Since their announcement in April, I’ve been eager to get my hands on the new Beats Solo Buds. With 18 hours of battery life and a $79 price tag, they’re one of the most intriguing new Beats products in a long time.
The Beats Solo Buds officially hit stores today and I’ve been using them for a few days. Let’s dive into some practical impressions.
Beats Solo Buds specs
- Chip platform: Beats proprietary platform
- Battery life: 18 hours
- Loading port: USB-C
- Native Apple Features: One-touch setup, iCloud pairing, iPhone/Apple Watch transfer, Find My Support, Audio Sharing
- Native Android Features: One-touch pairing, ecosystem pairing, Find My Device support, Audio Switch
- Colors: Matte Black, Storm Grey, Arctic Violet and Transparent Red
- Price: $79.99
Design
The Beats Solo Buds feature a stemless in-ear design similar to the Beats Studio Buds+. In the box you’ll find four different sizes of silicone tips so you can be sure to get the perfect fit. They’re just as comfortable as any other pair of in-ear headphones on the market, so if you like that style, you’ll like the Beats Solo Buds.
Each earbud has a button on the end that lets you control playback and activate Siri:
- Press once to play, pause or answer a phone call
- Double tap to move forward
- Triple tap to go back
- Long press to activate voice assistant
However, the differentiator of the Beats Solo headphones is their size. The Beats Solo Buds case is significantly smaller than any other pair of Beats or AirPods headphones on the market. This is mainly due to the fact that there’s no battery in the case (more on that later) and the short, sturdy, stemless design of the earbuds themselves.
I didn’t expect to notice or benefit from the ultra-small case design of the Beats Solo Buds, but I was wrong. There’s something to be said for having Beats Solo Buds in your pocket, but not actually realizing they’re there until you need them.
Oh, and how about this Transparent Red colorway for Beats Solo Buds? It follows in the footsteps of the transparent Beats Studio Buds+ that I reviewed last year and solidifies the fact that transparent technology is very cool and fun. AirPods, on the other hand, come in just one color.
Battery life
Beats claims that the Beats Solo Buds offer up to 18 hours of battery life. When I first heard this number I thought it was too good to be true and asked Beats to confirm, which they happily did.
And to be very clear: that’s 18 hours of battery life from the Beats Solo Buds themselves. There is no marketing trickery here. In fact, the case that comes with the Beats Solo Buds doesn’t have a built-in battery. Instead, when you want to charge the Solo Buds, you place them in the case and then connect the case to a USB-C cable. Beats claims that a 5-minute charge will give you an hour of battery life.
In my testing, the Beats Solo Buds came incredibly close to hitting that 18 hour mark. In my testing, which involved listening to a lot of Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, and Billie Eilish, the Beats Solo Buds consistently had between 16 and 17 hours of battery life.
That’s an incredibly impressive number, any way you slice it. You can leave the house in the morning and know that you won’t have to worry about charging the Beats Solo Buds.
And that’s 18 hours of continuous playback. While the AirPods Pro technically advertise longer battery life thanks to the included charging case, the earbuds themselves need to be recharged every 5-6 hours. There are many days, especially when traveling, where I would like to go 8+ hours without removing my headphones. It’s now possible thanks to Beats Solo Buds.
Sound quality
With a price of $79 and a battery life of 18 hours, Beats had to compromise somewhere. You won’t find features like active noise cancellation, transparency mode, and automatic in-ear detection here.
Auto in-ear detection is the feature I miss the most when using the Beats Solo Buds. This means they won’t automatically play or pause content when you take them out or put them in your ears.
Beats claims that each Beats Solo Buds features “dual-layer drivers designed to minimize micro-distortions across the frequency curve, ensuring high-fidelity sound with uncompromising clarity and detail.”
As I always say when reviewing headphones, I’m not an audiophile and I won’t be able to give you a perfect explanation of sound quality in writing. What I will say about the Beats Solo Buds, though, is that they sound GOOD. They lack that bass-heavy Beats sound profile, but they sound relatively well-balanced and cohesive.
When you factor in the 18 hours of battery life and the $79 price, they seem really good. They won’t win any awards for sound quality, but the Beats Solo Buds are more than good enough for the vast majority of people. These are by far the best truly wireless earbuds under $100 that I’ve tested.
Conclude
Beats is firing on all cylinders right now (and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon). Over the past 13 months, we’ve seen the launch of Beats Studio Buds+, Beats Studio Pro, Beats Solo 4, and now Beats Solo Buds.
While the Studio Buds+, Studio Pro, and Solo 4 were revisions of existing products, the Beats Solo Buds are a whole new product category for Beats – and they hit it out of the park.
Low-cost wireless earbuds sell by the dozen on Amazon, but the Beats Solo Buds set the new standard for the category. For $79, you get Beats’ iconic design language, nearly 18 hours of battery life, deep integration with iOS and Android, and an incredibly compact, pocket-sized design.
What do you think of the current Beats product line? How does it compare to AirPods? Let us know in the comments.
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