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You will struggle to turn on the Avanca D1 headphones the first time you try. I can guarantee this. You’ll probably spend a good few minutes trying. You might even start drafting a furious email to the retailer, demanding a refund. Why? Because the on/off button is bizarrely small and hard to locate with the headphones in your ears.

I’m starting the review with this in an attempt to highlight just how ridiculously small this button is. It’s absurd. It’s also found right on one point of the triangular headphones. The point that tucks into the back of ear. The least accessible of the three points available. As if a decoy have been included the design, there is a huge skip forward/back button right next to it. This is the button you’ll spend too much time holding down wondering why the headphones aren’t turning on.

When – or indeed if – you do master the knack of hitting the on/off button, you’ll find that the Avanca D1 are a more than decent budget set of bluetooth headphones. At £39 they obviously don’t match the sound quality or features of high-end headphones, but they do what they need to.

The headset consists of two triangular pods with in-ear buds attached, connected by a thick, slightly flexible cable. You might assume you can bend this cable into the perfect shape for your head. You cannot. While you can bend the middle part a bit to shorten the cable, I found it sprang back into shape when manipulated in any other way. This means you can’t bend it around the ears to ensure a more secure fit, but as it already hooks around the ear, I had no problems with the Avanca D1 headset falling off anyway.

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You can push the earbuds into your ear canal (there are three sizes of buds included), or let them rest just inside the ear – the latter is a useful option when exercising outdoors because it means external sounds aren’t completely blocked out.

The headphones were quick to link to my phone – after I had managed to turn them on, that is – and I didn’t lose the connection during runs with my phone in a waistpack, or in my pocket when at the gym.

Frankly, you shouldn’t be buying a set of £39 bluetooth headphones if sound quality is a huge concern for you, but even for a budget option the Avanca are slightly disappointing. The bass is too aggressive, and the overall sound is tinny. They do the job for workouts and runs, and if you favour podcasts or the radio as your exercise soundtrack it won’t matter so much to you, but the sound quality is not just something audiophiles will find lacking – it’s a real let-down.

Let’s come back to the buttons, this time not to complain but to praise the Avanca D1 for having dedicated skip buttons on one headphone and volume controls on the other. This makes it easy to control music on the go.

Could one of these four chunky buttons serve a dual purpose as a non-farcical on/off button? It’s not for me to say, but I’ll say it anyway. Yes. A million times yes.

If you’re looking for a cheap set of exercise-friendly headphones the Avanca D1 will fulfil the role well, even if they lack in sound quality. They’re robust, fit securely and the eight-hour battery life is the right side of acceptable.

£39, buy on amazon.co.uk

Nick Harris-Fry is a journalist who has been covering health and fitness since 2015. Nick is an avid runner, covering 70-110km a week, which gives him ample opportunity to test a wide range of running shoes and running gear. He is also the chief tester for fitness trackers and running watches, treadmills and exercise bikes, and workout headphones.