Pixel Earbuds (wired)
So I’ve been looking for a pair of smaller earbuds for a while. My Sony 1000Xs are fantastic, but just too big to be walking outside, requires either a bag or having them round my neck, and the sound isolating isn’t actually a good idea sometimes.
I got a pair of the Anker Soundcore wireless earbuds, but actually it wasn’t right either, I don’t like the in-ear earbud style, it just gives me earache within a few minutes, or jostles around if I use smaller ones. And while battery life was OK, I couldn’t just leave them in jacket pocket, had to remember to charge them.
Anyway Google released these couple of weeks ago, and £30 is a pretty nice price considering the similar hardware to the wireless Pixel Buds.
I’ve only used them a day, but so far, they’re wonderful. (mostly)
The Good
The sound quality is great, the clarity in particular, they’re just lovely to listen to (particularly orchestral pieces).
The little loops that come out the earbuds are adjustable, and help to hook it inside the ear. Actually works very nicely! Haven’t tried running with them so will see how that holds up, but there’s no wobble while walking.
Side benefit to these loops, in the past my earbuds (sennheisers usually) tended to break at the cable connection to the earbud. No chance of that happening here as the cable is looped through.
They’re very light, partly thats the lack of batteries/radios I guess, but it makes them very comfortable to keep in.
The triple button on the right cord has a button for the Assistant, works very quickly and seems to hear well even in noisy environment. I tend not to use it much outside the house, but having it work quickly and reliably might change that.
No charging required so just great to leave in a bag or coat.
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£30 is looking like a really nice price right now.
The Not So Good
Wires.
Still wires.
Yes OK having the wire isn’t great, I’ve already snagged it on door handles walking about.
Its only in white, which while it looks nice wouldn’t have been my first choice, would have been nice to have a black option, easy to keep looking clean.
Very little bass, which doesn’t bother me that much, but a little more would be nice, some music ends up a little flat.
Wires.
The somewhere-in-the-middle
The connector is USB-C. Alright its 2018 and headphone jacks are going, but not everything has the port yet. I can’t use these earbuds at my desk for the PC for example, at least without some interesting dongles. But given my main usage is out and about, this is OK, and better going forwards.
Very little sound-isolation. Now I’m actually OK with this, as my main purpose was to be able to walk around and not be cut off from all other noise. I also didn’t want the in-ear buds that would give better isolation. So again, I’m fine with this, but could be a factor. On a positive note, seems to be very little sound leakage, by comparison to other earbuds.
The End
Yeah these are great! For the price I’ve not heard anything better for a while, so very happy, I can see myself using these a lot for walks and just generally times I don’t want to carry around over-ear headphones.
