ONEPLUS BUDS PRO REVIEW: Should You Buy

 

Image Credit: Verge

The OnePlus Buds Pro, which retail for $150, are the company's most beautiful and polished pair of true wireless earbuds to yet. Active noise cancellation, wireless charging, IP55 dust and water resistance, and a long battery life are just a few of the features that come with the device at that price. In addition, OnePlus includes features like as a low-latency mode for gaming and Zen Mode Air, which plays peaceful relaxation music to help you relax. They will be available for purchase on September 1st in either matte black or glossy white.

The OnePlus Buds are a lot more stylish and less obviously AirPods-like (especially in the black version) than the company's previous earphones (especially in the white version). Hopefully, this will be sufficient to avoid any difficulties at US customs. As a bonus, they've proved to be reliable and consistent in my tests so far, which couldn't be true for the $99 Nothing earbuds when I looked at them a few weeks back. Because the Nothing Buds are the first product of OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei's new business and, at least on paper, they offer comparable capabilities to the OnePlus One, there will unavoidably be comparisons between the two.

There is a metallic finish on the stem part of the earbuds, which gives them a shorter design. That's a great bit of design, and it also serves as a visual cue for where you'll squeeze for controls. The OnePlus Buds Pro, like the AirPods Pro force sensor, feature controls on both sides that are identical: squeeze rapidly with two fingers to stop, twice to skip songs, three times to go back, or hold to switch between ANC and transparency modes, respectively. It even has the same weak tiny audible click in your ears every time a pinch is detected in the same place. OnePlus' method, in contrast to Apple's AirPods, does not rely on an indented region of the stem for the sensor, but I found it to be reliable even without it. It is very much a stolen concept, but it is one that has been successfully replicated.

My experience with the OnePlus Buds Pro was that they were light and comfy in my ears; they weigh 4.35 grams per earbud, which is much less than both the AirPods Pro and the more current Galaxy Buds 2 models. However, I was never able to find a perfect fit with the three sets of silicone tips that included in the box: the big size was the greatest fit, but I was still able to easily remove either earbud with the least tug on them. Their lightweight design helped to alleviate this problem to some extent and maintained them in my ears — they didn't come loose when I moved my head or ate while wearing them — but OnePlus might have done a better job of providing a more diverse variety of ear tips to customers.

Fortunately, the less-than-perfect seal did not detract from the audio quality of their recording. According to the manufacturer, the OnePlus Buds feature 11mm drivers that were "tuned for bass reproduction," and this is confirmed by listening to them. A strong, smooth base underpins songs like Bleachers' "Don't Go Dark," and the OnePlus Buds Pro avoid becoming a bloated mess of bass as a result of an appealing, non-harsh high end that retains a surprisingly high level of clarity.

While the mids are somewhat underemphasized, this is standard for earbuds at this price, and sadly OnePlus' HeyMelody app (available for both Android and iOS) does not offer EQ tweaks. However, I have been generally pleased with the sound quality of these, and they compete well with the Amazon Echo Buds 2, Samsung Galaxy Buds 2, Jabra earbuds, and other earbuds in their price range. And I believe they outperform the Nothing earbuds in terms of sound quality, although that may be anticipated given the $50 price difference. OnePlus provides an audio test that allows you to customize your audio profile depending on your individual hearing.

The performance of the ANC has also been acceptable, but I believe it might be much better if the earphones were more well sealed in my ears. At the time of writing, the OnePlus Buds Pro let you to manually choose between “extreme” and “faint” noise canceling settings. According to OnePlus, the noise cancelling capabilities vary between 40dB (severe) to 15dB (faint). It also has a “smart” mode that automatically changes the amount of active noise cancellation (ANC) depending on the volume of your surroundings.

In fact, it was in my living room that I found the earbuds to be less effective at noise cancellation than I had expected. The only sound was the hum of a nearby fan, which I found to be a little distracting throughout my testing. When I was out on the street and at my usual coffee shop, it seemed like the OnePlus Buds Pro automatically turned up the noise cancellation, which was exactly what I needed. The OnePlus Buds Pro are very effective at blocking out low-frequency sounds and distractions, and they performed well on the New York City subway system during our testing. I believe Amazon comes out on top, and more expensive earbuds such as the Apple AirPods Pro and Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are still superior on the overall, but at $150, there isn't much to complain about.

The same may be said about the battery's life. It is certified for up to five hours of continuous playing with ANC turned on, and that number rises to 23 hours when the case's additional battery is included. If you turn off noise canceling, the numbers go to seven hours and a reported 31 hours, respectively, depending on the situation. The OnePlus Buds did not perform as well as I had hoped in terms of battery life and I did not have any unexpected battery problems or uneven discharge while I was in the country, so I cannot provide an accurate assessment. In addition to being wirelessly rechargeable, the case is also water resistant to an IPX4 rating, which is a fairly uncommon feature. With an IP55 certification for dust and water resistance, the earbuds are a more durable option for workouts, as long as you have the proper fit in your ears.

The performance of the microphone was enough for voice calls, and people with whom I talked were able to clearly hear me. However, even with three microphones in each earbud and wind noise reduction algorithms, I believe it is just a fact of life that, as the length of the stems of these earbuds gets reduced, we will have to settle for "good enough" while communicating with others via them.

After that, there are a few more to consider. A low-latency “Pro Gaming mode” is available on the earphones, with a reaction time of 94 milliseconds when used with a OnePlus phone running OxygenOS 11 or above. (This is another another example of the earbuds lock-in that my colleague Jon Porter talked about lately.) Even in that case, rivals like as Razer are capable of achieving lower latency figures, such as 60ms or less. An additional OnePlus-exclusive feature is Dolby Atmos audio, which is not supported by the earphones on any other smartphones.

The Zen Mode Air function, which promises to help you relax by playing calming noises via the earphones, was more helpful to me personally. You may choose whatever audio track you want to listen to via the HeyMelody app — there are choices such as warm dawn, meditation, summer seaside, midnight camping, and so on — and it will be downloaded straight to the earphones' memory once you have selected it. This has the advantage of allowing you to continue to listen to the relaxing sounds even if you switch between various connected devices. OnePlus isn't the first company to incorporate this kind of capability in its earphones; Jabra also offers something similar with its earbuds. It's not the kind of thing I'll utilize on a regular basis, but it's nice to know that this little trick is there in case I need a minute or two of peace and quiet during a busy day. Unfortunately, the OnePlus Buds follow in the footsteps of many of its rivals in that they do not yet support multipoint pairing, meaning that they can only connect to one smartphone at a given time. OnePlus, on the other hand, has said that it intends to include multipoint functionality in a future firmware version.

While not as refined or as powerful as its predecessor, the OnePlus Buds Pro show that OnePlus has become more confident and at ease in this industry as time has passed. At this price, there is no lack of competition, but OnePlus has put together an appealing combination of functionality and a beautiful design that has just a few flaws. Once again, they serve as a stark reminder of how much you can acquire for $150.