Review: Oakley Split Thump MP3 sunglasses

Oakley’s Split Thump sunglasses are another attempt to combine technology with eyewear – in this case, a digital music player.

It’s certainly a stylish offering and comes with a set of earphones that adopt a double-hinged design and clip into the bottom of the glasses when in use.

This offers the advantage of allowing them to look just like a normal pair of shades when you want them to, and the design of the arms is such that they can fit very snugly into your ears with no danger of falling out.

The Oakley logos on the side of the frame double up as audio controls; volume is found on the left arm, and play controls on the right.

Various button presses can enable functions such as the graphics equaliser, shuffle settings and a range of shortcuts that help when browsing large collections.

There’s good format support, too, including MP3, M4A and DRM-encoded WMA files. Music can be copied using drag-and-drop by plugging the device into a computer via the mini-USB connection that’s hidden under the right arm.

We were very impressed by the sound quality of the glasses, and it’s certainly loud enough to be heard when you’re out and about. You can expect up to seven hours’ playback from a full charge, and you’re given both visual (via a tiny LED) and audible warnings when the power’s getting low.

The glasses are available in both 1GB and 2GB capacities. And while they’re not cheap, you should bear in mind that you’re paying for a decent pair of designer sunglasses at the same time.

We’ve never been particularly impressed by these sorts of devices before, due to their often chunky and rather unstylish designs. However, thanks to some very clever design decisions, this is the first pair of shades we’ve tried that we’d genuinely be happy to wear out and about.

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