2 weeks Ago By Firstpost
Pros: - Excellent sound quality with good balance and detail - Customisable sound and controls through the app - Combination of pinch and slide controls works well - Wear detection sensors, volume control on the buds - Comfortable fit, elegant design - Support for LHDC 5.0 codec and Google Spacial Audio - Very good battery backup, supports wireless and fast charging - Good call quality, multipoint support Cons: - No ingress protection for the charging case this time - No support for more popular LDAC or aptX codecs - Dynaudio featured preset ruined after firmware update Price: Rs 11,999 Rating: 4.3/5 OnePlus seems to have an 18-month cycle for the launch of their new Buds Pro variant.
And it is time for its third coming, a.k.a.
the OnePlus Buds Pro 3. These are the flagship true wireless (TWS) earbuds from the company and not to be confused with one with Nord in the model name along with similar suffixes. The Buds Pro 2 saw some worthwhile upgrades over its predecessor, and the Buds Pro 3 promises to go one better, and among other things, deliver in the area that matters most - sound quality.
Can it succeed? Let’s find out. OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Design and comfort (8/10) As far as the design goes, the earbuds borrow design cues from its predecessor but the charging case sees a complete overhaul. While there was nothing wrong about the Buds Pro 2 case, we liked the one here more.
The combination of matte black/dark grey along the circumference and a leather-like finish at the front and back looks classy. You get OnePlus branding at the front and Dynaudio’s at the back. The build quality is quite solid but the company has skimped on the IPX4 ingress protection present in the older Pro models.
You get charge and status indicator LEDs inside the case as well as at the base next to a USB-C charging port. A smartly camouflaged pairing/reset button is present on the right side. The case weighs about 50 grams and is fairly pocketable.
The buds are well-built too with the body sporting a smooth matte finish, while the stems are glossy with subtle markings for touch zones. They look good but the stems do attract a few smudge marks. Each earbud weighs a shade over 5 grams.
The preinstalled mid-sized silicone tips worked best for me and offered more than decent passive noise isolation. Three more pairs of tips are included in the bundle to choose from. The buds have an IP55 rating for dust and splash resistance.
The earbuds sit comfortably in the ears and can be used for long sessions. While the fit isn’t the most snug, they still stay in place during commutes or during jogs and cause no discomfort. The pressure-sensitive pinch controls have been retained, and just like in the case of its non-Pro variant, the company has added touch zones for swipe gestures to adjust the volume or skip tracks.
OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Features and specifications (9/10) The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 retains the dual-driver setup with a combination of an 11 mm dynamic driver for low-end frequencies and a dedicated 6 mm tweeter for the mids and highs. What’s new here is the presence of two DACs (digital to analogue converters), one for each driver for better precision. Each earbud also has three microphones for ANC/ENC/Transparency and making calls, along with a bone conduction sensor for voice pickup.
Add to that wear detection sensors to pause the audio when you remove a bud from your ear, and resume when you put it back on. The earbuds also support multi-point connection to pair them with two devices simultaneously; it works well. These Bluetooth 5.
4-compliant earbuds support SBC, AAC and LHDC 5.0 audio codecs. LHDC is still not available on all Android devices, and if your phone doesn’t support it, you will have to make do with AAC.
Support for more popular high-end codecs like LDAC or aptX Adaptive would have been better. As I mentioned earlier, these earbuds have pressure-sensitive controls and it accepts single pinch, double pinch, triple pinch and pinch-and-hold gestures to perform the designated tasks. In addition, you also get swipe-up and swipe-down gestures on both earbuds to either adjust the volume or skip tracks.
The touch zones are located at the side of the stems instead of at the back as in the case of the OnePlus Buds 3 and do cause unintended action occasionally when trying to adjust the buds. The controls and sound can be configured through the Bluetooth settings on OnePlus phones or using HeyMelody app on other phones. You get up to 50 dB of active noise cancellation (ANC) and it also supports adaptive ANC which adjusts the degree of noise cancellation depending on ambient noise.
For that you need to set the ANC to Auto mode which automatically shuffles between Low, Moderate and High modes as necessary to save battery. In addition to the audio presets tuned by Dynaudio who has co-engineered these earbuds, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 also lets you create a unique audio ID called Golden Sound using a listening test that determines your hearing profile based on your sensitivity to different sounds. It boosts certain frequencies to produce a more impactful sound for your ears.
It doesn’t always get it right but is certainly worth trying. You can always disable the feature if you don’t like the results. Zen Mode Air has been retained, which plays one of the five white noises of your choosing to help you relax or sleep.
You also get Google Spacial Audio support with and without Head Tracking. Again, give it a try, but I still find it more gimmicky than useful. OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Performance (8.
5/10) Pairing these earphones with the phone is a standard process. It also supports Google Fast Pair. The connection stays strong at 10 metres with a clear line of sight.
The latency can go as low as 94 ms on these earbuds, and we did not experience any lag between the audio and video when playing content on YouTube or popular OTT platforms. We conducted most of the test process using LHDC codecs and a OnePlus 11 5G phone. But before we head to the sound quality, let’s discuss the ANC performance.
As I mentioned, you get three degrees of ANC here - High, Moderate and Low. Unlike in the past, there is actually a discernible difference in the noise reduction in each of those modes. You can choose a mode depending on how noisy the environment is or simply let the buds do it for you by choosing Auto mode.
Needless to say, High mode blocks out maximum ambient noise but also consumes the most battery. However, it seems to build up pressure in the ear or at least it gives you that impression, and causes slight discomfort. Moderate, though a notch lower in noise cancellation, does a more than decent job even in noisy areas, but more importantly, does not cause the pressure issue.
It blocks several low-frequency sounds like the whirr of a fan or the buzz of an AC and even the traffic noises when outdoors. Of course, it cannot cancel high-pitched sounds like horns. The ANC performance against midrange frequency sounds like human voices has improved and noticeably reduces them.
Though they cannot be eliminated completely, switching on ANC in public transport is a great help. The Transparency mode here started off a little cosmetic but has improved after a couple of firmware updates since I started testing these earbuds. Unfortunately, one of the post-launch firmware messed up something crucial though.
You get five audio presets on the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 tuned by Dynaudio - Balanced, Bold, Serenade, Bass and Dynaudio featured. The last one was by far the best out of the box with near-perfect tuning. One firmware update later, it was not just the worst of the lot but borderline unusable.
It remains broken even in the latest 121.121.036 firmware version.
The better news is you can get close to that by creating your custom preset with some manual tuning using the 6-band equaliser. If you aren’t up for it, not all is lost. Unlike in older OnePlus Buds Pro models, the presets here are a lot better and very much usable as is.
The default Balanced preset, though clearly favours the low-end frequencies, is indeed a lot more balanced this time. If you want a bit less bass and more clarity in instrument sounds, Bold is a good option. Bass preset does what it suggests and Serenade is useful in boosting vocals or for voice-heavy content like podcasts.
There are a lot of sound tweaks to play around with to tune the output to your liking. The BassWave slider lets you increase or lower the bass without going to the equaliser or creating a new preset. Then you also have the aforementioned Golden Sound option and Spacial Audio.
But the equaliser is the best option to finetune these earphones in case you do not like either of the presets. After a few tweaks, the Buds Pro 3 sounds great for this segment. They are fairly loud in the 50 to 60 per cent volume range.
The sound is energetic with ample detail, great punch and depth in the bass and crisp highs without any sibilance. While the mids feel relatively weaker of the lot, they have a good presence, be it vocals or instrument sounds. The instrument separation is quite good too and the soundstage is decently broad for TWS earphones.
The sound quality this time is a lot closer to that of the Oppo Enco X2, something we still rate as the best around the Rs 10,000 mark, which is saying something. OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Call quality (8.5/10) The call quality on the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 is very good.
Not just indoors, the persons on the line were clearly audible to each other even when I placed a call from a noisy street. Barring the occasional cars honking, not much of the background chaos was heard by the other person. The wind noise suppression works well and doesn’t impact the voice clarity either.
The multiple microphones do an admirable job and the Buds Pro 3 is an excellent option if a lot of calling is high on your list of requirements. OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Battery life (8.5/10) The battery backup on the Buds Pro 3 is quite robust even on LHDC codecs.
Each earbud is fitted with a 58 mAh battery, while the case has a 566 mAh unit. The advertised battery figures with AAC codec at 50% volume stand at 6 hours with adaptive ANC on and 10 hours with ANC off. Along with the case, those figures read 25 hours and 43 hours respectively.
The corresponding figures using LHDC codec with ANC on are pegged at 5 hours for the buds and 21.5 hours for the case. In reality, it performed even better on LHDC.
With adaptive ANC on, the buds lasted closer to 6 hours, and without ANC, they went on for a little over 7 hours. With the charging case, you can expect an overall battery backup between 23 to 30 hours, depending on your ANC usage. These are impressive numbers.
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 supports quick wired charging, and a 10-minute charge can give you a whopping 13 hours of playtime (buds and case combined) with ANC off on AAC codec. With LHDC you can expect to be in the 9 hours ballpark. This is equally impressive.
The Buds Pro 3 also supports wireless charging. OnePlus Buds Pro 2: Price and verdict The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 is priced at Rs 11,999 with a one-year warranty, which is exactly what its predecessor debuted at 18 months ago. What’s even better is this product is significantly better than the Buds Pro 2 on most fronts.
Be it sound quality, call quality, battery life or user experience, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 is better on all counts. And not just than its predecessor, but we would term it as one of the best all-round products under Rs 15,000 in India at the moment. As for alternatives in this segment, there are only two that come to mind.
Firstly, the classic Oppo Enco X2, if you can find it. But this OnePlus product has caught up with it in terms of sound quality and outperforms it in terms of battery backup. The Oppo does support LDAC codec and is a better option if you do not have a device that supports LHDC.
The other option is Nothing Ear, whose feature list may seem relatively scant, but more than makes up in terms of sound quality and its trademark transparent design. Neither of these products will disappoint you, but one can safely say that OnePlus got it spot on the third time..
