The idea of Beats wireless headphones for less than is certainly convincing. So far with the exception of the Beats Flex, which offers an excellent collection of features with good sound quality and a comfortable fit. However, a large part of the competition was interested in offering buds at considerably affordable prices by limiting functionality to the essentials. With the Solo Buds, Beats has its lowest true wireless headphones yet and manages to retain much of its product DNA. But the company had to go back to lower the price. So don’t expect these headphones to delight you with their performance.
Beats Solo Buds
Solo buds cover the basics, but that’s about it. The audio quality is flat unless you are listening to Dolby Atmos content in Apple Music, but at least the headphones are comfortable with a long battery life.
Beats Solo bud design
The Solo Buds have the same headphone design that Beats has preferred for some time. However, a major difference between these and the Studio Buds + is that the Solo Buds are slightly larger to accommodate the larger batteries. The new model still offers the on-board controls on an inclined flat screen, with the company’s “b” brand. The good news is that this form of earphone has always been comfortable to wear for long periods of time and that has not changed here. And despite the closed acoustic architecture of the Solo Buds, additional micro-openings alleviate the feeling of congestion that can afflict headphone wearers after a few minutes of use.
Where the Solo Buds deviate from the previous Beats models, this is the matter. This thing is tiny. In fact, according to the company, it is 40% smaller than the Studio Buds+ cover, which was by no means huge. That’s because Beats removed the battery from the cover. The company claims that this makes the Solo heads more environmentally friendly and that it is one less battery that must go-down over time.
If you are interested in the Clear Version of the Studio Buds+, you are in luck. There is a transparent red Option for Solo buds. But there is also bad news: only the cover is transparent; the buds themselves are opaque
Software and features
As with other current Beats products, all software for iPhone owners is integrated with iOS. On Android, you will need the Beats app to customize the touch controls or download software updates. On both platforms, you can get help with one-touch pairing, Quick pairing, and tracking the location of lost headphones. iOS users benefit from iCloud pairing with other devices, Apple Watch transfers and audio sharing with AirPods and Beats products. On Android, you can automatically pair with any device in your Google account and enjoy multipoint Bluetooth pairing.
Since the Solo Buds only have the most basic features, there is not much else to list. However, the company allows you to reconfigure the press and hold button to adjust the volume. By default, this action calls the voice assistant of your device on both headphones. And that’s really the scale of things. There is no hands-free Siri, no transparency mode, no active noise cancellation (ANC), no wear detection and no support for Apple’s adaptive Equalizer.
