I’ve been fascinated with Urbanears headphones for a long time – I think the solidcolor, modern design is sleek and attractive, and when I found out that they’re not just headphones but headsets that you can use to listen to the music on your smartphone but also take calls using a built-in microphone, I was even more thrilled.

It doesn’t hurt that Urbanears come in an array of gorgeous colors (even though they’re mostly kind of pastel colors and I’m more of a jewel-tone kind of guy) and they come in multiple flavors to suit the type of listening you’re going for. The Plattan, for example, is your standard, classic over the head headphones. They even fold down for portability, and they have an additional output jack on one of the ears so if you have a friend who wants to hear what you’re hearing, you can let them plug in and enjoy the music too.

The Tanto is a smaller, more lightweight over-ear headphone, and looks like those old 80s headphones that came with everyone’s walkman at the time without being quite so flimsy and sounding so awful. The Medis, on the other hand, combines an in-ear earbud with an over-ear hook to give you the benefits of a full pair of headphones with the convenience of earbuds that don’t have a band over your head and are super-portable.

Best of all, they’re not horribly expensive. The Plattan will run you about $60 USD, the Tanto about $40, and the Medis, unfortunately, isn’t available just yet.

[ Urbanears ]