Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC Review
A successful kitchen sink solution to work-from-home audio woes
Verdict
The Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC are a call-centric set of earbuds that offer a host of connectivity options, decent sound quality, good mic performance and that are comfortable enough to wear all day. But for waterproofing and a wider soundstage, they’d have it all.
Pros
- Comfortable design
- Connects easily to everything
- Good mic quality
Cons
- Somewhat sluggish screen
- Small soundstage
- Only splashproof
Key Features
- Zoom and Microsoft Teams compatibilityCertified to work with Zoom and Teams meetings
- Noise-cancellingHybrid ANC that automatically adjusts the performance
Introduction
There are certain categories of product that, no matter the quality of the finished effort, just don’t lend themselves well to flashiness – and earbuds are a prime exception. Typically, they perform the role of sounding good, but not necessarily of looking good.
The Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC set out to achieve the latter, though not in the way you might expect. Though the earbuds themselves have an interesting shape and slant, it is in the case where the magic lies, being shaped like a large pebble and hosting what seems to be a smartwatch display.
That of course isn’t the limit of its interest to the average consumer, these are a premium set of buds with some high-end ambitions. For the casual user they promise powerful sound cancellation, for the work-from-home employee they have a strong focus on call quality, and for the regular traveller they pack in a host of connectivity options, including a USB-A dongle.
By hoping to offer so much to so many, there is of course always the danger of being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none – does the Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC therefore do enough to beat the competition and earn a place in your life?
Design
- Plastic case
- Comfortable fit
- Screen included
Usually, a pair of true wireless buds would be defined by three roughly defined design factors: comfort when worn, how useful the ‘style’ proves to be (i.e. stalk, spot) and the size of the case. If an earbud case can’t fit in an average pocket, then serious questions have to be asked about portability, among other things.
It’s clear that size might have been a consideration for the designers of the Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC, but at some point someone just said “screw it”. What all of this is to say is, these buds don’t have a small case, indeed it’s rather the opposite.
With a full smartwatch display embedded in the lid of the case, it is thick, and with room to host a USB-A dongle as well as the buds inside, it is deep. This isn’t a case that will fit easily in some jean pockets, but then given the intended use case it is debatable as to whether that can be defined as a weakness. Those who work from home won’t be troubled, and for those who travel the buds will likely sit in a jacket pocket, a backpack or a laptop bag.
The display itself is of middling usefulness. It allows for the display of more information than the usual LED lights can offer, such as battery levels, connectivity options and more. The levels of ANC and other important settings can be controlled directly from the case, which is a definite improvement from the usually janky on-bud gesture controls offered. It doesn’t have the highest contrast, responsiveness or visibility and is slow, but it is a definite improvement over no display at all, and almost unique on the market.
It is inescapable that the case is too big however. Come the point you need to stuff these into a shirt pocket or equivalent size, you may struggle.
As for the buds themselves, they have an interesting angle to them, which seems to be with the intent of bringing the stalks closer to the mouth in order to improve voice pick up. They aren’t adorned with any fancy flashes of colour or attempts to draw attention, being a very workplace-appropriate sober black. A pleasant inclusion is on-stalk physical buttons that allow for on-bud simple controls, and are incredibly intuitive and responsive when compared to the standard gesture controls offered. They aren’t waterproof, only splashproof.
Lastly, the buds are comfortable to have in-ear. Across an 8-hour workday, with 3 hours of calls and music-listening in between they didn’t cause me any issues with irritation, a big plus. The quoted battery life of 5.5 hours of listening proved to be mostly accurate with use. If you take a lot of calls, you’ll need to recharge most days, but this is to be expected.
Features
- Free app
- No adjustable EQ
- Wireless charging included
As I’ve hinted, the Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC isn’t lacking in features, with the question being more what isn’t included.
To begin, the case by default comes a USB-A Bluetooth dongle. For anyone who does regular business calls, this is a hugely useful inclusion. For reasons known only to the gods of connectivity, Windows laptops have a relatively patchy relationship with Bluetooth audio, sometimes working and sometimes not.
The dongle eliminates the middle man, allowing a strong and quick connection even on machines that haven’t previously been used. The same is still true though slightly less so for the USB-C to 3.5mm cord, which allows the buds to be used on the likes of an aeroplane for in-flight audio.
Between the buttons on the stalk, the included display and the host of ways to connect, these are earbuds with practicality at their core.
Moving on to software, noise cancellation is offered and proved to be quite effective in most situations. Though it wasn’t enough to drown out a bus engine, it was enough to eliminate the background hustle and bustle of the home or the office, and so therefore achieves what it sets out to do.
There’s an app too, somewhat confusingly titled ‘Poly Lens’, that allows for updates to be made, the manual to be accessed and the same options to edit settings and the rest that are available via the on-case display.
I was disappointed by one omission – the lack of preset-EQs, or any ability to edit EQ. It would have been nice to be able to switch from a vocal EQ for calls, then back to one that is maybe a little more bass-heavy for music. It seems like a somewhat confusing decision.
Lastly, a nice if not essential inclusion is wireless charging, which allows for further versatility should the need arise.
Sound Quality
- AptX, SBC and AAC codecs supported
- Good sound quality
- Surprisingly good bass
Of course, all of the bells and whistles in the world are worth nothing if the buds don’t achieve the important task of sounding good. Happily, for the most part they do, with the proviso that their main use case is not for listening to music while exercising, due to the lack of thorough waterproofing.
Starting with voice and mic quality, the picture as a whole is a good one. Listeners reported that I came in loud and clear over the phone and on Teams calls, and the generally voice-skewed default EQ meant hearing others wasn’t an issue either.
When it came to the task of listening to music, some genres did well, others didn’t. Detail and clarity on the Voyager Free 60+ UC aren’t the best for certain kinds of music, with not much of a soundstage presented. This meant that the likes of simpler pop tracks did well, but more complex orchestral pieces sounded a little muddy, with it becoming difficult to separate different elements and place instruments.
The picture flips, strangely, with the likes of EDM, dance and punk. Though the Voyager Free 60+ UC doesn’t have the warmest bass, what is produced is energetic. If you like to listen to raves in between Teams calls, you’ll be well-set.
Other than more bass-heavy tracks, the focus on voice quality make these good buds in particular for podcasts and audiobooks, not that these are especially challenging genres.
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Should you buy it?
If you have a call-heavy workflow: If you take a lot of calls in your day-to-day, these buds will serve well.
If you want buds to exercise with: The Poly Voyager Free 60+ are not waterproof, only splash-resistant.
Final Thoughts
The Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC as a device is a lot to take in, a mad-grab bag of business friendly features given a display and more connectivity options than I know what to do with.
But despite its apparent lack of focus, these buds are comfortable to wear, offer good voice quality for calls, decent overall sound quality and boast a level of polish not seen among a lot of the competition. There are better consumer-centric buds on offer like the Sony WF-1000XM4, and for less, but in the hybrid work-from-home space there are few better high-end options than these.
How we test
We test every set of headphones we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real world use
Tested for more than a week
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FAQs
You are able to connect to two devices at once with the Voyager Free 60+ UC earbuds.
Full specs
Sustainability
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As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment.
We currently haven’t received answers to the questions on this product, but will update this page the moment we do. You can see a detailed breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability info page.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
