OneOdio Focus A5: One-minute review
If you're considering picking up the OneOdio Focus A5, it's probably for its fantastic battery life – it'll last for 75 hours of music if you let it, which is an excellent figure. That's over three days straight, and well over double the figure of most rivals.
The world of the best cheap headphones is a competitive one, but this will have certain users' eyes perking up. If you go on long-haul flights across the world, embark on journeys in the wilderness for days at a time, or religiously forget to charge your gadgets, that figure could prove game-changing.
And you're getting the Focus A5 for cheap at $69.99 / £59.99 (roughly AU$100)! Sounds like a must-buy, right?
Well, that'll depend on what you actually want to listen to for 75 hours, and if you're an audiophile – or anyone who values well-balanced audio – then the Focus A5 might not actually be what you're looking for.
The audio balance on these cans is more wonky than a famous Italian tower, offering an overwhelming amount of bass that drowns out important parts of a song. It's not even well-tuned bass, so people who just want 75 hours of ear-shaking tunes won't like it either.
Then there's the feature set – or lack thereof. The OneOdio's Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is so light-touch that you can forget that it's turned on (and I'd recommend ignoring it, since turning on ANC cuts 30 hours off the battery life). There's no app either, and therefore no equalizer, so you can't try and fix the muddy sound quality.
You can't expect fantastic-sounding audio, an advanced feature set and a low price in the same set of headphones (even though some options do come close), but most of OneOdio's rivals tick at least two of those boxes. With the Focus A5 only hitting the last point, it's hard to recommend them beyond their long-lasting battery. The Earfun Wave Pro cost essentially the same price and have an even longer battery life, and work better in every way – those are ideal affordable option among the best noise cancelling headphones.
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Price and release date
- Sells for $69.99 / £59.99 (roughly AU$100)
- Cheaper alternative to Focus A10
You can pick up the OneOdio Focus A5 for $69.99 / £59.99 (roughly AU$100, but unlike other OneOdio headphones, I can’t find it on sale in Australia at the time of writing).
That price makes the Focus A5 one of the more affordable headphones you might be considering if you’re looking to save money, but the cheap headphone market is a very competitive one.
Our best-in class option costs only a little more: the Earfun Wave Pro sells for $79.99 / £79.99 (roughly AU$120) and we also highly rate the $60 / £60 / AU$99 Sony WH-CH520.
OneOdio itself has plenty of other options, if you’re keen to stick with the brand: there’s also a slightly-more-expensive A10 as well as several other families of studio, monitor and hybrid headphones.
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Specs
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Features
- No phone app
- Light-touch ANC
- 75 hours of battery life
The OneOdio Focus A5 doesn’t have a smartphone app to use, which makes writing this section easier, but using the headphones (or balancing its audio) a little bit harder. That means there's no equalizer, a big loss (as we'll get to).
You'll use the ‘ANC’ button on the right earcup to toggle between the three Active Noise Cancellation modes: on, off and ambient sound. The ANC on the A5 is very light touch, and I often didn’t know whether I had it turned on or not – it felt like the natural cushioning of the pads removed as much sound as the ANC.
From a poor feature, to a really handy one – the OneOdio Focus A5 has a battery life of 75 hours. You read that right – you could listen for over three days straight if you wanted to. That figure is for ANC turned off, and it reduces to about 45 hours with ANC turned on – given what I’ve said about how effective the noise cancellation is, you may want to opt for the longer lasting power.
The ability to listen to music for several days straight without having to juice it back up it is a win for the A5, as it means that people who are going on long trips or can’t reliably get to a power source could still enjoy using it.
- Features score: 3/5
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Sound quality
- Too much bass
- Too little anything else
- High max volume
When I first started listening to the OneOdio Focus A5, I said to myself “wow, bass fans are going to love these headphones” but as the testing process went on, I had to amend that thought: “or they might hate them”.
Bass is certainly the emphasis of the Focus A5’s audio balance. The mix isn’t so much ‘warm’ as it is ‘blistering to the touch’, for how loud bass is compared to other parts of the sound profile. My first impression, to assume bass fans would love this, was proven wrong the more I listened.
The bass blows out other aspects of the sound mix. Vocals fade into the background like the roadies forgot to plug the mic in, guitars sometimes get a cut in but more often than not (especially with higher-pitched notes and hooks) fall to the same fate as the singing. Some other mid-frequency aspects of songs, like keyboards and rhythm guitars, have as much chance of being heard as you do of finding your phone if you drop it off a boat.
Fans of bassy headphones may simply accuse me of saying that simply to dig out my dusty creative writing degree, but there are more reasons to malign the bass tilt: even that aspect of the audio has a problem.
The bass is quite muddy, so it’s less ‘thumping’ and more ‘patting gently’ – it lacks energy or urgency, loudly saying nothing at all. According to Amazon, the Focus A5 has a custom-made 40mm dynamic driver (this information was conspicuously absent from OneOdio’s own site), and judging by other reviews of OneOdio products, this sound profile is a recurring feature in its headphones.
I can’t completely rule out the Focus A5’s audio chops – some people may really like this kind of hiccupping bass. I don’t think I’ve ever met these people, and I’ve no evidence to suggest they actually exist, but I can’t rule it out.
OneOdio has added support for LDAC codec and Hi-Res Audio certification to the headphones, but I’m not sure that the cans need more detailed bass – they need less of it.
I want to say a nice thing now: the OneOdio Focus A5 goes really, really loud. I could hear music perfectly well at max volume when the headphones were around my neck – no-one can complain about them being too quiet!
- Sound quality: 2/5
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Design
- Svelte look
- Single color option: black
- Feels a little fragile
OneOdio hasn't re-invented the wheel with the Focus A5 but I liked how svelte they look between the metal pivot, textured cups and gold-silver color scheme.
Don't get me wrong, these are incredibly similar to the vast majority of cheap headphones, but with a few augments here and there. They come in a single color option: black.
The right cup has all of the Focus A5's controls: there's the ANC button which you press to toggle between the three modes, a power button and a volume rocker. Nice and simple. The USB-C port for charging is on this side too.
The headphones weigh 265g which is a little less than some rivals I've tested, however they felt quite fragile. The cups rattle and rotate a little bit when you're not wearing the A5, there's no included carry case and if the cans have an IP rating, I can't find any mention of it in OneOdio's fact sheets. I was quite careful with the headphones during testing as a result, although they were never damaged in a way that would justify my caution; it's likely that they feel flimsy, but are perfectly robust. Still, I'd have liked to have felt more confidence in that.
- Design score: 3.5/5
OneOdio Focus A5 review: value
I'm all for 'cheap and cheery' headphones, and the OneOdio Focus A5 are ostensibly that: you don't have to pay much and you're getting one great feature along with a few less-great aspects.
However its iffy audio and troubled feature-set might lose the A5 some of those 'cheery points' – especially when similar-price rivals simply don't have the same issues.
These aren't inherently bad value at this price, but there's much better value out there.
- Value: 2.5/5
Should I buy the OneOdio Focus A5?
Buy them if…
You don't like charging
The 75-hour battery life will be a blessing to certain kinds of users who can't reliably access a charging point.
You're on a budget
Don't want to spend loads on top-price or even mid-range headphones? These will fit into your budget.
Don’t buy them if…
You don't like bassy audio
The audio is heavily skewed towards bassy sounds, so if you don't like this kind of sound, you're really not going to like the A5.
You're listening somewhere loud
The Focus A5's tender noise cancellation means you won't be able to hear music if you often listen in loud environments.
OneOdio Focus A5 review: Also consider
Earfun Wave Pro
Here at TechRadar we're big fans of the Earfun Wave Pro, and they beat the OneOdio in most areas while only costing a tiny amount more, so read our full Earfun Wave Pro review.
JBL Tune 670NC
We didn't rate the JBL Tune 670NC in the audio department, but elsewhere it has a great feature set and a decent battery life too. Here our full JBL Tune 670NC review.
How I tested the OneOdio Focus A5
- Tested for three weeks
- Tested at home, in the office, on public transport and on walks
I used the OneOdio Focus A5 for three weeks before writing this review, and that involved listening to music, watching streamed TV or playing games basically daily.
For the entire testing period I used the Focus A5 alongside my Android smartphone, via Bluetooth. Streaming was done via Spotify, Netflix and a range of games and I listened mainly at home or on my city's various public transport options, with some listening time also conducted in an office or on walks.
I've been testing gadgets at TechRadar for just shy of six years now, including many pairs of cheap headphones and other OneOdio offerings.
- First reviewed in December 2024