The OnePlus Buds Pro is the company's latest pair of wireless earbuds. It's the first model in their range to feature active noise cancellation and is a take on the Apple AirPods Pro, albeit at a much lower price. $149, in fact, which puts them on par with the likes of the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Buds 2.

OnePlus Buds Pro Full Reviews 2021

But while Apple and Samsung are no strangers to this game, this is OnePlus' first foray into the somewhat premium portion of the wireless audio market, having made only entry-level models up to this point.

To their credit, the OnePlus Buds Pro come with a lot of features, including adaptive noise cancellation, transparency mode, a sound ID feature that customizes the sound to your hearing, water-resistance for the buds and the case, wireless charging, and even a white noise mode for relaxation.

Having features is one thing but executing them effectively is another matter altogether. So today we'll be taking a look at how well the OnePlus Buds Pro perform in real-life conditions, including testing all of their features and audio quality.

OnePlus Buds Pro Packaging Reviews

The OnePlus Buds Pro packaging is unremarkable. Apart from the earbuds, you get three sets of silicone ear tips in three sizes and a short USB-C charging cable.

OnePlus Buds Pro Design Reviews

The OnePlus Buds Pro have a really attractive design for the earbuds and the case. The case is compact and roughly the size and shape of a box of mints. It features a smooth matte texture with the OnePlus logo embossed on the top.

There are no other markings or text on the exterior. The only thing else you'll find on the outside is a small LED on the front and a USB-C port on the back for charging.

The interior of the case continues the matte finish with only the depression for the earbuds having a glossy finish. If you look underneath the lid, then you'll find all the unsightly regulatory markings hidden within the depression for the earbuds.

Inside the case, you'll also find the button for pairing placed between the two earbuds.

Interestingly, while the matte finish on the exterior of the case is surprisingly smudge-resistant, the matte plastic on the inside gets stained quite easily.

The earbuds themselves are also quite stylish. They feature a two-tone design that includes matte plastic on top and glossy plastic below. It's quite a striking design and even though the general shape is similar to the AirPods Pro, the overall appearance is quite distinctive and attractive. More so than the AirPods Pro, I'd say.

Apart from the Matte Black variant pictured here, the OnePlus Buds Pro also come in Glossy White.

The OnePlus Buds Pro have ingress protection for both the earbuds as well as the case. The earbuds have an IP55 rating, meaning they are protected against dust and water. The case, meanwhile, has an IPX4 rating, which should protect it against splashes of water.

For the most part, the build quality, fit, and finish of the earbuds and the case are quite good. However, the lid of the case was a bit loose on our review unit and rocked side to side when closed.

Comfort

During my testing, I found the OnePlus Buds Pro to be comfortable to use for extended periods. The size and shape of the earbuds made them sit for hours without poking or putting undue stress on any part of the ear. I would have no issue wearing these over long flights or while binge-watching content.

OnePlus Buds Pro Hardware Reviews

The OnePlus Buds Pro are pretty small at 3.2cm x 2.32cm and weigh just 4.35g, which contributes a lot to their comfort. Inside is a single 11mm dynamic driver with a 20-20,000Hz frequency range.

Interestingly, the earbuds can reach 102dB of SPL in India whereas they are limited to 98dB in other markets. This is apparently due to restrictions in several other countries regarding how loud headphones can be. Our review unit here is the Indian model, which means I have access to the full volume range, and no one can stop me from destroying my ears.

The OnePlus Buds Pro support active noise cancelation, which is achieved using three microphones placed around each earbud. More on this later.

The earbuds also have pressure-sensitive stalks that can be squeezed to trigger various functions. You can squeeze once to play/pause, twice to go to the next track, and thrice by default to the previous track. The triple squeeze gesture can be customized to also launch the voice assistant instead.

OnePlus Buds Pro Performance Reviews

Audio

In terms of tonality, the OnePlus Buds Pro have a fairly typical v-shaped sound signature. There is a significant emphasis on the bass and treble regions of the sound with a laidback mid-range presentation.

The OnePlus Buds Pro have a pretty substantial bass response. There is a wideband boost applied across the first few hundred hertz of the frequency range, which results in a very bass-forward sound.

The bass on the OnePlus Buds Pro lacks articulation and detail and just comes across as overpowering. There's often a distinct rumble present in the sound, which can be desirable in video content but tends to be overwhelming and distracting in music. Depending upon your choice of music, it can also be fatiguing after some time

The mid-range is more laidback and dialed down in comparison. The lower mid-range has a decent body, but it loses steam as it moves up the frequency ladder. Upper mids are much more suppressed in comparison, which causes the vocals to be pushed back a bit in the overall mix.

The treble response starts with this downward trajectory, as the lower treble also has some of the laid-back characteristics of the mid-range, which results in a more relaxed and less shouty vocal presentation.

However, as we go further up the frequency range, the treble tends to spike up aggressively, resulting in a sharp rise in sibilance. Audio content with heavy use of 's' and 't' sounds can get quite overbearing, and the hiss of the treble can also be distracting.

The overall tonality of the OnePlus Buds Pro is rather brash and garish. The bass and treble dominate the sound so much, the mid-range gets drowned out a bit. It also makes the sound quite fatiguing to listen to over extended periods.

In terms of technicalities, the detail retrieval was pretty average, despite the wide bandwidth of LHDC. Imaging performance was admittedly quite good, but the soundstage was narrow and unremarkable.

What are the OnePlus Buds Pro specs?

The headline feature here, of course, is ANC although the first letter stands for 'adaptive' rather than the usual 'active'.

OnePlus says the adaptive noise cancelling system "intelligently drowns out unwanted sound frequencies in real time, such as environmental noise or chatter, adjusting the level of noise cancellation accordingly

Using a triple mic setup on each earbud, the Buds Pro can reduce noise by up to 40dB with three modes - Faint, Smart and Extreme - and there's also mechanical design to reduce wind noise and noise reduction for phone calls.

The OnePlus Buds Pro feature large 11mm dynamic drivers with Dolby Atmos support for virtual surround sound. There's also something called OnePlus Audio ID which the firm says is a "carefully calibrated sound profile that caters to user-specific sound sensitivities."

This appears to work in a similar way to Nuraphone and NuraLoop by playing tones to map your personal hearing. ZenMode Air offers five different types of white noise for times when you need to focus, relax or maybe even sleep.

Despite the affordable price, the Buds Pro offer long battery life and can last up to 38 hours when combined with the charging case. The firm says a 10-minute charge will give you 10 hours of usage thanks to Warp Charge tech and the case has Qi-certified wireless charging, too.

Other specs include Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity and a Pro Gaming mode offering latency as low as 94ms (when connected to OnePlus phones). They are available in Matte Black or Glossy White and have customisable touch controls along with an IP55 waterproof rating.

OnePlus Buds Pro sound quality

The AirPods Pro have decent but not great sound, so it wasn't surprising that the OnePlus Buds Pro sounded a little better than the AirPods Pro. They use 11mm drivers, according to OnePlus, and I thought they sounded cleaner, with slightly more definition in the bass and better overall clarity.

The companion app for the Buds Pro is called, for better or worse, HeyMelody. In the app, you can do an Audio ID test to create a sound profile based on your hearing (in fact, you can do multiple tests). I prefer to manually make my own EQ tweaks, but it's there for you to try out and you may find you like the custom auto-tuned setting preferable to the default setting. The app also lets you handle firmware upgrades for the headphones.

The AirPods Pro may sound a tad more open, but the OnePlus were close in terms of the size of their soundstage, and they're pleasant to listen to overall. However, sound-wise, they're just not up there with the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds, which deliver bigger, bolder and slightly more refined sound with a bigger soundstage. You can hear the difference on a track like Silk Sonic's Leave The Door Open. It sounds good on the OnePlus but comes across with more energy and kick on the Sony. That said, the OnePlus Buds Pro measure up well against buds in the $150 range for sound. They're also lighter and smaller than the Sony buds and potentially more comfortable for some people.

OnePlus says the Buds Pro support the high-definition LHDC audio codec (Android devices only), but it wasn't supported on the Pixel 4 XL I was using along with a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. "Among OnePlus phone models, said feature shall be limited to the OnePlus 9 Pro/9, devices scheduled for upgrade to the next OxygenOS version within 2021 via OTA and subsequent smartphone releases," OnePlus says, adding that Nord will not support LHDC. There's no AptX support, so most people will stream using the widely compatible AAC codec.

Excellent voice-calling performance

While audio codecs and which features (including Dolby Atmos) are supported by which devices can be confusing, one thing is clear: The Buds Pro are good for making voice calls. I made calls from the streets of New York and in a gym with music playing in the background and callers said they could barely hear any background noise as my voice came through clearly. For calls, these are among the better buds I've used. Alas, they don't offer multipoint Bluetooth pairing, which would allow you to pair them with two devices, such as a phone and PC, simultaneously and switch the audio between them. However, OnePlus says it's working on adding that feature with a future firmware update (I'll update this review if it does).