Description
The Skullcandy Grind, model S2GTW-P740 in True Black, is a mid range true wireless earbud built around software rather than acoustics. Its distinguishing features are hands free voice control through Skullcandy’s Skull-iQ platform, Tile item tracking built into each earbud, and an adjustable ambient mode. It carries a one year US warranty and rates 3.9 out of 5 across 4,639 ratings, which is a middling score across a large sample. The listing is notably thin on audio specification, and thin in ways that are worth spelling out.
The software features, and what they depend on
Skull-iQ Smart Feature Technology is the headline. It provides hands free voice control for audio, calls and Spotify Tap, and it can route to Alexa. The listing states the requirements clearly: it works on smartphones running Android 10 or newer, or iOS 12 or newer, and it requires downloading the Skull-iQ app.
That dependency is the thing to weigh. Voice control delivered through a manufacturer app and, in Alexa’s case, a cloud service, is not the same kind of purchase as a driver or a battery. It can change, it can be deprecated, and the listing gives no commitment about how long the platform will be maintained. Buy this for the hardware and treat the voice features as a bonus that may or may not still be there in three years.
Tile Finding Technology is the more durable feature. Each earbud can be located individually through the Tile app, which addresses the most common way earbuds are lost, one at a time and separately from the case. It also requires an app download and account.
Adjustable Stay-Aware Mode is the third feature and the most practically useful. It lets ambient sound through at a level you choose rather than as a fixed on or off setting. On a sealed earbud that is what makes outdoor use defensible, since it restores some of the awareness a seal removes. It is still not equivalent to an open ear design, and for road cycling specifically an open ear product from our open ear headphones category remains the right tool, but a variable ambient mode is a genuine advantage over products offering none.
Battery: 40 hours total, and no bud runtime anywhere
The battery bullet states 40 hours of total battery life. The specification field agrees, recording Battery Life as 40 Hours. Both figures describe the same thing, and that thing is the combined total across the earbuds and the charging case.
The runtime of the earbuds themselves on a single charge is not published anywhere on this listing. That is the number that governs whether you can get through a flight, a working day or a long run without returning them to the case, and it is the one figure a buyer most needs. A 40 hour total on a product of this type typically implies somewhere between 6 and 9 hours from the buds, but we are not going to guess, because guessing is exactly the habit this catalog rewards and it is wrong. Ask Skullcandy for the bud runtime on model S2GTW-P740 before buying if long sessions matter.
The Charging Time field reads 40 Hours, which is the battery figure duplicated into a field where it makes no sense. No actual charging time is published, and no fast charge claim is made. The listing does note that battery level is announced each time you remove the earbuds from the case, which is a small but useful touch.
Water resistance: a phrase, not a rating
The description promises a water and sweat resistant build. The specification field reads Water Resistant. No IP code appears anywhere on this listing, in the title, the description, the bullets or the specification block.
A phrase without a code is not a rating. IPX4 covers splashes and sweat, IPX5 covers low pressure jets, IPX7 covers immersion, and the difference between them is the whole question. Skullcandy publishes an IP55 code on its Push Active and cites IP55 in the bullets of its Sesh ANC XT, so the company clearly knows how to state one. Its absence here means we will not describe this product as sweat resistant, splash resistant or water resistant to any stated degree. If you intend to train in these, get the code from Skullcandy first.
The audio specification, which is essentially absent
This is where the listing falls short of its price. There is no Bluetooth version field at all. There is no driver size, no driver type, no impedance, no sensitivity and no frequency range. Stated range is 10 meters, which is a line of sight figure and the only connection specification published.
No Bluetooth codec is named. SBC is the universal baseline and the only thing that can be assumed, so no high resolution or lossless description can be supported for this product. Multipoint is not claimed. Wear detection is not claimed. The Noise Control field reads Sound Isolation, meaning passive blocking from a sealed ear tip and no active cancellation, which is consistent with the product’s position below the Sesh ANC in Skullcandy’s range.
The listing mentions Personal Sound as a feature without explaining what it does, which on other products in this category typically means a hearing profile test in the app that shapes the equalizer to your ears. No ear tip sizes are stated anywhere; the Included Components field lists only earbuds, a charging case, a cable and a user manual. On a sealed design the tip produces the bass by sealing the canal, so the tip count is a real specification and its absence is a gap.
The junk fields
Several values here are simply wrong. The Headphones Jack field reads 35 month Klinke, which is a garbled German phrase for a 3.5mm jack that this product does not have. Item weight appears as 0.14 grams and as 0.005 ounces, figures that describe roughly the weight of a grain of rice rather than an earbud. Product Dimensions of 7.28 by 3.54 by 1.38 inches describe a shipping box. Control Type reads Alexa, Control Method reads Voice and Controller Type reads Voice, none of which mention the touch controls the product certainly has. The Compatible Devices field lists music production equipment, car audio systems and smart speakers, which is keyword text. Country of origin is Vietnam.
What to compare it against
Inside Skullcandy’s range, the Rail and the cheaper Dime cover adjacent positions, and the Sesh ANC XT adds active cancellation if that is what you are after. Outside the brand, the JLab JBuds Air Sport offers a comparable ambient mode with a published IP66 code and a two year warranty, which is a direct answer to this product’s two biggest gaps. More options sit in our earbud headphones section.
Who should buy it, who should not
Buy it if hands free voice control is genuinely useful to you, if Tile tracking on each individual earbud is worth something, and if an adjustable ambient mode suits how you listen. Those three features together are not common at this level, and the one year US warranty is a real support commitment behind a named brand.
Do not buy it if you need to know how long the earbuds run away from the case, because that figure is not published anywhere. Do not assume it is sweat rated, since no IP code appears on this listing at all. Do not expect active noise cancellation, multipoint or a named codec. And treat the Skull-iQ voice features as software that depends on an app and, for Alexa, a cloud service, rather than as a permanent property of the hardware.
