Sudio is a Swedish design house and they've sent over their latest hi fidelity Bluetooth audio set for smartphones, the VASA BLÅ, for review. Which was kind of them and I was very impressed by the quality of the audio in my ears - just not so much with the ergonomics of the design, as you'll see. The set here was tested with a Lumia 950 running production Windows 10 Mobile.

There's no doubting the fit and finish of the Sudio set, from box to leather carrying case to materials used:

Ten out of ten for presentation then. The earbuds supplied on the VASA BLÅ were slightly too small for my ears and kept slipping out, but five sizes were supplied in all and the next size up fitted perfectly.

The chromed finish on the earbuds wasn't really to my taste, but they were well made and solid - I liked that the main cabling was flat and thus very unlikely to ever get tangled:

Not that tangling is much of an issue when the whole headset is only 40cm long. You see, the VASA BLÅ are designed to hang around the back of the head, keeping the front of your body cable free. It's a nice idea and fits well in terms of on-the-go listening.

The battery is in a pod near one ear-bud, the media controls in a pod near the other, as shown below. Which, in itself, does create something of an issue when a call comes in:

You see, you then have to rummage backwards with one of your hands, locating the pod sight-unseen and finding the embossed buttons - which takes time. Around four or five seconds, even with practice. That's a long time when the phone is ringing. Add in that you're also reliant on the microphone picking up your voice more than ambient noise to your side - and that's not a given, depending on where you are.

You can tell that I'm not sold on this form factor, can't you? I also had an issue with the little rubber port cover over the microUSB socket on the battery pod - this kept popping up and looking unsightly. And this was only in its first week, I do wonder what it might look like after a year of use:

Having said all the above, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to music on the VASA BLÅ - the frequency response was good and there was plenty of bass and high frequencies, which typically get lost with cheap headsets. Although I don't believe the aptX codec is supported, standard Bluetooth bitrates seemed enough to provide good enough audio and there were no obvious 'tempo' artefacts or distortions.

These Sudio Earphones sell for £69, mind you, so you're definitely paying a premium for the fashion and form factor elements.

PS. If you do fancy a try with them, it's worth noting that the promo code "aawp15" will provide a 15% discount on anything on the Sudio online store.