OnePlus Buds Pro Review: Best TWS earbuds under Rs. 10,000?

Classy design, sturdy build, comfortable to wear

Right off the bat, the design of OnePlus Buds Pro has shades of Apple AirPods Pro. The black variant has a matte finish on the shells, while the stems have a coat of gloss that attracts smudge marks. The buds look rugged and yet weigh less than 5gm each. You get three pairs of silicone tips in the bundle with the pre-installed mid-sized tips offering good comfort and passive noise isolation for me. Choose the size that fits you best. The earbuds fit nicely into the ears and are comfortable for prolonged use. The in-ear fit is fine if you are seated or out for a stroll, but it feels slightly loose during jogs or exercises that involve bending forward. I had to readjust them a few times during workouts. The charging case is equally well-built, fairly compact and weighs a shade over 50gm. It has the same matte finish as the buds'. You get a tiny multi-colored LED at the front that indicates the approximate level of remaining charge and a USB-C port at the back to charge its 520mAh battery. The case also supports Qi-certified wireless charging. The buds are IP55 rated dust and water resistant, while the case has IPX4 moisture resistance. Rarely do you get ingress protection for the case, so kudos to OnePlus!

Loaded with unique and useful features

While you get dual-driver TWS options in this budget like OPPO Enco X and Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro, OnePlus has opted for a single 11mm dynamic driver in each bud. Wear detection sensors are also present to pause the audio when you remove a bud from the ear, and resume when you put it back. The earbud stems have pressure sensitive controls. You need to pinch the stems gently to execute a function instead of tapping them as you would generally do (more on that later). These Bluetooth 5.2-compliant earbuds support SBC, AAC and LHDC audio codecs. LHDC is still quite rare and available on very few phones. In fact, even the latest OnePlus 9 series phones do not support it yet. Interestingly, the more affordable Nord 2 does, but I digress. So AAC is the next best option here, though I would have preferred Qualcomm's aptX or aptX HD instead, as is the case with their Bullets Wireless and Bullets Wireless 2 neckbands, respectively. Two more interesting features that OnePlus Buds Pro offers are Audio ID and Zen Mode Air. The former is a custom aural profile (equalizer of sorts) based on your sensitivity to different sounds determined using a listening test. If you have used certain Soundcore earphones before, this is pretty much an adaptation of their HearID. It's worth a shot as some may find the boosted output better than the default sound. Separately, Zen Mode Air helps you relax or sleep by playing one of the five white noises that you opt for, like the sound of waves or birds. The chosen sound is stored on the buds and can be played by pinching and holding a bud for a few seconds.

Good active noise cancellation for the segment

The Buds Pro offers ANC, and unlike most earphones, you get three modes to choose from, namely Faint, Extreme and Smart. Faint mode can reduce ambient noise up to 25dB, while Extreme can step it up to 40dB. Smart automatically switches between the two modes depending on background noise to save battery. In reality though, there is little perceptible difference in noise reduction between the three modes. Meanwhile, ANC has been implemented reasonably well. When enabled, it reduces several low frequency ambient sounds like fan noise or AC hum, and even that of a car engine when outdoors. Though the sounds aren't eliminated entirely, they are greatly reduced for you to enjoy your music undisturbed. The ANC is at par with that of its prime competitors in this segment like the OPPO Enco X and Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro. There is also a transparency mode that does the opposite and lets ambient sounds through. Enable it when you need to be aware of your surroundings like when crossing the street, listening to announcements at airports or to simply talk to someone without taking the buds off.

Easy to setup but rather limited customization options

Pairing these earphones with the phone is pretty straightforward. And if you pair them with a OnePlus 6 or a newer OnePlus Phone, you don't need to install any app to access all the features. The built-in OnePlus Buds app does the trick. For all other Android and iOS devices, you will need to install the HeyMelody app to configure them. Speaking of configuration, time to circle back to the pressure sensitive controls. Being habituated to standard touch gestures, it takes a little time getting used to them. But once you do, they are quite enjoyable and more practical too as they eliminate undesired actions due to accidental taps. On pinching the stems, you hear a click sound to confirm a key press. You can execute different functions using single, double, triple pinch and pinch-and-hold gestures. Sadly, functions for single pinch (play/pause) and double pinch (skip to next track) are predetermined and cannot be altered. You only get to assign a function for the triple pinch, and that too one between jump to previous track and voice assistant. Pinch and hold is customizable too for namesake, but again, the ANC toggles (ANC on, ANC off, Transparency mode) is all you can choose from to cycle through. There is no volume control on the buds either. So much for freedom of customization! Meanwhile, the Bluetooth range is perfectly fine, with a strong connection till at least 10 meters with a clear line of sight.

Enjoyable sound output, but not best in class

The OnePlus Buds Pro can get amply loud at 40% volume itself. Even outdoors, they are loud enough with volume at the halfway mark. While the sound quality may not get a seal of approval from audiophiles, it is enjoyable across various genres of music, thanks to the punchy and tight bass. The buds are Dolby Atmos compliant, and shows encoded in that format on OTT platforms are fun to watch. The latency is low and there was no noticeable delay between audio and video playback. The sound profile here is what we commonly refer to as V-shaped with boosted lows and highs. Though the lows are given a preference, the bass is fairly tight in most cases. However, the extra bass does cause some auditory masking in the lower half of the midrange spectrum, with certain sounds getting suppressed. It is more conspicuous in bass-heavy tracks, where vocals feel slightly recessed too. The highs are sharp, but again, they could have been tempered better. They do not sound sibilant, but you can hear the odd hiss more than you should. The overall detail in sound is fine but I expected better from buds in this price segment. Same goes for the soundstage; it felt a bit crammed for my liking. Long story short, while the sound output is enjoyable, it is a notch below expectations for TWS earphones priced at Rs. 10,000. To complicate matters further for the Buds Pro, the competition sounds noticeably better. The OPPO Enco X, which is the one to beat in this segment, sounds a lot more detailed and richer, thanks to its dual driver setup and Dynaudio's smart tuning. The Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro, though not as refined as the Enco X, offers more balanced sound than the Buds Pro, snug in-ear fit and an awesome companion app with tons of sound customization options, along with ample flexibility in configuring touch controls.

Average call quality, good battery life

The call quality of the OnePlus Buds Pro is a mixed bag. The person on the line could hear me clearly but could also hear a constant wind noise when outdoors. The traffic noise was barely audible to the listener though. Ironically, there is a dedicated microphone on the buds to eliminate the wind noise, which clearly needs a tweak. Also, I could hear background sounds at my end during calls that were otherwise suppressed by the ANC when listening to music. Another minor issue for the company to fix in a future firmware update. OnePlus advertises battery backup figures of 28 hours and 38 hours for the buds and case combined, with and without ANC respectively. During my testing, I did not get anywhere close to those figures. Despite that, I would say that the battery backup on the Buds Pro is pretty good. With ANC turned on to Extreme mode, the buds lasted a little over four hours and 15 minutes. With ANC switched off, they lasted for close to six hours at 50% loudness, which is neat. The case can recharge the buds roughly four more times, thus taking the total combined battery backup between 21 to 30 hours. With intermittent use of ANC, I would put the overall battery backup figure at about 25 hours, which is quite good. The OnePlus Buds Pro supports quick charging too, and a mere 10 minutes of charge can keep the buds going for close to two hours with ANC on. A full charge of the case and buds takes less than an hour. The battery status of each bud and the charging case is visible in the companion apps.

Fun and feature-rich, not the best under Rs. 10,000 though

The OnePlus Buds Pro is priced at Rs. 9,990 in India with a one year warranty, and available for purchase on the company's website as well as on Amazon India. So should you buy it? Had they priced it under Rs. 8,000, the Buds Pro would have been a straightforward choice. There is no shortage of quality features like functional ANC, good battery backup, wireless charging, pressure sensitive controls and more. When it comes to sound quality though, there are better alternatives that sell for the same price. I already mentioned the OPPO Enco X and Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro in the performance section. They not only sound better, but also let you reconfigure the touch controls a lot more than what OnePlus does. All in all, if I had Rs. 10,000 to spare for a pair of TWS buds, I would choose those two ahead of the Buds Pro, with the OPPO Enco X being my top pick.