The OnePlus Buds Pro is the most advanced pair of wireless earbuds. It is OnePlus’ first venture into the somewhat premium piece of the wireless audio market, having made only entry-level models up to this point.
To their credit, the OnePlus Buds Pro comes with many features, including adaptive noise cancellation, transparency mode, a sound ID feature that customizes the sound to your hearing, water-resistance for the buds and the case, wireless charging, and even a white noise mode for relaxation.
Let’s take a peek at the performance of the OnePlus Buds Pro.
Packaging
The OnePlus Buds Pro packing is remarkable. Users get three sets of silicone ear tips in three sizes, apart from the earbuds and a short USB-C charging cable.
Design
The OnePlus Buds Pro has a beautiful layout for the earbuds and the case. The case is snug and roughly the size and form of a box of mints. It highlights a smooth matte texture with the OnePlus logo embossed on the top. The case’s exterior is surprisingly smudge-resistant; the matte plastic on the inside gets stained quite easily.
Comfort
OnePlus Buds Pro is comfortable to be used for extended periods. The volume and shape of the earbuds made them relax for hours without poking or putting undue strain on any section of the ear.
Hardware
The OnePlus Buds Pro is pretty small at 3.2cm x 2.32cm and weighs just 4.35g, contributing a lot to their well-being. Inside is a unique 11mm dynamic driver with a 20-20,000Hz frequency range. The earbuds can attain 102dB of SPL in India, whereas 98dB in other markets. The earbuds have pressure-sensitive stalks that can be squeezed to trigger functions. You can press to play/pause, twice to go to the next track, and significantly by default to the previous way. The triple squeeze display can be customized to launch the voice assistant instead.
Earbud Controls
You can press and hold to cycle between the three noise-canceling modes. The OnePlus Buds Pro supports up to Bluetooth 5.2. However, it can connect to one gadget at a time with no way to promptly switch within devices other than manually unpairing and pairing. The codec support includes AAC, LHDC v3, and SBC. Unfortunately, there’s no support for LDAC or any of the aptX variants. The LHDC implementation on Buds Pro has one condition, wherein it is limited to 24-bit, 48kHz.
Software
All the customization occurs within the software, which on OnePlus phones is achieved through the integrated OnePlus Buds app. The encounter is similar to using the settings in the Bluetooth menu for Apple AirPods models. In addition, you can use the Oppo HeyMelody app, available for Android and iOS, for non OnePlus phones.
Zen Mode Air
They sounded a bit too compressed, likely due to being small to fit on the onboard memory of the earbuds. It’s especially noticeable on Warm sunrise. The firmware and the app of the earbuds (v467) were mainly stable. Sometimes, the earbuds are powered down on themself for no reason. They had to be set back into the case for a second to spin around again.
Audio
The OnePlus Buds Pro has a comparatively conventional v-shaped sound signature. There is a notable emphasis on the bass and treble ranges of the sound with a laidback mid-range remembrance. The OnePlus Buds Pro has a pretty substantial bass response. A wideband boost is implemented across the first few number hertz of the frequency range, which appears in a very bass-forward sound. The bass on the OnePlus Buds Pro requires articulation and detail and comes across as overpowering.
Microphone
The OnePlus Buds Pro has standard microphone quality. Voices sound robotic and unnatural, and many compression artifacts are existing in the audio. However, it does an okay job of harmonizing out background noise for the callers.
Noise Cancellation
The OnePlus Buds Pro is characteristic of two levels of active noise cancellation. There is a standard noise-canceling mode and higher max noise-canceling mode. Regarding the two ANC modes, it is only noticeable in noisy environments. Still, in your traditional home or office environment, you’d be hard-pressed to notice any change at all in the noise levels when switching over to the max setting. In addition, the OnePlus Buds Pro feature a transparency mode that also works reasonably well.
Latency
The OnePlus Buds Pro has good latency performance while watching videos. Gaming latency was acceptable. The latency wasn’t incredibly diverting for casual gaming. Stick to wired earbuds for more severe gaming and voice chat applications.
Connection
The connection point on it was perfectly stable throughout my testing. Even when set to the maximum 900kbps mode with LHDC, the earbuds worked perfectly fine at over 30 feet of distance with no obstructions in between. There was no issue with the other codecs, either.
Battery Life
It has a rated battery life of 5 hours with ANC enabled and 7 hours with ANC disabled. The codec used is AAC. In the AAC mode, the OnePlus Buds Pro played for about 4 hours and 15 minutes. In the LHDC mode, the OnePlus Buds Pro played for about 3 hours 45 minutes.
Conclusion
The OnePlus Buds Pro is a decent attempt at a semi-premium pair of wireless earbuds. Several things stand out about them, including the design, comfort, user-friendly controls, and noise cancellation. There are plenty of good things about them that still makes the overall package appealing.