OnePlus Buds Review: Excellent Battery Life, Average Everything Else
Retail price: $79
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There are a ton of earbuds and headphones on the market. As a consumer, you’re bound to find a pair you can be happy with but honestly, it sometimes feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. When I picked up the OnePlus Buds to review, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had a great experience reviewing the Padmate PaMu Slide Minis, and for the $49 price point they sold for, I was skeptical of the OnePlus Buds that typically retail at a $79 MSRP. How well did these buds perform? Let’s take a look.
Out of the Box
In typical OnePlus fashion, even the unboxing experience for these earbuds was simple yet well done. The buds come with a simple oblong carrying case that has a smooth matte texture to it. On the front of the carrying case is a colored indicator light used to let you know when to charge. On the back is a silver hinge followed by a Bluetooth connect button and an Apple-esque “Designed by OnePlus” logo. The bottom houses a USB-C port for charging. With the earbuds comes a USB-C to USB-A cable as well.
The buds themselves are reminiscent of Apple AirPods and fit my ears quite comfortably for passive use. Unlike the PaMu Slide Minis which come in a variety of rubber earbud covers, the OnePlus Buds are meant to fit standalone which means not everyone will find these comfortable to wear. Weighing at just 4.7 grams, I personally found these earbuds lightweight and I’ve been wearing them throughout the day during meetings and around the house and have had no issues thus far.
A Few Issues
Pairing to these earbuds is easy with Bluetooth 5.0 and a wireless range of 10 meters. They’re also IPX4 water resistant. One finicky feature I’ve noticed is that connectivity becomes complicated if you have the earbuds paired to multiple devices at once. For example, if my laptop is on and my smartphone is next to it, I will need to turn Bluetooth off my smartphone before these earbuds connect to my laptop and vice versa. I have also found myself having to repair the earbuds to my laptop a few times now as a result of this complication.
The controls on the OnePlus Buds are also incredibly easy to use, albeit limited. Pulling an earbud out immediately pauses the track, which is a very useful feature I’ve been using regularly. You can double tap either side to answer or end a call or skip tracks, hold either side for five seconds to reject a phone call, or hold either side for three seconds to switch between devices. Although other earbuds may have more capabilities, I found these to be plenty enough for my everyday use and switching between music to phone calls and video chats. If you are not one to enjoy overcomplicated earbud functions, these basic ones will work for you just fine.
Battery Life
Without doubt, the most impressive aspect of the OnePlus Buds is the battery life. To fully charge the box and earbuds took me about an hour and a half, but I found myself rarely needing to charge it due to the excellent longevity. Each earbud has a 35 mAh battery and the charging box has a rated capacity of 420 mAh. OnePlus advertises up to 30 hours of music playback and a fast charge feature of 10 minutes for 10 hours from the charging box and earbuds or 10 minutes for 2 hours of playtime. This was plenty enough to get me through a few days of work with intermittent charging.
Sound Quality
We can’t review earbuds without mentioning the sound quality. This is notably one aspect I think OnePlus can improve on in future generations of their earbuds. Despite a 13.4mm dynamic driver and Dolby Atmos 3D stereo sound quality, I was disappointed with the lack of bass in these earbuds. As users increase the volume, the sound results in an exaggerated and hollow loudness that sounds decent, but not by any means impressive. There is also poor background noise isolation in these earbuds which was not a negative thing for me, as I personally enjoy hearing what’s going on around me but may not be enjoyable for audiophiles. This pair is not a noise cancelling set. Although sound left much to be desired, the microphone quality was very well received and those I spoke to using the OnePlus buds complimented the clear and crisp sound emitted.
Overall Thoughts
Although these earbuds are well-made, I would only recommend these if you can grab them on sale or if you are fully committed to the OnePlus ecosystem. The full $79 price point is just not worth it, especially when considering all the options out on today’s market. Despite the well-made construction and an overall solid user experience with excellent battery life, there are other earbuds out there for a similar price that have better sound quality, more functions, and block out more background noise.
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Lida
Always the number cruncher, the former narrative journalist turned data scientist, can’t help but find herself bursting with excitement with each new generation of tech gadgets. After all, predicting future trends is Lida’s forte. Any gadget that survives Lida’s torturous, adult working woman itinerary of over 700 notifications a day deserves praise!