to music and I turned my TV on. It was basically like I had the TV muted. Taking my dog out for a walk it was like I was in my own world. The active noise cancelling is the best I’ve experienced in earbuds.
Beyond the main active noise cancelling setting there is also the “awareness” mode that basically lets in outside noise. You can have it set with the Enhance Voice setting that will let higher frequencies in while cancelling out the lower ones. This is great if you want to keep the earbuds in while you are say at a store ordering or somewhere that you want to hear announcements.
Each earbud does have a microphone for making calls or doing voice commands. I made a few calls using the earbuds and everyone said they couldn’t even tell I was using a wireless device. It was only until I switched back that they really noticed. Being wireless the audio quality is not amazing, but is definitely better than most. These will be more than fine for calls.
