Beats Studio Buds + : A Clear Winner?
AirPods may be the darling of wireless earbuds, but today it’s the Apple-owned Beats Studio Buds +, featuring noise cancellation, transparency mode, quick pairing and more. I think it’s the first time Beats has been on my channel. I have the transparent version (they also come in beige and black, but who wants those?).
Specs
- About $170, sometimes less on sale.
- Works with both iPhone and Android, with fast pairing for each.
- IPX4 splash, water and sweat resistance.
- Up to 36 hours of battery with the case: up to 9 hours in the buds plus three extra charges, with noise cancellation off.
- Active noise cancellation and transparency mode.
- Charges by USB-C, with no wireless or magnetic charging.
Unboxing
Bare-bones packaging, probably easy to recycle, with a pull tab. The transparent design is a throwback: I had a transparent iMac and a Game Boy Color, so it’s a retro nod. In the box: a USB-C cable and ear tips in four sizes (medium installed, plus large, small and extra small).
Open the case near an iPhone and it pops up to connect. The case has weird little circular cutouts on top, the buds lie on their sides, and you can see the magnetic charging connectors. The buds feel really tiny. If I didn’t just pull them out of the case, I’d have no idea which bud is which: there’s a little “R,” but it’s really hard to see on the transparent version. The ear tips pop on and off.
The Beats logo is a button for everything: press once to play/pause or answer and end calls, twice for the next track, three times for the previous track, and press and hold to switch between transparency and noise canceling.
Sound
They feel like AirPods, minus the stem. I listened to a Spotify playlist of rock songs. I expected a very heavy bass mix and found the bass prominent, but also well-defined highs with rock, metal and pop. After about two hours I wasn’t fatigued. Sitting in the room, the sound is similar to the AirPods Pro.
Noise canceling: walking around the neighborhood, it was extremely close to the AirPods Pro 2, drowning out crunching on the trail, lawn mowers and leaf blowers. I’d call it about 95% as good in my short test.
Transparency: I easily had a conversation with my wife with music or a podcast playing, and it was pleasant to use.
Settings and features
The buds show up on your other devices through quick pairing, but they don’t support auto-switching like AirPods do on Apple devices, so you go into Control Center to switch. (On Android, you get auto-switching in the Beats app.) In Settings → Bluetooth → your Beats, you can rename them, switch between noise canceling and transparency, set the press-and-hold action (volume down on the left, volume up on the right, or switch noise modes, which is what I do on AirPods), activate Siri, choose which bud is the microphone (best left on automatic), and see them in Find My. In Find My, you don’t get precise location like on the AirPods Pro 2’s U2 chip. You can control volume and tap and hold for transparency and noise canceling from Control Center. Spatial audio works too, without head tracking.
Two issues
- The case is large for my pocket every day. I prefer the size of the first-, second- or third-generation AirPods case, and even the AirPods Pro case is okay; this is bigger. It’s fine for a bag.
- The shape. They’re small and slippery, and I’ve dropped them a few times on this desk. Without knowing which is left or right, it’s hard to get them into my ears or into the case correctly the first time. Maybe I’m just stupid, but it’s a nitpick.
I’ll do more comparisons with the AirPods Pro, and something special is coming. What do you think of the Studio Buds +?
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