- The AirPods Pros are, in my opinion,
the gold standard for any or wireless earphones.
But that doesn't mean that you should buy them.
Let's expand our horizons today
and take a look at seven alternatives
from the industry's top brands
to find the best option for those of you
who just can't bring yourself to join
the apples zombie army but who also wants something
slightly better than $20 AirPods knockoffs.
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(electric music)
All of our options here share some common features.
So before we pit them against each other
in a battle to the pain.
Let's talk about their similarities.
Every one of these buds has some sort of way to play
and pause music, skip and reverse tracks,
activate an AI assistant of some sort,
and some of them can even adjust their volume.
They also all support at least Bluetooth 5.0,
so you shouldn't have any concerns about either bandwidth
or range when considering one over the other.
Lastly, they all go for at least four hours on a charge
and feature some kind of quick charging
where a few minutes docked in the case
gets you an hour or so of listening time.
Surprisingly, the model with the worst battery life
in the bunch was actually the AirPods Pros
with four and a half hours of music listening time
with ANC enabled, which,
wait, are they not the gold standard?
Our first challenger then is, this one, the Pixel Buds'
the true wireless version.
Not that first gen thing with the cord. Yeah,
Google's second attempt has got great sound isolation
and a full sounding mix and their in-ear feel
is almost as good as the AirPods Pros.
The one thing that sours the feel is the rubber support.
Sometimes you can kind of feel it tickling your ear button.
It kind of seems like someone's trying
to get your attention in a way that is
quite frankly inappropriate, unless it's my wife.
Their on device controls are awesome,
incorporating both taps and swipes for controlling volume,
but they can also be customized via the Pixel Buds App
or directly in Bluetooth settings on Pixel's devices
and there's also some Google perks like, okay, you know,
you know, support and instant translation.
That is definitely not quite as good as in a SyFy movie,
but hey, at $179, they're cheaper than second gen AirPods,
non pros, with the wireless charging case.
On the subject of the case, it's still mini-pocketable,
but it is thicker longer and girthier
than the AirPods Pro case.
And folks, the cases only get worse from here
so strapped on.
Samsung launched the Galaxy Buds Lives earlier this year,
receiving much praise for their unique bean like shape
and that's mostly what they've got going for them.
I mean, okay, look, it's not like they're horrible.
The sound quality is fine.
It's just that the main issue is how the sound quality
fluctuates depending on how you position them in your ears.
So they sound more tinny when they're loosely placed,
you know, kind of flat and then more Bassy
when you push them into the ear canal more.
But that's clearly not what you're supposed to do
because they quickly get uncomfortable.
The beans do not use an in-ear canal design
so they don't achieve the same noise isolation
as our other options but, and this is weird,
Samsung went and built in active noise cancellation
which sort of helps level the playing field
except there's no physical seals.
So obviously a lot of outside sounds still gets in.
Time for our case pocket test.
And, I don't know, it's okay.
A bit thicker than I'd like, that's what she said.
Fortunately, the Galaxy Wear App
is where the beans make up some lost ground.
There's a lot of great options here,
including customizable controls,
a few EQ presets and a Find My Earbuds feature.
But $169. Nice.
An extra $10 for the Pixel Buds
looks like a pretty good deal
if the metallic bean here look, isn't your thing.
Hey, look, you get a girl stuck, go get the giant.
Or, you know, what you could do,
is stick with Samsung and just get their older cheaper
and, in my opinion, universally better option;
the Galaxy Buds Plus.
They've got an in-ear design
and the highest single-charge battery life
out of our whole lineup at 11 hours of music playback. Wow.
The mix has a good amount of bass and mids
and can also be tweaked in app.
And while they don't feel as great in the ears
as the AirPods Pros,
and there's no active noise cancellation
at $149, or even less, depending on where you find them,
they range anywhere from solid value to,
that's a fricking good deal.
But challenging the Buds Plus at the same MSRP
is of course, Samsung's eternal Korean rival, LG.
LG'S Tone Free Earbuds, which they built in collaboration
with UK Hi-Fi company Meridian.
Now, normally I wouldn't mention that kind of
cross branding marketing wenk, but in this case,
the combined effort really shows
because I was impressed with these
in my short circuit unboxing.
The design is very similar to the AirPods Pros
and sure enough, they also feel great in the ear.
Now there's no active noise cancellation
and the mix can be a bit muddy,
but thankfully LG is accompanying App
not only has EQ presets,
but also an eight point custom EQ tool
with the ability to save two custom profiles
which should be absolutely standard.
In fact, Android should just have this built in.
How's that not a thing at this point?
The kicker for the Tone Free Buds
is that the wireless charging case
also disinfects the earbud tips with UV light
when the case is plugged in.
Now these came out during the pandemic, but like right away.
So I'm not sure whether they were planning
this feature already or whether they just
plugged it in there right before they launched it
Either way it's definitely a plus in these trying times
and the case fits nicely in my special pocket.
So far, all of these buds
have been pretty fancy feast though,
costing over $100 each.
Maybe what you're after is a flagship bud killer.
Well that
is not
what the OnePlus Buds are.
But they do only cost $79.
OnePlus his approach here was to apparently
take the Pixel Buds case
and then fill it with an AirPods clone
that frankly is much bigger than a regular AirPods
and doesn't sound that great.
Noise isolation is about what you'd expect
from a non in-ear design
and it also borrows the OGR Pods other weakness
of not fitting great in everyone's ears.
On top of that they do have an App with some customization
but right now it's only available on OnePlus phones.
What the hell were you guys thinking?
But on the other hand they are only $79,
which isn't really that cheap.
So, okay then, let's try going the other way in price
all the way up to the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2s
at $299.
These brought some big improvements
over the first gen model,
including active noise cancellation
and improve battery life.
Unfortunately, the case still doesn't support
wireless charging and they didn't make it or the earbuds
any smaller.
When I unboxed these,
what I had to say about the sound quality was,
Yeah. They're decent out of the box
but they're held up by the EQ customization in the app
that was frankly unused.
Apparently though Sennheiser listened
because now there's a true slider style UI
which really unleashes the quality of Sennheiser hardware
making this a great sounding
but expensive option for the Apple avoiding audio file.
Of course, if avoiding Apple based on
some kind of weird reverse fanboyism, isn't your thing.
Hey, Apple is still an option
and maybe it's still the gold standard.
The AirPods Pros have excellent noise isolation
while still managing to feel super light in your ear
and even if their design sensibility
is really rubbed me the wrong way sometimes,
see exhibit A
and B
other times Apple gets it just so right.
So many in-ears have thick tips
that make you feel like you have
to jam them into your ear canal
but the pros are so lightly just hang there naturally
and there's almost nothing you can do to remove them
if you don't want to.
Beyond that, they have a great neutral sound
that isn't going to blow you out of the water
with its awesomeness, but it also won't draw your attention
because there isn't, say a gaping hole
where the mids are supposed to be.
Furthermore, especially under noisy conditions,
the active noise cancellation,
which can be toggled by long pressing the STEM
helps that sound profile out a lot.
As for the controls on iOS.
Customizability is great and on Android,
well, it can be okay with the assistant trigger App.
And last, but certainly not least.
In fact, it's one of the most important features to me,
the case is a great size.
It's not as small as the regular non-pro AirPods,
but it's still small enough to effortlessly slip
in and out of my little baby pocket.
You're safe now, just dream sweet dreams of lttstore.com.
If the Pros price is a problem,
of course you can stay in Apple land
with the regular AirPods and they're fine, I guess.
But at 199 or 159 without the wireless charging feature
in the case.
Almost all of our alternatives, except you OnePlus,
not you, give us better bang for the buck.
Now the keen among you probably noticed
that we forgot to record part of each product segment
with its integrated microphone.
So check out the link in the video description,
where we will have little microphone samples
that's so that you can be the judge
of which version of your voice you wish to transmit
to your friends and family.
It's possible you're not going to look at it
because you just don't care about the audio quality
on the other end of the line.
But Hey, at least it's there
if you are one of those considerate people.
- [Riley] well, wait a second,
the video's pretty much over and you didn't mention
(static draws the speaker)
- You're right.
There are a ton of other fine options out there.
Like Soundcore, Liberty Air 2s and Sony is WF-1000 XM3s
but we selected these models because we felt
they were a good representation
of what we consider to be a solid combination
of price and performance, reliability,
and extra features and then we also included
the one pro buds (laughs)
So which ones should you get?
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If you guys enjoyed this video,
maybe you'll enjoy a lower priced roundup
where James actually checked out 50,
that is five zero, wireless earbuds
that we bought off Amazon
to see which ones cut the mustard
and which ones firt mustard.
- [Riley] What the heck?