Beats Studio Buds
The Beats Studio Buds are Apple’s worst-kept secret at this point. Athletes have been wearing them around town, photos and technical documents about them leaked a month ago – pretty much everyone knew about these earbuds well before their announcement.
And yet, we’re still shocked at just how good they are.
The Beats Studio Buds are rock-solid true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation and support for Apple’s Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos format. They sound great with a lively sound quality that elevates the highs and lows of the audio spectrum and feel supremely comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
That being said, their battery life is a bit short at only five hours (15 hours with the case) and their noise cancellation isn’t exactly class-leading, but overall these are our favorite Beats earbuds in a very long time, and could pose a real threat to the newly crowned king of true wireless earbuds, the Sony WF-1000XM4.
Price and release date
Available to preorder now, with an official release date coming "this summer" – so, anytime between now and the end of August – the Beats Studio Buds will cost $149.99 / £129.99. While Australian pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed, that works out at around AU$190.
Design
Unlike the last true wireless earbuds from Beats, the Beats Powerbeats Pro, the Beats Studio Buds’ case is sleek and small, just like the earbuds themselves. The case is egg-shaped, not unlike the new Google Pixel Buds Series-A, and features a single USB-C port on the bottom and a status LED on the front.
Pop it open and you’ll find the earbuds themselves. To pull them out, you pinch on the outer control panel and pull them up. The control panel is raised and that helps the buds slip firmly into the ear without any over-ear hooks or a fin that pushes against the outer ear. The buds then sit almost flush with the ear and while you won’t be able to wear them to sleep (they stick out a bit too far for that), they’re still supremely comfortable.
Inside the box, all you’ll find are a USB-C to USB-C charging cable and additional eartips. Unfortunately, all of the included eartips are silicone instead of foam – and they only come in two extra sizes – but you should have everything you need to get a proper seal.
Beats designed the Studio Buds to work with both Apple and Android phones with just a tap. All you need to do is open the case near either device, and you’ll see them pop up on your screen and will be ready to pair. According to Beats, the Buds are using Bluetooth 5.2 and support both Find My in iOS and Find My Device in Android. That’s good because the earbuds themselves are pretty small and, if you get the all-black color, can be pretty easy to misplace if they accidentally drop behind the bed… not that we’re speaking from experience.
Performance
Once you’ve got the right fit, it’s time to turn the earbuds on and give them a listen. For our testing, we paired them with an iPhone 11 Pro and turned on Apple Music that now supports Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio.
While you won’t be able to get the full effect of Lossless Audio with the Buds (Bluetooth compression ruins the lossless nature of the music) you can still use them to play songs with Spatial Audio and that sounds great. Unlike previous Beats earbuds and headphones that blasted you with thumping bass, the Studio Buds have a very lively sound quality that elevates both the high and low end of the mix. The result is toe-tapping, head-bobbing music that doesn’t fatigue you but engages you for long periods at a time.
As for the noise cancelling aspect of the earbuds, it’s a great inclusion and performs moderately well – but Beats still has some work to do to catch up with the likes of Sony and Bose, each of whom has years of experience tinkering with the design, processor and noise cancellation algorithm to make the Buds keep the maximum amount of noise out of your ears.
To that end, it feels like the Studio Buds will be a great office companion – keeping the dull roar of office conversation to a minimum, but likely struggling to be heard over the jet engine on an airplane or the ear-shaking rattles of a New York City subway car. Of course, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s been awhile since we’ve been on either so that’s something we’ll have to put to the test before we give the Buds a final verdict.
The other slight issue we see with the Studio Buds is that the battery life leaves something to be desired. They’re only good for 5 hours per charge and 15 hours with the case. That’s not awful and certainly falls in line with other noise cancelling earbuds, but it falls short of class leaders like the WF-1000XM4 that offers eight hours per charge and another 12 in its case for a total of 20 hours before needing to go back on the charger. They also don’t support wireless charging, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but can be a minor inconvenience if you already have a charging pad setup for your other devices.
The good news is that the Studio Buds do support fast-charging and can be stocked up with one-hour of playback time from just five minutes on the charger.
Early verdict
From the limited time we’ve spent with them, the Beats Studio Buds have proven to be a consistently reliable and comfortable pair of true wireless earbuds. Their fun, lively sound quality and support for Spatial Audio has made them our go-to earbuds for listening to Apple Music for the last week and a half, and they seem to hold up pretty well to the class-leading Sony WF-1000XM4. Their cross-platform support for both Android and iOS is surprisingly wonderful and we appreciate the inclusion of active noise cancellation – even if Beats still has some work to do in that area.
The battery life could be better and you’ll have to make sure you don’t lose the tiny little buds, but otherwise we’re really enjoying our time with the new Beats Studio Buds – and think you will too.
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