It’s been a good while since I’ve used a pair of Beats headphones, and with the announcement of the Beats Solo Buds, I was more eager than ever to test them. I use my AirPod Pros all-day, every-day, but these offer an in-ear experience at a much cheaper $129.95 price point, and I’m super impressed with the entire experience.
Starting off with the case design, I was absolutely shocked pulling it out of the box, as it’s by far the smallest buds case that I’ve ever come across, and that’s for good reason – there’s no battery inside. Rather than providing a battery in the case, it simply exists to hold the Solo Buds and charge them up when placed inside.
I’m guessing that this is to keep the price down, but because the buds themselves have a super impressive 18 hours of battery life, and because there’s no battery in the case, they charge super quickly with a 5 minute fast-charge providing an hour of battery life. You can connect them to your iPhone or tablet with a USB-C cable (not included in the box) to charge them up as well.
The Solo Buds come in black, purple, grey and a lovely translucent red which not only looks absolutely stunning, but the slight see-through just adds a cool factor to them. As far as the design of the actual buds go, they sit in the ear quite nicely, and hang down a lot less than AirPods. In the box, you get small, medium, large and extra large tips so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a fit.
There’s no active noise cancelling with these, which again is down to price, but as long as you get a good seal, they do a decent job at cancelling out external noises, even before you start playing audio, but obviously if you do want active noise cancelling, you’ll want to move up to a higher price point.
The single control button is super discreet, and sits at the tip of the bud just behind the Beats logo. It’s a very tactile button which feels good to press, and it’s just the standard press once to play, twice to skip and three times to go back, and you can also hold to activate Siri or change this to a long-hold for volume control too.
When it comes to in-ear detection, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. They don’t stop playing audio when removed from the ears, but do once you put them back in the case, but as soon as I put them in my ear, they were connected to my closet device and ready to go.
The major difference when it comes to the Beats brand is that all of the features including Find My support works on Android, and that goes for easy setup too, so everything that I’ve spoken about should be identical on the Android side.
The sound quality in the Beats Solo Buds were probably that thing that blew me away most. They probably lack some of the bass of the AirPods Pro, but as far as crispness, even on max volume, they were a joy to listen to. You can take advantage of Dolby Atmos, but there’s no head tracking, although I think most people wouldn’t notice the difference.
Similarly, when it comes to the microphone quality, it’s absolutely serviceable, especially at this price point, with some background noise removal for when you’re walking with background traffic noise or wind. It won’t be the best, but you’re going to be happy with them.
All-in-all, when it comes to value for money, the Beats Solo Buds are absolutely phenomenal. If you’re somebody walking into a JB Hi-Fi store, and picking them off the shelf for $130, you’re going to be incredibly impressed with how they look and sound.