The Sony LinkBuds are weird buds.
They go against the trend of wireless noise canceling earbuds by embracing an open design
where ambient sound is let in, allowing you to hear everything in your surroundings.
After six months of using them, my general feelings towards them are a bit mixed and
let's walk through why that is, who I think these earbuds are actually for, and if in
2022, you can really justify paying $180 US dollars for earbuds that don't have any noise
cancellation.For the past 6 months, the main thing I’ve used my LinkBuds for are phone
and video calls at work because their mic quality is pretty good.
Here's how their mics sound compared to some other common earbuds I have.
Alright, and first we're gonna start off with the Sony LinkBuds.
This is how their mic sound and this is the best they're like, they're probably ever gonna
sound.
I'm in a pretty quiet room right now and I'm recording this on my studio display, not with
the studio displays mics, so these are the LinkBuds mics and then just recording it in
QuickTime.
So let me know how you think their mics sound.
Alright, and these are the brand new Sony LinkBuds S. They're noise canceling earbuds
and this is how their mics sound.
All right, and these are the WF-1000XM4s.
This is how their mics sound.
Let me know what you think, and these are the brand new Google Pixel Buds Pro.
They’re noise canceling earbuds at a great price point.
This is how they're mic sound.
All right and these are of course the classic AirPods second generation.
This is how their mic sound.I’ve also used them occasionally for listening to music in
the background when I want to still need to be able to hear what’s going on around me
Or if I want to make myself available to talk to others in my household, but in general,
these situations are uncommon for me.
Typically I prefer using noise canceling earbuds, especially in noisy environments, because
I don't have to turn up the volume as much as on a pair of earbuds, like the LinkBuds.They
do feature adaptive volume control but I never enable this feature on any earbud because
of health concerns.
Hearing health is something I try to be very conscious of so I don't typically want earbuds
where I have to crank up the volume to a pretty high level just to be able to hear music or
a podcast.
This is why I typically will gravitate towards earbuds that are in ear and have noise cancellation.
Although, there are a lot of people out there I know that don’t like the feeling of noise
cancellation..
If that's you, these buds may be more appealing to you, but I think you should still ask yourself
the question: do you want earbuds that make no effort to block out any outside sound?or
would you prefer something more like the The Google Pixel Buds which are in-ear earbuds
that let in ambient sound, but because of their design, they do attempt to block out
some sound by creating a light seal in your ear.
Now, one thing that may sway your answer to that question is sound quality.The sound quality
on the LinkBuds is decent, but not best-in-class by any stretch and this is due to that open
design, the highs and mids, they're fine.
But because these earbuds have such an open design to them, you're basically going to
lose out on all bass and because of that, I wouldn't really recommend getting the LinkBuds
for just listening to music.
Now when it comes to music controls, the LinkBuds also leave a lot to be desired.
You can go into the Headphones app which Sony uses to control all of their headphones, to
set what you want the double tap on each bud to control, but in a world where other earbuds
like the Pixel Buds Pro and Sony WF-1000XM4s exist and allow you to play, pause, skip tracks,
trigger a phone assistant and turn on and off noise cancellation, the LinkBuds’ limited
control options, leave a lot to be desired.
Another thing that leaves a lot to be desired with the LinkBuds is their case, for $180
dollars, I think anything in this price range should have a case forward to wireless charging,The
LinkBuds case only supports USB-C for charging.
Now, one thing Sony did an excellent job with, with the LinkBuds is comfort.
These earbuds are extremely comfortable.
There are two main reasons for this, one, the earbud’s speaker sits outside of your
ear canal, which is a design that will inherently be more comfortable and second, they include
a stabilizer arc loop that helps the earbuds stay in your ear.
It’s made out of a very flexible elastic material, allowing it to conform to your particular
ear shape and they come in multiple sizes.
I've been able to wear these earbuds for hours and they're very similar in their feeling
to Apple's second generation AirPods.
And that when you put them in, you kind of forget they're in your ears.
The battery life on the LinkBuds is rated for 5.5 hours & 17.5 hours total with the
charging case, And in my experience, 5.5 hours seems about right when I've used these earbuds
though, to be fair, I have not stressed tested these as much as I would another pair of earbuds
because they're not really suited for my needs in terms of day-to-day earbud use.
And this brings me to the obvious downside to using the LinkBuds for normal earbud tasks.
When I want to be able to block out as much background noise as possible, these aren’t
a good choice for that scenario.
and more often than not, I find I want buds that have the ability to block out noise because
it helps me concentrate more on a podcast or even when listening to music in the background
because you’ll pick up on way more detail in your music and I find the experience generally
more relaxing.
So now, let's talk recommendations, who do I think the LinkBuds are for, and do I recommend
them?
And that’s a really hard question to answer because I’m not really sure who these earbuds
are actually for at this price.
They do come with water and sweat resistance, support for the Google and Amazon assistants
and their mic quality and comfort are excellent.
So if you want a pair of buds with great mic quality, they’re great for that.
however, you really have to love not being able to block out any background noise at
all.
If that's you, you're gonna love these.
But if you like me and you want earbuds that have the ability to block out background noise,
have great sound quality, and overall good comfort, the Sony buds I’d recommend are
actually the Sony WF-1000XM4s, which are still my favorite pair of earbuds to use and we’ve
done a review of them if you want to learn more about those that I’ll link here in
the video and in the description below.
But the XM4s, they cost about $100 more than the LinkBuds.
Now, to me, it's been worth it, but if you want something closer to the LinkBuds price
that offers noise cancellation, take a look at the Sony LinkBuds S which were released
a few months ago for $200 US dollars,And we'll have a full review of those earbuds out on
the channel soon, so if you want to see that review, make sure you subscribe to the channel.
So those are my thoughts on the Sony LinkBuds, they’re great for phone and video calls
if you want a comfortable set of buds that don’t block out any noise.
But for anything else, I’d look at another set of buds.
If you're interested in purchasing a pair of the LinkBuds , LinkBuds S, or the WF1000-XM4s,
I've left purchase links here that you can click on in this video and down in the description
below if you'd like to learn more.
If you have any further questions about the LinkBuds or want to share your experience
or opinion with open earbuds versus in-ear and noise cancellation, leave those in a comment
below and hit that thumbs up button if you like this video and found it helpful, and
subscribe to the channel for more 6 Months Later Reviews like this one, including our
upcoming reviews of the Pixel Buds Pro and the Sony LinkBuds S. And if you're looking
for what to watch next, check out some of our other reviews of headphones, earbuds and
speakers by clicking on the playlist to the right.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.