Alongside the new Beats Solo 4 headphones, Apple’s Beats brand is announcing an all-new entry-level model of earbuds, Beats Solo Buds. Priced at $79.99 and shipping in June, Beats Solo Buds deliver 18 hours of battery life and come in the smallest case ever designed for Beats earbuds.
Beats Solo Buds feature a custom-built acoustic architecture and an ergonomic design with four ear tip size options for a precise fit. There is no active noise cancelation on the Beats Solo Buds, but they do offer passive noise isolation to improve audio quality. A custom microphone design paired with an advanced noise-learning algorithm help deliver improved call quality.
When it comes to battery life, Beats Solo Buds offer up to 18 hours of playback right in the buds themselves without needing to recharge, which is easily the longest battery life for any Beats earbud product.
But when their batteries do run out, you’ll need to find a power source, as the charging case does not include any additional battery storage onboard for recharging directly from the case. That not only helps keep costs down, but also allows for the tiny case that slips easily into a pocket and is 40% smaller than the case for Beats Studio Buds +.
With up to 18 hours of battery life in the buds, most users will be able to go multiple days without needing to recharge Beats Solo Buds at all. When that time comes, however, all they have to do is to connect a power source to the USB-C port on the case, and that power source can even be an iPhone 15. A Fast Fuel feature provides an hour of playback time with just five minutes of charging.
As with most other recent Beats headphones and earphones, Solo Buds include a custom Beats chip platform that allows for tight integration across both iOS and Android with one-touch pairing, automatic setup across devices, and support for Apple’s Find My and Android’s Find My Device services. The Beats ‘b” buttons on the buds can be configured for a variety of functions, including music and phone call controls, voice assistant activation, and volume control.
Beats Solo Buds will begin shipping in June and will be available in four colors: Matte Black, Storm Gray, Arctic Purple, and Transparent Red. With the introduction of Solo Buds, Beats will be discontinuing the standard Beats Studio Buds but will be retaining the more advanced Beats Studio Buds +. The Beats earbud lineup will also continue to include the Beats Fit Pro and Powerbeats Pro, so there will be a full range of truly wireless earphone options to suit all types of users.
Beats is expanding its lineup with two new products: the Beats Solo Buds and Beats Solo 4. The latter is the successor to the company’s most popular headphones, the Beats Solo 3.
Both offerings won’t rival Apple’s AirPods lineup, but if you frequently switch between Android and iPhone, you might like Beats’ new options.
Beats Solo Buds passively block noise
Beats Solo Buds comes in a Transparent Red color. Photo: Beats
The main highlight of the Beats Solo Buds is its long battery life, though this comes at the expense of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). Instead, they block noise passively. Beats claims the Solo Buds feature “ergonomically designed acoustic nozzles” with vents helping relieve pressure during extended uses. The earbuds ship with four ear tips, including XS, to help you get the perfect fit.
Each earbud ships with a claimed custom-designed microphone and an advanced noise-learning algorithm for crystal-clear call quality. You can customize the ‘b’ button to control music playback, trigger your phone’s voice assistant, or control music playback. It is also possible to customize the button’s long-press action. Other features of the Solo Buds include one-touch pairing for both iOS and Android and Find My or Find My Device integration.
While the Solo Buds won’t win any awards for sound quality, it stands out with its battery life. Beats says the earbuds offer the longest battery life in its lineup, with up to 18 hours of playback. While there’s no wireless charging, the charging case supports fast wired charging over USB-C. This means a 5-minute top-up is enough to provide an additional hour of music playback.
The Beats Solo Buds will launch in black, gray, purple, and transparent red colors in June for $79.99.
Beats Solo 4
The Beats Solo 4 comes in three colors. Photo: Beats
The Beats Solo 4 arrives nearly eight years after the Solo 3 and packs some meaningful upgrades. The 217-gram heavy headphones feature UltraPlush cushions for top-notch comfort and durability. Internally, the Solo 4 features custom 40mm transducers for improved clarity and minimal distortion. You also get Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking.
Like the Solo Buds, the Solo 4 works with Android and iOS and features Find My/Find My Device integration, one-touch pairing, and a customizable ‘b’ button. In addition to Bluetooth, the headphones have a USB-C port for lossless audio playback and charging. There’s also a 3.5mm port, which will work even when the headphones are low on battery power.
The Beats Solo 4 offers a claimed battery life of up to 5o hours. You can order the headphones starting today in the US for $199.99 in black, blue, and pink colors.
Google’s Pixel Buds Pro remain one of our favorite pairs of true wireless earbuds, offering robust active noise cancellation (ANC), punchy bass, reliable touch controls and a host of convenient features for Android users in particular. That said, given how competitive the wireless market is these days, they aren’t the greatest value at their standard list price of $200.
Today, though, Wellbots is running a sale that brings the pair down to a more palatable $135 with the checkout code ENGPIX65. This isn’t an all-time low — the buds fell as low as $117 in a similar deal last October and went for $119 for much of the holiday season — but it’s the best price we’ve tracked in 2024. For reference, the device dropped to $139 last month. This offer applies to each of the set’s colorways.
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget
This is the lowest price we’ve seen this year for Google’s highest-end wireless earbuds.
Engadget’s audio expert Billy Steele gave the Pixel Buds Pro a review score of 87 back in 2022. By default, they have a sculpted, hyped-up sound with thumpy bass and elevated treble. It’s the kind of signature that won’t suit audio purists but should work well with modern pop music. As with many pairs, though, you can tweak the sound with a graphic EQ. The earbuds themselves have an IPX4 water-resistance rating, so they should be able to withstand typical workouts. Battery life is solid at roughly seven hours with ANC on or 11 hours with it off, while the case supports wireless charging. You can connect to two devices at once, and the pair supports in-ear detection, so it’ll automatically pause when you remove an earbud.
Maybe the biggest reason to consider the Pixel Buds Pro is how tightly they integrate with Android. It’s somewhat similar to how Apple’s AirPods work with iOS: You can call on the Google Assistant hands-free, quickly swap between paired devices, utilize adaptive and spatial audio modes, ring the earbuds remotely and access Google Translate, among other OS-specific features. Last fall, Google also added a “conversation detection” mode that automatically pauses your music and turns off ANC when you start talking to someone. All of this functionality is natively available on Google’s Pixel phones; with other Android devices, you can access most of the same tricks through a separate Pixel Buds app.
There are still issues to note. While we didn’t have any comfort issues in testing, the fit may be tricky for those with smaller ears. Call quality isn’t great, nor is the included transparency mode. For more discerning listeners, there’s no support for higher-quality Bluetooth codecs like aptX or LDAC. And again, this is a busy market: Other pairs like the Sony WF-1000XM5, Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 or Anker Soundcore Space A40 can provide better noise isolation, sound quality or overall value in a vacuum. It wouldn’t be a huge shock if we saw a new model at Google’s I/O conference next month, either. Still, the current model remains a well-rounded choice for Android fans today, and this discount brings them down to a more appropriate price.
Samsung’s wireless earbuds come with a touchpad and support various touch gestures, including a touch and hold gesture that can be assigned to launching apps like Spotify and Bixby or performing actions such as increasing and decreasing the volume
But did you know that the touch and hold gesture cannot be used to launch the Samsung Music app? You would expect a music app made by Samsung would be fully supported by the company’s wireless earbuds, but that isn’t the case for the Samsung Music app.
At long last, Samsung is fixing that oversight. An update to Samsung Music finally adds the option to fire up the app by touching and holding the touchpad on Galaxy Buds earbuds when they’re connected to a phone or tablet.
Why wasn’t this functionality already available? Well, only Samsung can answer that question. We’re assuming that Samsung didn’t think its music app was used widely enough to warrant proper support. After all, the world has moved almost entirely to apps that can stream music off the internet, something Samsung’s Music app cannot do (it does have Spotify integration, but Samsung doesn’t have a streaming service of its own).
Motorola has launched two new wireless earbuds that bring Bose’s audio tuning and best-in-class active noise cancellation for very competitive prices. It’s calling the new earbuds: the Moto Buds and Moto Buds Plus.
The Moto Buds Plus are the more attention-grabbing earbuds of the two, as they sport some impressive features that you’d find in the best wireless earbuds for a budget price of just £129 (roughly $160 and AU$250 but we have yet to get pricing for other regions). There’s hi-res audio support along with active noise cancellation and Dolby Atmos with Head Tracking tech to provide dynamic directional audio when listening to compatible continents.
The earbuds have two triple-mic systems, which aid with noise cancellation and ambient noise suppression when making and taking phone calls. There’s also what Motorola calls ‘CrystalTalk AI’ on board, which uses algorithms to mitigate noise caused by windy conditions.
Eight hours of battery life are offered by the buds themselves, while the case holds up to 38 hours of playback power. And three hours of playback time can be had from just 10 minutes of charging, which could be useful if you’re the forgetful sort who leaves earbuds outside of their case on a regular basis. As a handy extra, the case offers wireless charging and the buds are water resistant.
The Moto Buds Plus come in two colorways: black and gray or white. (Image credit: Motorola)
However, arguably the standout feature is the audio tuning done by Bose. Normally, one would need to look at the best noise cancelling earbuds to find Bose’s audio chops but with the Moto Buds Plus, you get EQ tuning from the audio giant, in addition to its expertise on the ANC front.
Depending on your audio playback tastes, Bose tuning could be a real boon or bust here. Having used Bose headphones before, I’m reasonably partial to how the bass and mid-range tones are tuned. And Bose’s ANC is right up there with Sony’s ability to crush external sounds with its WH-1000XM5 series of headphones.
The caveat here is slapping Bose tuning onto earbuds may end up being a marketing gimmick if the Moto Buds Plus’ dual dynamic drivers can’t deliver the punchy audio one expects from Bose. We’ll find out once we give the Moto Buds Plus a rigorous testing.
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Available to buy today (April 16) the Moto Buds Plus come in ‘Forest Gray’ (basically a smokey black) or ‘Beach Sand’ (a form of off-white).
Motorola’s Moto Buds: Key specs
Here are the Moto Buds’ five different colors you can choose from. (Image credit: Motorola)
For people on a tight budget, Motorola has the £49 (about $61 and AU$95) Moto Buds. These earbuds don’t get the Bose tuning, but still have hi-res audio support and ANC – and that’s not bad at all for the price.
Battery life comes in at nine hours, with two hours of listening time coming from just 10 mins of charging. Combined with the power the case can hold, the Moto Buds offer up to 42 hours playback time. And thanks to water resistance, these earbuds could be good for sweaty workouts.
The Moto Buds come in a quartet of colour options called ‘Starlight Blue’, ‘Glacier Blue’, ‘Coral Peach’ or ‘Kiwi Green’. And they’ll be available from mid-May. Stay tuned for our reviews and further thoughts.
The CMF By Nothing Buds are very cheap for what they offer. At just $39 / £39, it’s predictably too good to be true to expect great Active Noise Cancellation, exceptional sound quality, and all the other things that come from much pricier earbuds. However, there’s a charm to the CMF By Nothing Buds with their minimalist yet attractive case and that extends to use.
They certainly won’t rival most of the best wireless earbuds but among budget buys, there’s a temptation here. The CMF By Nothing Buds sound reasonable if not exceptional. There’s a crispness here but bass is pretty weak and understated. Music won’t stand out here and even the soundstage is a little lackluster but they’re fine for listening on the move.
Similarly, ANC is more about dampening background noise rather than taking a proactive approach, but it’s better than nothing. You’re left being merely impressed that the CMF By Nothing Buds even attempts ANC at this price. There’s also app support, although it’s temperamental.
Dual-device connectivity and reasonable battery life all add up to make the CMF By Nothing Buds a nice pair of budget buds, even if not the pair you’ll want to live with forever. That’s not bad at all for under $50 / £50, although in an ideal world, you’ll want to invest more into the best noise-cancelling earbuds.
CMF Buds review: Price and release date
(Image credit: Future)
Released in March 2024
Officially price dat $39 / £39
The CMF By Nothing Buds was released in March 2024 for $39 in the US and £39 in the UK. The Nothing site directs you exclusively to Amazon for online purchases while UK customers can go to the Nothing store in London if they prefer.
The earbuds are available in orange, dark gray, and light gray. Orange is the most eye-catching color and it’s already proving to be the most popular. Typically, the best budget wireless earbuds are usually black or white so being able to get something more distinctive is a nice perk.
The biggest rival at this price is the JLab Go Air Pop, which is slightly cheaper but lacks ANC. Other than that, you’ll have to pay more for options like the Sony WF-C700N with the budget wireless earbuds market fairly limited when you go this low.
CMF Buds review: Specs
(Image credit: Future)
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Drivers
12.4mm
Active Noise Cancellation
Yes
Battery life
Up to 35.5 hours via charging case
Weight
4g each
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.3
Waterproofing
IP54
CMF Buds review: Features
(Image credit: Future)
Up to 35.5 hours of battery life with ANC disabled
Companion app
Dual-device connection
Perhaps surprisingly for the price, the CMF By Nothing Buds cover all the bases for essential features. There’s what Nothing calls dual-device connectivity so you can switch between your devices. There’s app support, ANC, and decent battery life.
The app is a little bit of a mixed bag. It’s simple to use and clearly laid out with options for adjusting the equalizer, activating Ultra Bass which makes things a bit more bossy, along with ANC controls. The issue with the app is that I found it would sometimes forget my earbuds. My phone would happily pair with the CMF By Nothing Buds and then switching over to the app would report an issue so I’d have to re-pair them. It’s not the end of the world but it can be mildly irritating if you just want to change the ANC settings briefly.
The ANC is also pretty poor. It dampens down surrounding noises but never to the point where it isn’t entirely obvious that the noise is there. That goes for whether you have the Transparency mode enabled or you go ‘full’ ANC. I’m not exactly complaining though as efforts are made and at this price, any kind of attempt of blocking out noise is a welcomed thing.
Nothing promises a battery life of up to 35.5 hours via the charging case and 6.5 hours on one 10-minute charge. That seemed about right in my time with it and I had no complaints at all. Diving into the app can always help you see what’s going on with power. As is often the way, Bluetooth 5.3 means no chance of dropouts.
Features score: 3 / 5
CMF Buds review: Sound quality
(Image credit: Future)
Weak ANC
Little quiet
Small soundstage
The CMF By Nothing Buds’s strong point definitely isn’t audio quality. They don’t sound awful but it’s very run-of-the-mill stuff. These aren’t hidden gems to rival the best earbuds.
Instead, you get a fairly weak aural experience that you’ll have to crank up to enjoy. That’s fine for going for a walk but if you want to hear every crisp note of your favorite songs, you’ll be a bit disappointed. I worked my way through David Guetta’s discography and nothing truly caught my attention. Bass is fairly flimsy and trebles and mids are distinctly weak. Better however was listening to podcasts. Sound is reasonably crisp so voices come through clearly.
That’s less the case when you’re walking near busy traffic as the CMF By Nothing Buds’s ANC doesn’t do much to block things out. The soundstage also feels pretty narrow so you won’t feel wrapped up in the magic of a hit through these. Even when using the ultra bass setting on the Nothing app, the likes of Muse’s Hysteria struggled to truly grip me.
Sound quality score: 3 / 5
CMF Buds review: Design
(Image credit: Future)
Super smooth case
Touch controls
Room for a lanyard
The CMF By Nothing Buds’s case feels like a minor work of art. It’s angular yet smooth and it looks so much cooler on your desk than regular earbud cases. It has a silver sliding circle that moves around to reveal holes for a lanyard. I received a lanyard with my earbuds but these don’t come as standard. Still, it’s easy enough to get hold of your own.
The case isn’t a wireless charging case which is hardly surprising at this price, but it means it’s lightweight and easy to store. The buds themselves are fairly standard and they fit snugly in your ears with a selection of silicone eartips included to get things how you like them.
Each earbud has a touch-sensitive area for controlling things like skipping tracks, answering calls, switching between ANC and Transparency mode. No complaints here. For a change for touch controls, it wasn’t overly easy to activate the controls.
Design score: 4 / 5
CMF Buds review: Value
(Image credit: Future)
Cheap for what they offer
Not perfect but appealing
The CMF By Nothing Buds aren’t perfect at anything but they’re incredibly cheap for earbuds that offer ANC, even if it’s not great.
In an ideal world, you’d want to spend more and enjoy ANC that actually works well, of course. The likes of the Sony WF-C700N and the JLab Go Air Pop sound better but the former cost a lot more and the latter lack ANC. It all depends what’s most important to you.
Value score: 3.5 / 5
Should I buy the CMF Buds?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Attributes
Notes
Score
Features
The essentials are here but they don’t necessarily work as well as hoped.
3 / 5
Design
Sleek and memorable, there’s a lot of style here.
4 / 5
Sound quality
Crisp voices make up for less powerful music.
3 / 5
Value
You can get better sound quality for the price, but not with other features.
3.5 / 5
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if..
CMF Buds review: Also consider
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell – Column 0
CMF Buds
Sony WF-C700N
JLab Go Air Pop
Drivers
12.4mm
5mm
6mm
Active Noise Cancellation
Yes
Yes
No
Battery life
Up to 35.5 hours via charging case
Up to 15 hours in total via the case with ANC on
Up to 32 hours
Weight
4g each
4.6g each
3.9g each
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.3
Bluetooth 5.2
Bluetooth 5.1
Waterproofing
IP54
IPX4
IPX4
How I tested the CMF Buds
(Image credit: Future)
Tested over seven days
Compared to Soundpeats Air4 Pro and Apple AirPods (Pro 2 and 3rd Gen)
Listened to Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube videos and Twitch
Over the lasts even days, I’ve replaced my usual AirPods Pro 2 with the CMF By Nothing Buds. Of course, the price difference is huge so I also reacquainted myself with the more affordable Soundpeats Air4 Pro that I was using fairly recently.
I used the CMF By Nothing Buds on my daily morning walks. I know the route well enough that I can tell you all the worst places for traffic noises, so it was a good way of seeing how well the buds fended off distractions.
I also used them on a run to see how well they coped with wind and speedy (ish) movement. It was a good test of the Transparency mode in particular so I didn’t have to worry about missing hearing a bike ride past me.
At home, I used the CMF By Nothing Buds to watch Twitch videos and content on YouTube. That went well with my podcast listening to check out how clear voices sounded on them.
For music, I predominantly listened to Apple Music and Spotify. The iPhone 14 Pro was driving most of that with a MacBook Pro entertaining me with videos. My taste is fairly varied so there was a lot of spoken word content but also Linkin Park, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, and David Guetta.
I’ve reviewed audio products for over 10 years. I might usually use pricier earbuds as my main option but I regularly use cheaper earphones and headphones for work and so I can keep up with the biggest work-related question I’m asked by friends — ‘do you know of any good cheap earbuds?’.
The Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds give a fantastic first impression. The eye-catching RGB-on-black aesthetic of both the earbuds and the charging case lend them a premium feel. That goes for overall audio quality, too, where there’s an impressive level of detail that you won’t often find even among the best gaming earbuds. As such, we can highly recommend them as a strong alternative to the likes of the Sony Inzone Buds or the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed.
That said, there are some missteps in terms of both design and performance. Despite coming with rubber tips of varying sizes, there’s a lack of comfort that makes the Speednova buds not best suited for longer sessions of play. They’re also not particularly great for multiplayer, with middling directional audio and some rather tinny voice quality. These could admittedly be dealbreakers when considering the earbuds cost $199.99 (and they’re yet to launch in territories beyond the US).
However, if you typically stick to single-player games or just want a rich music-listening experience, you’ll find that the Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds seriously excel in these areas.
Design and features
(Image credit: Future)
The Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds come packaged in a smart little box that offers all the essentials. You’ve of course got the earbuds housed in their charging case, alongside three different pairs of tips of varying sizes, a USB 2.4GHz dongle, and a USB-C cable for charging.
The charging case itself might just be my favorite among the more premium earbud offerings. The outer shell only bears the ROG logo and a light strip to indicate charging. Opening it up reveals another ROG logo, this time illuminated by some lovely RGB lighting. The buds themselves also share this RGB logo effect, and they, along with the case, are built from sturdy, high-quality plastic.
Unfortunately, the buds don’t feel particularly great in the ears after a long period of time. I tested each of the three tip sizes (small, medium, and large) over extended sessions and there wasn’t much of an improvement to overall comfort. Your mileage may vary here, of course, but I did have to take them out after one to two hours of use and swap back to my wireless gaming headset instead.
There’s quite a lot of touch-based functionality to the earbuds, too. A single tap of either bud will either play or pause audio – but doing this during a call will mute your microphone. Other functions include double-tapping to toggle active noise canceling (ANC) or a quadruple press to adjust volume. There’s a lot here, but it’s all thankfully very responsive.
Performance and battery life
(Image credit: Future)
Unfortunately, the buds’ level of comfort – or lack thereof – is a real shame, because the audio quality presented by the Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds is exceptional. The high-quality soundscape is bolstered by the use of Dirac Opteo technology which provides enhanced sound that’s able to really hone in on those finer details. This allows for overall much richer, detailed audio seldom heard in other gaming earbuds.
This was especially clear in busy single-player games like Rise of the Ronin. Here, the buds brought the bustling, winding streets of Yokohama and its various districts to life by enhancing background NPC chatter and ambient sounds, all without drowning out the wider soundscape. The in-depth sound of Tetris Effect: Connectedwas another highlight here, and I was super impressed with just how well the earbuds were able to catch even the subtlest details of the game’s remarkably layered soundtrack. In short, the Speednova earbuds allowed for an impressively immersive experience.
However, it is worth noting that the heightened audio quality provided by Dirac Opteo is only available via 2.4GHz connection. Over Bluetooth, while audio is still serviceable, noticeably flatter overall. The trade-off here, then, as you might expect, is that Bluetooth connectivity is much easier on the Speednova’s battery life. According to Asus, you’ll get up to 46 hours from the charging case via Bluetooth 5.3 here, and that’s with active noise canceling and RGB effects switched off.
You can expect this number to be roughly halved with these effects enabled, as per the description on the Speednova’s product page. And in my experience, I found this to be largely true if a bit on the generous side. On average, the earbuds themselves carry anywhere between 6-12 hours of charge based on the combinations of features enabled. Though, mostly opting for a 2.4GHz connection, I found a single charge to carry around 4-5 hours with RGB disabled and ANC switched on.
Unfortunately, the buds fall short of being absolutely perfect due to lackluster multiplayer performance. Directional audio isn’t the best here, and certainly not up to the level of some of the best PS5 headsets which are better able to hone in more accurately on footsteps and distant vehicles, for example. The built-in microphone is also lacking, rendering my voice with a pretty tinny register with an overall lower quality than some much cheaper buds on the market like the SteelSeries Tusq.
Should I buy the Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds?
(Image credit: Future)
Despite some issues with comfort and call quality, the Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds are among the most impressive when it comes to sheer audio quality, largely helped by the fantastic Dirac Opteo technology. If you’re after something for immersive single-player experiences or are something of an audiophile, these buds come highly recommended.
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
How we tested the Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Speednova earbuds
I tested these earbuds for nearly two weeks across many of the best PS5 games, as well as titles on PC and Nintendo Switch. To put the earbuds through their paces, I largely elected to test them with all features enabled, including Dirac Opteo audio via 2.4GHz connection and active noise canceling.
The buds shone in single-player titles, and I found it very hard to pull myself away from titles like Rise of the Ronin, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomas a result. While I did find the battery life to be rather inconsistent based on the number of features enabled, I eventually chose to disable the RGB effect to squeeze a couple more hours of use out of them before needing to charge them up again.
OnePlus has debuted a new pair of mid-range earbuds in China. They’re called the OnePlus Buds V, and there’s a good chance the devices will launch overseas as the Nord Buds 3. The original announcement is in Chinese, so we’re going to be using a translation provided by GSMArena.
The OnePlus Buds V, according to GSMArena’s report, house 12.4mm titanium-plated drivers. Touch controls are present, allowing owners to answer calls or manage music playback. Active noise canceling is here as well to stop outside noise from leaking in.
Continuing down the list, the Buds V supports “Bluetooth 5.3 with 92ms latency.” They have a resistance rating of IP55 giving the devices protection against dust and blasts of water. Everything so far is identical to what you find on the OnePlus Nord Buds 2. They even look similar, with the same color options, although the Buds V will also be available in Interstellar Blue. But moving forward, you’ll start to see the many differences, large and small.
Potential new features
One of the more notable changes is the introduction of Dolby Panoramic Sound. Not much is known about this feature other than it promises “an immersive listening experience.” On the surface, this just sounds like Dolby Atmos, however without an official translation, it’s hard to say for sure.
Battery life is seeing a slight increase. The Buds V are said to last eight hours on a single charge. With the charging case, that number is bumped up to 38 hours. GSMArena goes on to say “a one hour charge provides five hours of use”.
Like the Nords Buds 2, the Buds V comes with multiple preset sound modes – “Balanced, Deep Bass, and Clear & Bright.”
(Image credit: OnePlus)
It’s unknown when these earbuds will launch, if at all, outside of China. But as stated earlier, the similarities between this pair and the Nord Buds 2 tell us we could see an international release under a different name: the Nord Buds 3.
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The OnePlus Buds V retail for 150 Yuan which is $20/£16/€19, give or take a few cents. If they do roll out globally, we doubt the earbuds will cost so little. It’ll probably be closer to the Nord Buds 2’s current price tag of $60/£69/€69 although we hope we’re wrong and it really is that cheap.
The Amazon Big Spring Sale is in full swing, and one of our favorite affordable pairs of wireless earbuds is even cheaper because of it. The 2023 Echo Buds are down to $35 in this Amazon deal, which is their lowest price yet. These Echo Buds have a lot of improvements over the previous model, and we like them for their detailed and balanced sound profile, built-in Alexa support and five hours of battery life. It’s also worth noting that this deal is available to anyone. Unlike Prime Day, this sale event isn’t as heavy on Prime-exclusive discounts.
Amazon
Amazon’s Echo Buds are available today for a record-low price.
The third-generation Echo Buds were redesigned to lose the silicone tips and adopt a more AirPods-like form factor. This leads to a more open design that makes it easier to listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks without blocking out your environment. Despite the buds themselves being longer than previous models, their USB-C charging case remains pleasingly compact.
The buds support multipoint connectivity, so you can seamlessly switch them between host devices. Setup takes place in the Alexa app, where you can view the battery life of each earbud and their charging case. You can also control their EQ, SideTone (how much of your voice you hear during calls) and VIP Filter settings in the app. It even has a Find My tool to help you locate them if you ever lose them.
None of that would matter if the Echo Buds sounded terrible, but we were impressed with what they offer for their price point. After testing them, Engadget’s Billy Steele wrote, “Softer and acoustic genres like bluegrass, folk and lighter country sound great, with the warm strums of Zach Bryan’s guitars and vocals on American Heartbreak cutting through the mix.” He found the Echo Buds’ tuning to be generally well-balanced across genres.
Samsung makes some of the best wireless earbuds in the segment, and the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro is currently its most high-end pair of flagship earbuds. The company has released a new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro update to improve their stability and reliability.
Galaxy Buds 2 Pro gets a new update to fix connection issues
The South Korean firm has just started rolling out a new software update to the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. It comes with firmware version R510XXUOAXC2 and has a download size of around 6.01MB. While the changelog mentions improved stability and reliability, reports indicate that it fixes Bluetooth connection issues that some users have been facing.
We got this update in India, but it should be available in all the countries worldwide. If you haven’t received the update for your Galaxy Buds 2 Pro yet, you may need to wait a few days before the OTA update hits your device. To download the new update on your Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, open the Galaxy Wearable app on your paired Android smartphone, navigate to Earbuds settings » Earbuds software update, and tap Download and install.
Samsung is expected to release a new pair of Galaxy Buds later this year alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It could be the Galaxy Buds 3, bringing Bluetooth LE Audio with LC3 codec.
