Jins, the Japanese eyewear company that’s making a strong push in the U.S., recently released a new lineup of glasses they call Frontswitch. One of our editors got a chance to try out a pair and here’s our review of these glasses.
Jins is one of the largest eyewear companies in Japan, aiming to offer high quality glasses at a low cost. They now have four stores in the U.S., including in the L.A. and the San Francisco Bay Area, where they make a lot of the glasses they sell in-house.
The Frontswitch are essentially traditional glasses that come with snap-on shades that make it convenient to switch between clear glasses and sunglasses. The clear glasses have magnets to which the matching metal spots on the shades stick to. One has to simply put the shades against the clear glasses and the two snap and align perfectly together. Once they become one, it’s difficult to even notice that they’re a combination of two separate pairs of lenses.
The Frotswitch lineup includes four unisex styles, which is somewhat limited but does make it easy to select a pair online. Having shopped online for glasses before, we’ve learned that a large selection is challenging to work with as one has to imagine what each pair would look like when worn. Having selected the pair, which was model Frontswitch 301, and provided prescription information to Jins our pair arrived by mail in less than a week.
Our Frontswitch glasses came in a stylish red case along with a slim soft case for the sunglasses extension. The prescription frames are lightweight, thin, and forgiving. The grasp of the frames against the head is soft and comfortable. The lenses give a clear and crisp view of the surroundings, both with and without the sunglasses extension.
When the frames arrived our tester was already wearing a pair of glasses from a competitor, which were heavy, bulky, and small in comparison. They were similar in style, so when trying the Jins frames, our tester found immediate relief from the burden of carrying the heavier frames on the face.
The sunglasses snap-on was also a hit, having a cool mirror-like coating. The color, a gradient of pink, goes well with colorful clothing. The snap-on magnets worked perfectly every time, and there is no overhang of the sunglasses frame, nor of the prescription frame.
Overall the Frontswitch pair was well received, but there was one big negative. That is that there is no way to adjust the resting position of the frames upon the nose, which made the pair we received sometimes slide down the nose more than with the previous pair.
We were impressed with the online order process, the delivery and presentation, the style, and the weight of these glasses, and because they cost $150 for any of the four styles we feel that they are an excellent value.
Product page: Frontswitch…
