Philips HN050 Noise Canceling Lightweight Headphones with Neckband

I bought these off ebay on a whim (they were dirt cheap there), but after I got them, I realized why they were so cheap.

Pros:

* Decent noise cancellation - the background noise is noticably reduced, and the music seems noticably louder
* Reasonable batter life - I've had a AAA cell in there for more than 10 hours, and the battery is still doing fine.

Cons:

* Very noticable "white noise" - a hissing sound when noise cancellation is turned on. This is not noticable when playing music, but quite noticable when in pure noise-cancelling mode.
* Bad design - not foldable for storage
* Bad design for use on airplanes, since the band goes behind the head (around the neck) - makes the headsets ununable if you've got a pillow under your neck, or are planning to use them lying down anywhere
* The headsets don't work without the battery - even if noise cancellation is switched off
* The on-off switch is quite hard...Read more

There isn't any way to adjust the neckband for better comfort. They will definitely slide off your ear if you put the back of your head against anything. There also isn't a means of adjusting the earpieces to fit them better to your ears. I am not real happy with the amount of buzzing/white noise in the background when I have them on. The noise gets even louder when you turn on the noise cancelling feature. The cord is also very short (3'9") which has caused problems for me when I use them. It would also be better if the noise cancelling unit was higher up on the cord. Its about exactly half way between the earphones and the jack. There is a clip on it but I can't seem to find much use for it. It does reduce noise a little but I don't think it does that good of a job for the price. I'd definitely suggest getting a better fitting pair of earphones.

The sound quality is pretty good -- about the same a earbuds that cost half as much.

The headband comfort is not bad, but takes a little getting use to.

The ear phones move off of your ear if rest your head on the back of a chair (or airplane seat).

If you are looking for noise cancelation you will be very disappointed. There is some but not much.