Along with the flagship OnePlus 11, the company has already upgraded its premium earbud offering with the OnePlus Buds Pro 2. I’ve had it plugged it for about three weeks now and here’s whether it made me dance to its tunes!

Design

The case is light and compact, with a minimal logo and ‘Dynaudio’ branding on top. The USB-C port is at the back whereas the indicator light is at the front as a signpost for pairing and charging. 

The earbuds are lightweight too and I think are definitely one of the most comfortable in-ear buds I’ve used over the last year. Even with 4-5 hour streaming binges, there’s very little discomfort with the Buds Pro 2 plugged in.

Sound quality

Google Fast Pair works snappily with each new device I connect the buds to. So, no sweat there. 

I turn on some Spotify and find that the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 mostly has a well-balanced sound profile. It’s a little partial to high notes and trebles across tracks, which is something you won’t find on many earphones. Whether that’s a desirable quality or not depends on what kind of sound profile you prefer as a listener. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t exactly underplay the bass. The Dynaudio default equaliser and the three presets - Bold, Serenade, and Bass - all do agood job of offering alternate acoustic preferences. 

Spatial Audio

The OnePlus Buds Pro 2 has adopted Google’s signature spatial audio function developed for Android 13. And I wish I had something nice to write about this but I don’t. Switching on the Fixed spatial mode tilts the entire soundtrack to being louder and treble-heavy, and quite unpleasantly so. The effect can be a bit jarring and higher-end TWS options such as the Apple Airpods Pro and the Samsung Buds2 Pro do a much better job of creating the spatial sound effect. 

While OnePlus has managed to get a fancy collab with the composer extraordinaire, Hans Zimmer, the specially created ‘Soundscape’ is yet to be a part of the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 device/app (at the time of writing). The company says users need to wait for an OTA upgrade on this one.

Call quality

On Zoom calls taken both from home and a quiet workplace, I was told my voice was clear on the other side. I also didn’t hear many complaints when I took calls while out and about. 

Noise cancellation 

The OnePlus Buds Pro 2 features a “smart adaptive” noise cancellation function, eliminating ambient noise up to 48dB. To give you an example, conversations at home or a quiet, non-chatty workplace might register at around 50 dB. The OnePlus Buds Pro 2 actually does a pretty decent job of drowning out chatter and the loud buzz of the metro that I take every day. 

There’s a transparency mode that accompanies any noise cancellation TWS earbud and does its job well of letting ambient sound in.

App Quality

There are some customisations I can make through the app. 

I can use a quick squeeze only to play/pause on both buds. A double-squeeze can be customised to navigate tracks, trigger the voice assistant or have a game mode on. The same goes for a triple-squeeze. 

Battery life 

This one day when I was supposed to be finishing this article, I went on a YouTube & Spotify nostalgia music binge instead. The buds went on for almost 4-5 hours of continuous playback and still had some residual charge left. In the three weeks that I’ve been using them, they haven’t really died on me despite not being plugged in religiously every couple of days or so. A full-charged charging case is good for three cycles of charge for the earbuds. 

Verdict

At this price range, the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 is one of the best TWS buds for users of Android devices. The only gripe I have is the spatial audio could have been more well-rounded and resonant instead of being heavy on the treble.  

Price - ₹11,999

Pros - Decent sound quality, long battery life, effective noise cancellation 

Cons - No on-device volume controls, spatial sound effects could be better

Published on February 17, 2023