Despite being an Apple product, the Beats Studio Buds are geared towards both Apple and Android devices. These are earbuds that cost the same as the standard Airpods but you also get noise-cancelling and transparency mode like the more expensive AirPods Pro.
The Beats App
These are the first beats product to support both Find My on iOS and Find My Device on Android location apps. This means you can use the app to show the last known location of the buds or even play a chirping sound to locate them if they are close by. Additionally, the Beats app for Android also allows you to check battery life, switch modes and get firmware upgrades.
Battery
Battery life is rated at 5-hrs with noise-cancelling or transparency on and 8-hrs when turned off. Plus the charging case will provide an additional 2 charges but there is no wireless charging. And if you find yourself low on power just 5 minutes of charging will deliver an hour’s worth of playtime.
How is the Noise Cancelling?
Noise cancelling is the weakest area on these earbuds, it’s not up to the level of the AirPods Pros, but they have decent enough muffling capabilities to block out a decent amount of noise.
Transparency Mode
This is the mode that pumps in ambient sounds from around you so you can interact with the world around you. Similar to the AirPods, this feature is pretty impressive on the Studio Buds. When turned on it delivers a natural sound that makes you feel like you’re not wearing earbuds.
The Sound
The sound quality is very good, you get well-defined bass and a well-balanced sound with detailed highs and natural-sounding mids where vocals live. Beats engineers spent a lot of time creating the custom 8.2mm drivers in these earbuds and this makes them slightly clearer and more detailed than the AirPods Pros and a bit smoother and better balanced than the Power Beats Pro.
What’s Missing?
The Studio Buds are missing some key features for Apple users. Namely, there’s no H1 or W1 chip. That means there’s no iCloud pairing across all your Apple devices like there is with the AirPods and Beats headphones. So there is no multipoint Bluetooth pairing but you can pair these with multiple devices and switch manually between them using the Bluetooth menu.
Another thing that’s missing is Spatial Audio for movie and tv watching. Spatial Audio is Apple’s Virtual Surround feature.
There’s also no in-ear detection so your music doesn’t automatically pause when you take an earbud out of your ear and resume when you put it back in.
The only thing Apple users get that Android users don’t is hands-free Siri, this means you can give voice commands by just saying hey Siri. With Android, you have to use your phones native voice assistant.
My final thoughts
For the price, you are getting a great package. The Beats Studio Buds are small, very comfortable, sweat-resistant earbuds that deliver a great sound experience. The noise cancellation is far from the best but in the true wireless earbuds category, this is a rare package to find under the $200 price point.
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