What do you get when you take an audio device, give it touch controls, make it as small as humanly possible and stick some fitness tracking functions on it? The Samsung Gear IconX .

Samsung announced the Gear IconX wireless earbuds as a truly wireless solution to listening to music, but also as a way to track fitness without having to keep your phone with you at all times.

All these years of wearing wireless earphones on my jogs, I've waited for something like the Samsung Gear IconX, which landed in Singapore in June .

You might need a leap of faith to insert Samsung's Gear IconX wireless earbuds inside your ear canals. Indeed, as Note7 owners showed us over the last few months, electronics packed with lithium-ion batteries can do double-duty as incendiary devices.

The Gear IconX from Samsung is certainly a unique and attractive product and provides a glimpse into what's to come. Cord-free wireless earbuds seem to be a natural progression for Bluetooth audio, and it's about time we saw some big strides being made in this segment.

Comfortable design; Heart rate sensors built-in; Works as a standalone player; Intuitive controls

Abysmal battery life; Audio quality could be better; Expensive

In 2014, several companies started to develop wireless headphones with built-in memory and the ability to measure heart rate, intended for sports and fitness. The first company with headphones, which measure the pulse, once was the Motorola, but the popularity of this product is not earned, but gave...

Samsung's Gear IconX shows the maturity of a second-generation product from a company with a strong reputation for innovation in mobile devices. Samsung's choice to add fitness features and integrated memory for standalone playback wouldn't necessarily convince you to buy an inferior product.

The first generation Gear IconX had won me over, and now it seems that this second generation is following the same trend. Samsung has apparently corrected the main problem of its Bluetooth earphones by increasing the battery life while adding some new fitness and musical features, which will be...

The first Gear IconX weren't very good wireless earbuds. While it was a good first attempt on Samsung's part at a pair of wireless earbuds, the original IconX had limited battery life, not to mention other niggling issues like iffy wireless performance.

With the asking price varying between about $200 and $250 depending on your place of purchase, Samsung's Gear IconX 2018 really aren't super expensive for what they offer. Pretty good audio quality in a tiny, comfortable package that you can wear quite easily for hours on end.