(upbeat music)
- So the Pixel Buds A-Series,
the cheapest ones right now, cost $69.
Nice, but the old retired 2020 Pixel Buds,
before they stopped being sold, were $179.
And I really like them. I reviewed them.
I thought they were nice,
but they did lack active noise cancellation,
and so they sort of fell a tiny step
behind the most premium, best wireless earbuds
that were out.
And so I mentioned this at the end of my review,
this is exactly what I said...
Maybe later they'll do some next-gen
or a more premium Pixel Buds Pro,
and they'll be 279,
and they'll do noise cancellation
and a bigger battery.
And it turns out,
well, that's exactly what we have here.
This is Pixel Buds Pro,
active noise cancellation,
larger battery, except they're only 199.
And actually if you're cool with any color
other than coral,
they're literally already on sale on Amazon
for less than the price of the last Pixel Buds.
So just to get it out the way right off the top,
these have nailed it
from every single turn,
from the case to the fit,
to the sound, to the features.
You can probably just close this video right now
and just pick up these.
But don't do that,
because then you'd ruin the watch time on this video.
And then that's no fun.
So how about I take you along
and I show you why these are so good.
So first of all,
the case that these come in is basically the same as before,
which is to say, underrated.
Like, so many wireless headphones
have annoyingly thick or larger cases,
this is a nice compact, clean, well made case.
Sure, the white might get a little dirty after a while,
but it's got this super satisfying magnet
to open and close.
It is IPX2 splash resistant as a case,
and it has a USBC port at the bottom,
but also has wireless charging,
so you can pop it on any Qi wireless charger
you already have,
or on the back of your phone,
if it supports power sharing.
And that's all in a package
that fits in the coin pocket in my jeans.
An all-around absolute win in the case.
But it's what's inside the case that we're here for.
And the Pixel Buds Pro have this new shape to them.
They're mostly a matte black plastic
and they have a sort of colored cap at the end
that's either fog colored,
which is what I have,
it's kind of a light blue,
or coral, a yellowish green or black.
So just like any other wireless earbuds,
you pop them out the case,
you give 'em a quarter twist
to lock them into your ears.
And while they don't stick outta my ears too bad,
like maybe the Sony WF-1000XM4s.
It isn't the lowest profile I've ever seen either.
It's somewhere in between just a little bit bigger
than the last Pixel Buds.
But the main difference for me
is these don't have the wing tips anymore.
The wing tips had their upside and a downside.
The upside is they would absolutely
stay locked in my ear much better.
I could run around and jump
and they wouldn't fall out.
But the tip of it,
when it was in my ear
for more than about an hour or two,
would create this pressure point
that would get more uncomfortable over time.
And I didn't really like that too much.
So these don't have that anymore,
which means they're not quite as locked in my ear,
but they are more comfortable.
Of course, earbuds are different for everybody.
And when I switched to the larger earbud tips,
like they really do still stay in my ear fine
for walking around,
normal everyday activities,
and things like that,
but yeah, that's worth noting.
Honestly, I think this is the right move.
Also, the buds themselves are IPX4 rated.
So if you still wanna work out in them,
they're sweat-proof,
but I just probably won't.
So once it's paired up and these are in your ears,
there are a lot of different features in here
thanks to the Pixel Buds app,
but I'm just gonna start with the sound.
You just listen to music,
how do they sound?
And I think these sound really, really good.
Now, I'll spare you the bunch of descriptors
and audiophile terms that I could use,
just to tell you, basically,
I really like the sound
from these new 11-millimeter drivers.
Once you get a nice seal in your ear,
you can tell they're really crisp and clear.
They aren't too shrill or tinny.
They don't distort very much.
And the noise cancellation does a great job
of getting rid of white noise.
And there's basically no perceivable Bluetooth lag
at all when watching videos or gaming.
There's just two slightly odd things that I noticed.
One, these just have a much stronger base
than the last Pixel Buds.
I kind of noted that as a weakness
in the previous Pixel Buds review.
They were a little bit weak on the base, not these.
The base on these is so much stronger and punchier
and just a more full low end,
that it's a real character highlight.
So hip hop music,
anything with a lot of that lower end frequency
sounds really good,
but in podcasts, or other genres,
or just things where I don't need all that base,
I was looking for an EQ to even that out.
But the Pixel Buds app doesn't have EQ,
and the Pixel phone also doesn't have an EQ.
I actually got a Bud's firmware update
while I was testing these.
And I thought it was about to add an EQ
in the sound settings,
but all it added was this volume EQ setting,
which basically just makes things a little punchier
at lower volumes.
So if you do specifically
want to adjust the sound signature of these,
maybe your phone has EQ settings built-in.
Some of them do.
Maybe the app you're using for audio
has EQ settings built-in, some of them do.
But yeah, Pixel Buds themselves
don't have EQ built-in yet,
and neither does a Pixel phone.
But Google has, thankfully,
said that there is a full five-band EQ
coming later this year, hopefully soon.
But then the second thing I noticed
is these also have a slightly lower overall volume
than any other buds I've tested in a while.
It's not problematically low,
but I did find myself
almost always listening either right below max volume
or two to three notches below the max volume,
because that was the comfortable listening level.
Usually max volume is way too loud
for more than a few seconds
of listening on most earbuds,
but not here.
It feels like the bottom 40% of the volume slider
is basically useless.
I can barely hear anything that's that low.
But yeah, I am definitely impressed
by how little distortion there is,
and how clear and thumpy
and great it sounds at or near max volume,
so that's worth noting.
Every pair of noise canceling earbuds
shall have a Transparency Mode,
at least seems like they all should.
It's like an unwritten rule of these things.
Yeah, these have Transparency Mode
built into the Pixel Buds Pro,
and it's okay.
It's gonna let in sound from the microphones
and pump in your ambient noise,
so you can hear what's around you,
but it's not the best.
I guess, AirPods are still in a league of their own
when it comes to this,
but I'd rate these Transparency Mode like a B-minus.
Basically it's better than leaving 'em off,
but it certainly still sounds muffled.
And I'm hoping stuff like this
gets better in the future.
I hope they can push firmware updates
to also improve Transparency Mode.
But the Pixel Bud's real advantage to me
is still definitely the software
and all the features that are built-in.
I still love having Google Assistant
like a hold away or a tap away
anytime I wanna ask a question.
I literally just hold it down and say,
"How tall is the Taj Mahal?"
It's like a superpower.
I can just start opening light shades
and turning on smart lamps and things,
and just, yeah, Assistant everywhere is great.
And in the Pixel Buds app,
in the settings,
you can customize what a tap and hold on each side does.
So right now I have the right side hold
to trigger the assistant,
but the left side hold
toggles between noise cancellation and Transparency Mode.
Pretty much every pair of earbuds nowadays
also has some sort of touch controls
on the outside for your media.
These are no different.
It's touch once to play,
touch two times to skip forward,
three times to go back.
The one thing I couldn't quite get to work as smoothly
as I'd like is swiping to change volume.
These, they're just not a big enough surface
for me to reliably get a good swipe in.
I kept trying to do it,
but this was like the most inconsistent thing for me.
Basically I just end up wobbling it
around in my ear.
It works sometimes,
but again, it's not a big surface,
so what I ended up doing is I just end up
reaching in my pocket
and blindly like changing the volume
on the volume rocker on the phone in my pocket,
which turned out to actually be totally fine,
as long as my phone is on me.
And there's a bunch of other features too,
multi-device support,
so these buds are paired to both my phone
and my laptop at the same time,
and seamlessly switch back and forth,
as advertised, no problem.
I love that.
And then they have a Find My Device feature
in case they get lost.
They have in-ear detection
to automatically play and pause when you take them out
and put 'em back in.
And they even have this ear tip seal check feature,
which analyzes how well the microphones
are actually canceling out sound for you.
And if it's not working so well,
it can recommend a different size ear tip
to improve the seal, it's smart.
The only thing missing might be the adaptive sound feature,
which listens to your environment,
and then automatically bumps up the volume
when your environment gets louder.
I didn't really use that very much,
but I noticed it wasn't here,
so that isn't in the Pixel Buds Pro.
But it's also apparently coming.
Other than that, it's not really missing anything.
These have every feature
that I'm used to having with earbuds.
And the cherry on top
is they did, also, with this slightly larger body,
improved battery life.
So you're gonna get seven hours
of actual listening with active noise cancellation on,
which is far longer than I would ever listen to earbuds.
That's up to you if you wanna do that.
11 hours with ANC off.
That's a huge advantage.
So for 199, should you just get these?
Probably, yeah.
I mean, this is easy to recommend.
There are some other options out there,
so around this price you're looking at...
You could definitely get AirPods,
if you're into that,
but you can also look towards,
if you specifically want better sound,
there are better sounding earbuds,
but also something like Samsung's new Buds2
or Pro, they're 229.
I haven't gotten the chance to hear them yet,
because they just came out
and Samsung didn't send me any,
but I imagine,
considering how good the previous ones were,
that those might also be really good.
And then also,
as far as like working out in headphones
or fit in the ear,
I still prefer a wing tip in the ear
for actual workout stuff,
so like Beats Fit Pro,
Beats Studio Buds,
those types of things stay in my ear better.
So worth considering that stuff.
But as far as like everyday buds,
you put 'em in your ear every day,
you take meetings on them, phone calls,
you walk around with them,
you just have 'em on all the time,
Google Assistant's your superpower,
yeah, these are great.
These are the ones I'm gonna put in my backpack
and keep around with me everywhere I go.
Well done, Google.
Thanks for making these.
Please push that EQ feature.
I'm gonna be waiting for it.
Thanks for watching,
catch you in the next one, peace.
(upbeat music)