The OnePlus Buds 3 are the corporate’s newest really wi-fi earbuds. The corporate launched its first TWS earbuds again in mid-2020 with the unique OnePlus Buds. We by no means noticed a OnePlus Buds 2 however there have been the Buds Z and the Buds Z2 in late 2020 and 2022, respectively. The Buds 3 appear to mix the unique Buds and the newer Buds Z vary as the corporate might have realized it has one too many earbuds sequence in the marketplace proper now.
The brand new Buds 3 sit between the Buds Professional sequence on the high and the Nord Buds sequence beneath. You get among the extra premium options from the flagship mannequin, similar to ANC, twin drivers, and LHDC 5.0 whereas sustaining a extra pocket-friendly price ticket of round $100.
Design
The design of the earbuds and case of the Buds 3 is similar to that of the Buds Professional 2. The case appears to be like practically an identical at a look however in actuality, the size are all totally different, giving the Buds 3 case a narrower however taller look. The newer mannequin’s case can be a bit lighter and lacks the shiny aptitude on the hinge.
Regardless of being cheaper, nonetheless, the Buds 3 case has a really good end and construct high quality. The hinge feels sturdy and has little to no sideways motion. The outside has a matte end with a chrome OnePlus brand that tends to assemble lint.
Pop open the case and the insides have a really subtle matte end, with the one shiny bits being the receptacles for the earbuds. OnePlus retains discovering new and modern methods of hiding the regulatory markings, and this time they’re barely seen being printed on the inside sides of the receptacles at an angle the place you will not usually take a look at the case. A single button is positioned inside to provoke pairing.
The earbuds have the identical two-tone end because the Buds Professional 2 or certainly the unique Buds Professional. This time, nonetheless, the shiny half encompasses extra of the again of the earbuds and practically covers your complete exterior. You will solely actually see the matte end on the inside aspect and the underside.
In contrast to the Professional fashions, the Buds 3 earbuds do not have pressure-sensitive stalks. As a substitute, you merely faucet on the skin for play/pause and observe skipping. You too can faucet and maintain to modify between ANC modes. New for this mannequin is a quantity adjustment, managed by swiping your finger up or down on the stalk. Very handy.
The earbuds characteristic delicate silicone ear ideas and three sizes are offered within the field. The earbuds have been very comfy in my ears utilizing the default medium measurement, and I used to be in a position to put on them for hours with out feeling any discomfort.
The Buds 3 earbuds have an IP55 ranking for mud and water resistance, defending them towards sweat and splashes of water.
Software program and options
The Buds 3 help Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity with SBC, AAC, and LHDC 5.0 codecs. They characteristic a dual-driver design with a ten.4mm dynamic driver for low and mid frequencies and a 6mm tweeter for prime frequencies. The drivers are stacked vertically in a coaxial sample.
The software program help is offered through the HeyMelody app for Android and iOS. On OnePlus gadgets, the performance is constructed into the system settings however is a bit more durable to search out because it’s buried pretty deep. No matter which app you employ, the performance is widespread.
By means of the app, you’ll be able to change between the ANC modes and regulate the depth of the noise cancellation. You possibly can select between three ranges of noise cancellation or set it to Good so it may possibly regulate in accordance with background noise.
HeyMelody app
The Sound Grasp EQ options 4 presets and a six-band customized EQ that permits you to create a number of customized presets. BassWave is a bass increase dial that permits you to enhance and, counterintuitively, lower the bass on high of no matter preset you’re utilizing.
The Hello-Res mode, disabled by default, allows greater sampling charges and bitrates on LHDC when enabled. The earbuds have to restart whenever you toggle this setting.
Golden Sound characteristic performs a set of tones to find out your listening to and creates a customized EQ profile that is tailored in your ears. This runs alongside the presets enabled in Sound Grasp EQ mode. I am personally not fond of those choices as they require a good quantity of trial and error and a superbly quiet room to calibrate, and the outcomes can typically differ even if you happen to take the take a look at again to again. It isn’t a very constant or dependable method to calibrate in your listening to and the outcomes are sometimes too vivid sounding.
The OnePlus 3D Audio menu allows you to allow 3D audio processing for all audio. There isn’t a head-tracking {hardware} on the Buds 3 so the audio is locked to your head. OnePlus’ 3D Audio merely would not sound pretty much as good because the Dolby Atmos processing discovered on most telephones today, together with OnePlus’ personal. It additionally can’t maintain a candle to music really mastered in spatial audio. It is like a faux encompass sound characteristic from 90s cassette gamers and never notably good or convincing. A minimum of OnePlus is not falsely claiming Dolby Atmos help this time round prefer it’s a part of its earbuds quite than the telephones.
You possibly can management the faucet gestures for the earbuds. Single, double, and triple faucets can be found to customise, with single faucets disabled by default. You too can customise the slide gesture in addition to the contact and maintain gesture for ANC modes. One cool characteristic of the Buds 3 is that if you happen to have been to take away them throughout a name, the audio robotically routes to the earpiece or loudspeaker on the cellphone, which is useful as on most different earbuds it continues enjoying on the earbuds except you manually change.
Gesture controls
The Buds 3 additionally help twin connections and might keep related to 2 sources on the similar time. One or each can help LHDC however the sampling charge and bit charges out there drop significantly with twin connection enabled. If you would like the complete vary of bit charge choices then you have to join to 1 gadget at a time.
And at last, you get the choice to replace firmware. Our assessment unit was operating v121.121.101 on the time of testing. OnePlus often points updates to its audio merchandise for months after their launch, with some fashions getting updates even after a 12 months.
Efficiency
Audio high quality
The OnePlus Buds 3 have nice, principally inoffensive audio high quality. I really feel the necessity to specify that as earlier OnePlus fashions tended to have an excessively bass-heavy audio signature, which is not the case with this mannequin.
Make no mistake, the default ‘Balanced’ preset remains to be pretty v-shaped, with a wholesome emphasis on bass and treble frequencies. Nonetheless, at no level does the bass or treble really feel overwhelming, which was a frequent criticism with earlier fashions. This time round, there may be some fact to the identify ‘Steadiness’ that OnePlus likes to provide its default profiles, no matter how they sound.
Nonetheless, whereas neither the bass nor the treble frequencies are offensive, the sound does drop the ball a bit in the case of higher mid-frequencies. There is not sufficient element and power on this area, which makes the sound a bit stuffy and congested.
Fortunately, there may be a straightforward manner to enhance on this, and that is with the Serenade preset. It helpfully brings down among the high and low frequencies whereas including a wholesome dose of higher mid-range emphasis. In actuality, that is what they need to have referred to as Balanced as a result of that is about as balanced and near reference as you will get on these earbuds with out delving into the customized equalizer.
The Bass preset does what it says on the tin. It sounds just like the default preset on a lot of OnePlus’ different earbuds with a thumpier mid and low bass. The Daring preset is much like the Balanced preset however with an much more suppressed mid-range for an aggressive v-shaped tuning.
The BassWave characteristic is an attention-grabbing factor. Not solely does it allow you to flip the bottom up a number of notches however you too can dial it again fairly a bit. It does make the sound a bit muffled although even when it is set to the default zero worth.
For that cause, I might suggest utilizing the customized EQ as an alternative. The default for customized EQ is the Balanced preset, so any changes you make are to that particular profile. It could have been good to have the ability to edit the opposite presets as having to edit the Serenade preset, for instance, can be nice because it’s already near superb and also you’d solely have to make minor changes.
Wrapping up the frequency response dialogue, the Buds 3 are one of many best-tuned pair of earbuds that OnePlus has launched thus far and undoubtedly higher than the costlier Buds Professional 2, which sound boomy and muddy compared. It appears the corporate has taken earlier suggestions relating to its tuning to coronary heart and has taken nice strides in the suitable course.
As for the general audio high quality, the Buds 3 does properly. The sound is not particularly detailed regardless of utilizing the best high quality LHDC bit and sampling charges however that is about what now we have come to count on from Bluetooth audio in addition to the standard of drivers at this worth level. Regardless, over the previous week of utilizing these earbuds, I discovered them simple to hearken to for hours with out too many complaints, and with a little bit of tuning making them pretty much as good as it may possibly get on this section.
Microphone
The OnePlus Buds 3 have adequately good microphone efficiency. It isn’t essentially the most pure or full-sounding voice however it’s often very clear and artifact-free. It additionally does an distinctive job of masking background noise even in very noisy environments. Identical to with the audio high quality, I discovered the general microphone efficiency to be higher in comparison with the Buds Professional 2.
Noise cancellation
The Buds 3 characteristic energetic noise cancellation and it really works remarkably properly. On the max setting, you get a really spectacular suppression of low-frequency noise patterns with good mid and high-frequency suppression. The costlier Buds Professional 2 do higher with the mid and excessive frequencies however general the Buds 3 get fairly shut.
You possibly can manually regulate the extent of ANC, with Max, Average, and Gentle being the out there choices. Switching from Max to Average permits a good bit of mid-frequencies and Gentle is not a lot better than having no ANC enabled. Having the choice to scale back the ANC effectiveness can come in useful when you do not need to be fully remoted out of your environment and should need to hear, say, airport bulletins. It isn’t clear if the decrease settings supply any energy financial savings.
Latency and connectivity
The Buds 3 have good latency efficiency even with out the help of latency-improving modes. When paired with a PC, for instance, you’ll be able to discover some lag within the audio however it’s not sufficient to distract you. When paired with a cellphone or a pill, the gadget will robotically sync the audio for video content material to keep away from a delay.
You possibly can manually allow a Recreation mode within the HeyMelody app to scale back latency. On OnePlus telephones, there isn’t any guide setting for this however is enabled robotically when the cellphone detects a sport being launched. On this mode, latency is decreased even additional to some extent the place at the very least I could not discover any lag between the contents on the display screen and the sound. OnePlus claims 94ms minimal latency, which is nice sufficient for cell gaming.
The Buds 3 had very steady connectivity efficiency utilizing out-of-the-box settings. Nonetheless, pushing them to their limits utilizing guide bit charge controls do deliver up some points.
The corporate claims 24-bit, 96kHz max bit depth, and sampling charge with as much as 1Mbps bitrate when utilizing LHDC. You possibly can management the bitrates in 400kbps, 500kbps, 900kbps, and 1000kbps steps. 400 and 500kbps modes are fairly usable must you select to allow them manually. 900kbps can be usable for essentially the most half in case you are sitting near the cellphone, though often you’re going to get a hiccup, which may take a couple of seconds to resolve.
Nonetheless, the claimed 1000kbps or 1Mbps bitrate is unusable. You can not go even a couple of seconds with out the sound fully breaking up. At one level, the sound simply slowed down as that was seemingly the one manner it may push all these bits in time.
Sadly, the Bluetooth radios on the earbuds are merely not geared up to deal with this a lot information each second, and that is with the gadget inside an arm’s attain. In on a regular basis use, with the cellphone inside a pocket or a bag, 1Mbps and even 900kbps are merely not usable.
After all, that is solely accessible by the developer settings on Android, which most individuals will not hassle with. By default, the cellphone will robotically select a bitrate with essentially the most stability, which often is the bottom worth. This implies most of the time you’re getting 400kbps when utilizing LHDC, and that is widespread for nearly all Bluetooth headphones. The purpose is, do not be swayed by fancy codecs and their massive bitrate numbers. More often than not it is irrelevant.
Battery Life
OnePlus has a complete checklist of battery life figures on its web site, with ANC on and off in addition to ANC and LHDC outcomes, which is extraordinarily uncommon to see and commendable.
For this take a look at, solely two figures are related, and people are testing with ANC off utilizing AAC and LHDC. There will not be any ANC-enabled testing right here as ANC shuts off as soon as the earbuds are eliminated so it may possibly’t be enabled throughout our take a look at run.
| Codec | ANC | Claimed | Examined |
|---|---|---|---|
| AAC | Off | 10 hours | 11.5 hours |
| On | 6.5 hours | – | |
| LHDC | Off | 7 hours | 8.5 hours |
| On | 5.5 hours | – |
With ANC disabled, the Buds 3 lasted for 11.5 hours whereas utilizing AAC, which is a good bit greater than the ten hours claimed by OnePlus. Whereas utilizing LHDC locked to 24-bit/48kHz and 500kbps, the earbuds went for 8.5 hours, which is once more greater than the 7 hours claimed by OnePlus.
OnePlus additionally individually claims 2 hour run time after a fast 10-minute cost, a declare oddly buried within the footnote. In my testing, this was additionally right whereas utilizing AAC, because the earbuds performed for two.2 hours. Whereas utilizing LHDC, I acquired 1.6 hours of playback time.
Contemplating real-world testing typically exceeded the corporate’s claims, I really feel comfy placing inventory within the ANC-enabled figures, which are not too unhealthy. Do observe that utilizing bitrates greater than 500kbps with LHDC has a significant toll on battery life.
Conclusion
The OnePlus Buds 3 are fairly merely one of the best audio product the corporate has launched so far. The enhancements to audio high quality and tuning are appreciated and whereas the corporate is not fairly there but it is heading down the suitable path. The ANC works rather well, the microphone high quality is nice, the earbuds are very comfy, and the battery life is commendable. Complaints about LHDC apart, there actually is not a lot else to criticize. On the present asking worth of $100/€99/INR 5499, the OnePlus Buds 3 are extremely really helpful.
