Padmate, a recent brand under the ownership of the Harda Group, has a background as an ODM and OEM manufacturer of headsets for well-known brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei and Nokia. After 20 years of experience, he thought of launching himself on the market as an independent brand and among their first creations we mention the infamous PaMu Scroll ( review ) which were very successful.
Padmate continues to offer new ideas in the field of bluetooth headsets and among its latest creations here appears PaMu Slide Mini and PaMu Unique, true wireless in-ear headphones that focus everything on aesthetics and sound quality, without wanting to disappoint the user on the level of autonomy.
Unlike what happened in the past, the Chinese company did not want to resort to the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, preferring to rely on the resources already in its possession and on the khow-how acquired over years of experience.
Colors, prices, packaging
Both earphones are available at the official Padmate store in various colors.
The PaMu Slide Mini are currently sold in white or black for 55 Dollars, to which an additional 8 Dollars must be added for shipping, thus reaching a total of 63 Dollars .
Alternatively you can opt for two variants with the name PaMu Slide Mini Limited Edition and their only difference compared to the standard versions is in the available colors: pink or green. Here the price rises by a few units, reaching a total of 67 Dollars.
For the Unique PaMu we can choose between 2 different sets of graphic customizations both at a cost of 99.00 Dollars, free shipping .
Inside the packs we find, in addition to the case and the headphones, a comfortable and elegant black carrying case, a USB A – Type-C cable for charging and 10 different rubbers, as well as various manuals.
Design and customization
Do you remember the original PaMu Slide? These new Slide Mini are a resized version of the previous edition now with a decidedly more contained box but certainly have lost their being “slide”, a condition given by the sliding opening mechanism now abandoned to make room for a more common cover at the top from having to lift.
The charging case is made of plastic, as well as the earphones which, however, also have some silicone inserts in correspondence with the upper part of the stem in order to favor adherence inside the ears. The IPX6 certification is also present.
Even the PaMu Unique have a plastic structure and the headphones are identical in materials and design and hardware to the Slide Mini . However, there is an interesting peculiarity of the Unique, which can already be guessed by their name: they can be customized . But in what way? By purchasing one of the bundles mentioned above, you will have 3 different interchangeable synthetic leather covers with different patterns in your hands to be able to insure the Case delle Unique. There are in fact 6 magnetic dowels that act as guides for positioning the chosen cover. Unfortunately there is no possibility to order arbitrary graphics from the store but this idea of being able to customize them by choosing solutions from those proposed we find it very original and appreciable, since we will feel “more ours” the product in question and we can change the cover at will and at all times.
Audio quality, wearability, performance
Padmate in its marketing activities pushes these products a lot not only by highlighting their aesthetic uniqueness but also by praising their sonic goodness.
The bass is well present, the medium and high frequencies well calibrated, do not distort at high volume and there is support for Qualcomm AptX codec . The spatiality is good and you can clearly distinguish the various instruments and the various voices from each other. However, we note the lack of that little bit of sharpness that would make everything more enjoyable and truly satisfying sound experience.
They are equally able to compete well with higher-priced products such as Apple AirPods 2 or Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro , certainly more expensive solutions to bear compared to the current costs of these PaMu whose excellent competitiveness, however, diminishes if we go to observe thelist price which for PaMu Slide Mini amounts to 149.00 Dollars while that of PaMu Unique to 219.00 Dollars , figures not included.
This can lead us to think more deeply about a possible purchase, this because of some imperfections that not only afflict these two models but also the previous PaMu Slide, highlighting how Padmate has not managed to adjust the pull over the last year where it would have been appropriate to review one’s work, proposing the same concept of headset for design and engineering.
An example of this is the wearability, discreet on the whole but a possible good result is, once again, partially frustrated by the generous size of the buds, with this bulky swelling in the upper part and a weight of 7.1 grams per cap.
Shaking your head there is a good chance that the buds will come off and fall to the ground. You must take particular care in identifying the correct rubbers and securely securing the earbuds to your ears but certainly we would have preferred to see the introduction of a small rubber headband as a safety on both headphones.
Also the speed of connection to other devices is not a strong point of these PaMu. Often we were forced to manually select the earphones from the bluetooth connection list of the phone or computer in order to avoid excessive waiting; a negligible slowness on devices equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 but accentuated with previous versions.
Not representing in any way a weakness instead the stereo calls which are well reproduced in the headphones and the interlocutor is able to understand effortlessly the spoken words, even in the presence of light wind the clarity does not fail, the work of the cancellation technology noise for both buds given by the presence of special microphones with a truly satisfactory final result.
In all cases, the sound insulation is high, the work of the effective work done by the grommets, but to clearly hear external noises and sounds, it is necessary to remove them from the ears. The latency of the sound during video playback is minimal, you almost won’t notice those few milliseconds of delay.
Functionality
The headphones have a touch surface at the top of the stem and you have to pay attention to involuntary touches since even if you grab them at the sides to better arrange them there is the risk of calling unwanted actions.
With a single tap we put on play / pause, a double tap on the right headphone and go to the next track while tapping twice on the left we call the voice assistant Siri rather than Google Assistant. Excellent with a long touch to be able to increase / decrease the volume and of course the single tap also allows you to accept a call and the double touch to reject it.
The dominant headphones are the left and therefore, wearing them both, if we had to put only the left headphones in the case, the music will pause and there will be a re-connection. In addition, we will have to take a manual action to restart the music playback and this is a shame because it slows down the use, for the proposed price we expected a different behavior since even some 30-40 Euro products are able to offer excellent management single earphone without ever causing sound interruptions.
We also report difficulties in using only the right headset with Apple devices: the systems do not always seem to detect it correctly and this forces you to rely on the left headset.
Battery
The maximum playing time at medium volume is about 10 hours but both Pamu Slide and Unique can be brought up to 30 thanks to the charging case capable of providing two full charges to the buds, a good and average result.
They have a capacity of 85 mAh for single headphones while the case is equipped with 400 mAh and can be recharged in about 2 hours via Type-C cable. The earphones take 1 hour and a half instead.
Excellent then the presence of wireless charging for the PaMu Slide Mini as well as for the PaMu Unique , but for the latter, make sure that the appropriate base is included in the bundle!
In conclusion
PaMu Slide Mini and PaMu Unique are two good pairs of true wireless headphones, with the Unique that surely know how to amaze for aesthetics and creativity thanks to Padmate who has managed to find a way to make them even more unique than their curious design can already do.
The Slide Mini go to solve the main problem of the previous ones: the size. The sound quality is very good and the user experience is certainly pleasant. Too bad that the buds have not been better optimized to try to reduce their size and increase their comfort.
We advise you to buy it, but we invite you to pay attention to the proposed figures. The list prices are certainly inconvenient and we would not be able to advise you, but the question, at least for the moment, does not arise and indeed manage to carve out their small space within a highly competitive market.
In all cases, we invite you to take a look at valid alternatives so as to become even more aware in view of a possible purchase.
Source: https://www.vogueguys.com/2020/04/pamu-slide-mini-and-pamu-unique-true-wireless-earphones-with-style-and-good-sound_post-364/