Product Review: Skullcandy Aviators Headphones

What Is it: Skullcandy’s Aviator headphones.

Price and Where to Buy: Starts at $149.95 on Skullcandy’s website and Amazon.

Pros: The Aviator headphones are very stylish and come in a number of sleek color options. The sound is pretty decent—noticeably better than cheaper pairs of headphones that we’ve tried. The volume can also get extremely loud.

The headphones have nice features like leather touch memory foam on the earpieces and headband part.

The Aviator has a detachable cable for easy, tangle-free storage, and a nice compact bag for travel. The cord has buttons to let you pause your music, control the volume, and change songs. You can also hook the headphones to your phone and use the cord’s mic to chat.

Cons: These are not noise-cancelling earphones, but they should be for how high the price point is.

The earphones are oddly shaped—like a triangle—and didn’t really fit exactly on or over our ears. The weird shape was uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time.

How it Rates:

• Usefulness: 4/10. We wouldn’t pick these for travel, since they aren’t noise cancelling, and were uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time.
• Portability: 7/10. The carrying case is small and convenient, but it can be a bit of a struggle to get the Aviators in and out of the case as it is a pretty tight fit. The headphones do fold down well and don’t take up that much space.
• Value: 5/10. For headphones that aren’t noise cancelling, these are pretty pricey.
• Durability: 10/10. The detachable cable will help keep the cord from fraying or getting broken, and the earphones are made out of nice materials like leather and memory foam.
• Cool Factor: 10/10. These are really nice looking headphones, and we got lots of compliments on them. You can also spend about $30 extra and get different designs or personal color combinations.

Final Verdict: If you care more about style than substance, you might want to splurge on these. If you’re looking for an investment headphone to take on all your travels, than you can get better bang for your buck elsewhere.

Editor’s Note: Reviews are based on usefulness, portability, durability, value, and “cool factor.” Some review products are sent to us free of charge and with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions, positive and negative, and will never accept compensation to review a product. If you have any questions or comments concerning our reviews, or would like to suggest a product for review, please email us at editor@smartertravel.com.

(Photo Credit: Skullcandy)