Setting the Studio Buds up on an iPhone is as simple as you’d expect. The Beats Studio Buds experience Stan Horaczek The Beats boast a pair of beam-forming mics to pick up the wearer’s voice, as well as an outward-facing microphone to help with the noise-canceling earbud’s features.
If you’re familiar with audio-specific jargon, the Studio Buds offer a dual-element driver in a two-chamber housing.
Interestingly, the holder has a USB-C charging port instead of the Lightning port you’ll find on the PowerBeats pro-another little olive branch to Android users who are likely flush with USB-C cables and chargers.
The battery case holds enough juice for two full charges. The buds promise five hours of battery life with noise-canceling turned on, or eight hours with it turned off. The Beats wireless earbuds are extremely small when compared to other ANC-equipped models like the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds or the new (and considerably more expensive) Sony WF-1000XM4. Stan HoraczekĮach 5-gram bud nestles magnetically into a rounded charging case. The Beats Studio Buds design The charging case holds enough juice for two full charges. Obviously, the integration with the OS isn’t as tight as you’d get from something like Google’s own Pixel Buds, this is the best Beats experience on Android so far. While iPhone users still get some extra features (more on that later), Android users can now monitor battery life via Android’s Bluetooth menu, and the Buds will show up in Google’s Find My Device ecosystem. It feels slightly weird to test a Beats product on an Android phone, but the $150 Studio Buds don’t have the Apple H1 (or the newer W1 chip) inside, so they’re decidedly more platform agnostic. As I’m writing this, I have the newest Beats buds synced to a OnePlus 9 Pro.
The company’s Solo Pro on-ear headphones and its other pair of Beats Bluetooth earbuds, the Powerbeats Pro, both utilize the company’s H1 chip inside, which offers Apple users special privileges like super-easy syncing, seamless device switching, and always-on Siri summoning.Įnter the Beats Studio Buds. 4 spot when it comes to the Bluetooth personal audio business. Since Apple purchased the audio company back in 2014, Beats has remained largely independent and has maintained the No. No iPhone necessaryīy now, we expect Beats wireless earbuds and headphones to play extra nicely with iPhones. While these Beats Bluetooth earbuds don’t necessarily blow away any of their competition when it comes to sound or noise-canceling, their clever design, solid sound, and extremely compact form factor make them worth considering in this increasingly crowded space. But that’s not the biggest headline here: The $150 Studio Buds also represent an unexpected appeal to Android users from an Apple-owned company.
If Apple’s Airpods Pro are a little too steeply priced for you, the Beats Studio Buds represent a well-rounded true wireless headphone package for £85 less.The Beats Studio Buds are just the second pair of truly wireless earphones from Beats, and the first pair of Beats wireless earbuds to offer active noise cancellation (ANC). The noise cancellation can’t compete with that of much more expensive headphones, but it has a considerable impact both when you want to cut out the rumble of a train or background hum of air-conditioning units at work. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Beats Studio Buds when you consider their price, however, is that they come with ANC. As well as being supremely comfortable to the point I sometimes practically forget I’m wearing them, I’ve found them to produce articulate, detailed audio with a nice level of separation between instruments. I’ve yet to publish my review of the Beats Studio Buds, but my early impressions have been very good indeed. Beats Flex review: Unbeatable value for moneyĭespite their diminutive, lightweight design, the buds deliver up to eight hours of playback from single charge and with the pocket charging case, you can get up to 24 hours of use out before needing to charge them via mains.