Pamu Nano Review Star Trek Insignia Style Low Profile Earbuds

Monday, May 03, 2021

Sporting a super sleek and compact low profile design, the Pamu Nano (model T7) earbuds break the traditional stem and protruding style that most true wireless earbuds have with an earbud that doesn't stick out and has a cool design. Nano has an arrowhead like body shell design reminiscent of the Delta insignia used by the Start Trek Starfleet space force. The front panels are touch sensitive, supporting up to five control functions per earbud, which are activated via single tap, double tap and a long touch (volume).

The touch sensitivity is very responsive, requiring light touches without actually having to tap the earbud, which is great because it allows you to use very thin gloves to operate the earbuds. There is one drawback though. Having highly sensitive touch controls means, you can accidentally skip a track, which can be an inconvenience if it happens in the middle of you listening to an audiobook, causing you to restart the chapter.

The Nano earbuds have a stubby, straight nozzle neck so, the Nano earbuds insert straight into the ear, rather than at an angle. This isn't necessarily good or bad since it depends on the shape of your ear canals, which can be more straight than others.

The Nano earbuds do fit comfortably though, thanks to the low weight (5.5 grams per earbud) and boomerang arrow shape, which allows the earbuds to slot securely within the concha of the ear. Nano has an IPX6 rating; hence you can use them while running in light rain or during a sweaty workout.

Nano doesn't come with wingtips though, so how secure they stay on the ears will depend ultimately on the shape of your ears. If you do vigorous workouts, the Pamu Slide and Slide Mini versions may workout better because of the rubberized shell.

The Pamu Nano charging case is also unique looking with a speaker grille-like bump on top of the lid, which isn't actually concealing a speaker but a set of four leds for the battery indicator. The grille bump is made of rubber mesh with a see-through pattern that lets you see the battery leds. Most true wireless charging cases have the same standard battery led array visibly on the outside so, in this regard, the Nano charging case stand outs, just like the Quiet Mini version, which has an invisible type battery led indicator embedded withing the shell.

The Pamu Nano charging case has a bathtub design with a lid that opens up 90 degrees, revealing four battery leds and the earbuds neatly snug inside the charging dock. The earbuds protrude out of the charging dock, however, taking them out it's not very easy because of the ultra smooth coat finish on them that makes them super slippery to hold and impossible to pinch out of the charging dock like other earbuds. Luckily, you can tilt the earbuds out of the charging case by simply pushing them in from the corner.

In terms of hardware, Nano has similar specs to the Pamu Slide/Mini, featuring 6.1mm dynamic drivers and the same Qualcomm Bluetooth 5.0 chip (QCC3020), which supports aptX, SBC and AAC. Nano delivers balanced sound with slight emphasis on the treble range. Lows and highs are clearly defined and the bass is punchy (not overwhelming).

Touch control functions include play/pause, next track skipping, voice assistant, calls (answer/decline) and volume. Previous track skipping is not supported.You will hear a beep when reaching max volume. The volume function controls the volume level of the earbuds and not the volume source, which some true wireless earbuds do.

Most Pamu earbuds support volume control onboard the earbuds with the exception of the Pamu Quiet version, which doesn't support volume control but supports active noise cancellation, as well as wireless charging. When toggling between control functions, you will hear a beeping tone, which is useful, although the beeping tone may potentially annoy some users and, it cannot be disabled. The Nano charging case weighs 45 grams (without the earbuds) and measures 5.5cm long, 5.5cm wide and 2.5cm high (including the grille bump).

The pairing process of Pamu Nano is straight forward. Take both earbuds out of the charging case and once connected, you can switch between them for mono listening. The switching process is not as seamless though, as other true wireless earbuds.

When you put the right earbud back in the charging case, it disconnects the bluetooth connection for both earbuds and then, the left earbud automatically re-connects (within 5 seconds) without resuming audio so, you have to manually do it. When putting the left earbud in the charging case, this does not happen so, you can continue listening to audio with the right earbud uninterruptedly.

You won't be able to pair the Nano earbuds with separate devices because they do not work independently, although each earbud does have a microphone. Call quality is adequate, although the microphones do pick up a lot of noise in a busy environment. Pamu Nano do not support multipoint pairing. The battery status indicator on both earbuds flash blue every few seconds during audio playback.

The Pamu Nano earbuds integrate 45mAh batteries, which support quick charge, providing 1 hour of playtime from a 10 minute recharge. After 1 hour and 15 minutes, the Nano earbuds fully charge, delivering 6 hours of runtime at 50% volume and a total of 20 hours with the charging case.

The 450mAh charging case can be recharged via USB-C cable connection and Qi wireless charger, taking 2 hours both ways. The Nano charging case supports a maximum of 5W via wireless; hence no fast wireless charging support. If you like the feature of reverse wireless charging, you can get this feature with the Pamu Slide T6W

The included eartips are made of soft silicone and are custom made with an oval bore that fits snugly around the oval nozzle tip. Despite the elliptical shape, standard bowl shape eartips with round bore will also fit. You can buy the Pamu Nano earbuds directly from Padmate and, it will also include a few accessories such as a thin leatherette drawstring pouch and difference size silicone ear tips. Check out the review of the Pamu Z1 earbuds and Pamu Fit earbuds.