realme launched the Buds Air 5 Pro, its latest true wireless earbuds, in India today, as the enhanced version of last year’s Buds Air 3. This improves the ANC, adds dual-drivers, LDAC support and also offers improved battery life. So, are these the best true wireless earbuds with ANC under Rs. 5000? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box contents
- realme Buds Air 5 Pro in Astral Black colour
- Ear tips in Small and Large sizes (Medium pre-installed)
- USB Type-C cable
- User guide and warranty information
Design and Build
Starting with the design, the headset comes in a round charging case that fits in your pocket. You can see the charge indicator on the front. The case that is made of plastic is shiny, attracts fingerprints and is prone to scratches.
The black version that we have doesn’t get dirty easily, but Sunrise Beige might get dirty easily. It has a compact body. There is a function key on the right side and USB Type-C port is on the bottom, same as the buds Air 3.
Coming to the earbuds, the headset has a plastic finish that is shiny, so it is prone to fingerprints and scratches. Wish it had a matte finish. The earbuds have a light-weight design.
These feature an in-ear design and also come with medium-sized ear tips pre-installed. You can change to bundled Large or Small sized ear tips if you wish. There is an Optical Sensor for Wear Detection so that it can automatically pause the audio when you remove it from your ears and play when you put it back. There is 1 feedforward and 1 feedback microphone for noise cancellation, better than the Buds Air 3.
On the back, there is a touch-sensitive area on the outer surface, to control play/pause, open Google Assistant and attend or disconnect calls. Overall, the headset and the case have decent build quality for the price.
The earbuds fit your ears perfectly so that they don’t fall off your ears easily, even when running or cycling. The earphones also have IPX5 water resistance rating to prevent splash, rain, and sweat in everyday use scenarios.
Connectivity, Pairing, and Controls
The realme Buds Air 3 supports Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC Hi-res audio codec that you rarely see in the price range. The pairing process is very easy, simply press and hold the function button on the case for 3 seconds until the status light blinks white, this means that the headset is now ready to be paired to a device. Now open the Bluetooth settings on the phone, and it shows up as realme Buds Air 5 Pro, and you can connect to it. As soon as the connection is established, the blinking LED should go off. You can take the earbuds out of the case and start using.
Since it has Google pairing mode that supports compatible phones, it automatically pairs to the phone when you bring the case with the headset close to the phone with Bluetooth turned on. We tested it on the OnePlus Nord CE 3 5G, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5, and never faced any pairing related issue. Since the phone pairs with the case and not the headset, you will need the case if you want to reconnect it.
This also brings dual-device connection that lets you connect to two devices at the same time, and the switch happens seamlessly when I tried it on a laptop and the phone. When you get a call on the phone, it automatically switches to it, and when you play audio on the laptop after the call, it switches to it. This is a useful feature, but you have to enable this feature in the app.
The touch controls are easy to access.
| Function | Left earphone (L) | Right earphone (R) |
| Play / Pause audio, Answer call / Hang calls | Double tap | |
| Reject calls | Long press 2s during calls | |
| Next or previous track | Triple tap | |
| Switch between normal, ANC and Transparency Mode | Long press, one of the earbuds for 2s | |
The headset has Smart wear detection that can sense when they’re in the ear and automatically pause the music when taken out and resume when you put back. Also, for a better wearing experience, when you take one earbud off, the other will automatically switch to Transparency mode. This is useful.
You can customize the controls from the settings in the realme Link app on Android and iPhone. You can change actions for the double tap, triple tap, touch and hold one bud and also touch and hold both the earbuds easily, but there is no option for volume control.
Audio Quality
The realme Buds Air 5 Pro packs a 11mm dynamic driver and a 6mm planar diaphragm tweeter covering an ultra-wide frequency range of 20-40KHz.
The 11mm bass driver has a 100% high purity diaphragm with ultra-high resilience and high transient response, offering an effective 30% boost in low frequencies compared to Buds Air 3, and the N52 magnet offers ultra-high sensitivity that brings a 50% boost in driving power compared to the Buds Air 3.
The 6mm micro-planar tweeter has dual N52 magnets and 25µm ultra-thin planar diaphragm and flat coil. This offers high frequencies of up to 40KHz through advanced planar diaphragm technology and new PEI+PEN composite materials, with every detail of the singer’s voice cavity rendered in fine detail.
The LDAC HD transmission protocol with Hi-Res authority certification, offers up to 96kHz sampling rate and 990kbps transmission code rate, for an enhanced listening experience. There is an option to enable it in the app, which worked without any issued.
The audio quality is crisp with clear vocals and good amount of bass that is punchy. Highs are good, but the mid-range is average.
You can select different EQ modes – Serenade, Original Sound, Pure Bass and Deep bass. Golden Sound lets you customize the audio based on the ear canal and hearing characteristics. If the bass is not enough, there is dynamic bass, and there is volume enhancer as well.
For the first time, realme has enabled Spatial Audio in the earbuds. This works with multi-channel audio formats on YouTube, Google TV or simple dual-channel audio.
It doesn’t have head tracking that the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 has, so the Spatial Audio feature works on all the devices.
Noise Cancellation and Call Performance
Regarding the Noise cancellation, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) blocks the ambient sound that helps in most cases. You can feel the difference when you are listening outdoors. For the price, it does a great job. Compared to 42dB ANC in Buds Air 3, this offers 50dB ANC, and also has 4000Hz Ultra-Wide Frequency ultra-deep personalized ANC.
There is personalized ANC that scans the ear canal and offers a suitable audio. There are Smart, Max, Moderate and Mild modes. The Smart noise cancellation option works well in blocking the noise depending on the noise outside. The quality is good for the price.
This also has Transparency mode that allows you to listen to ambient sound so that you can recognize the surrounding situation and any potential risks. It can turn on the transparency mode automatically when you remove a single earbud. The low-latency is now as low as 40ms compared to 88ms in the predecessor. This useful when gaming.
Coming to the call noise cancellation, it uses beamforming noise reduction technology, realme’s deep neural network learning (DNN) algorithm and three ENC microphones on each earbud to cut external noise. This does a good job in cutting down wind and traffic noise. During my use outdoors, the voice was clear, and wind noise was complete cut out to the receiver, but the traffic noise was faintly audible.
Battery Life
The earphones pack 60mAh battery that promises about 10 (AAC without ANC) / 7 (AAC with ANC) and 5h (LDAC without ANC) standalone battery life. During my use with LDAC, I got about 4 and half hours with mixed use of with and without noise cancellation in about 60% volume, so it is decent.
It also has fast charging support, which offers up to 7 hours of music playback (Case and Buds) on a 10-minute charge. This is way better than the Buds Air 3.
With the 460mAh charging case, same as the Buds Air 3, it promises up to 40 hours of total battery life without ANC and 28 hours of total battery life with noise cancellation enabled in AAC and 20 hours with LDAC. The green light in the case indicates that the battery is full, and when it turns red, it is low.
You can also see the charge left in the case in the realme Link app when the earbuds are placed in the case. Charging the case fully take about 2 hours, and charging the earbuds fully takes about an hour. The charging case doesn’t have wireless charging, which is fine considering the price.
Conclusion
Overall, realme Buds Air 5 Pro is a value for money true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC), dual drivers, and LDAC support under Rs. 5000.
It retains the has dual-device connectivity, and the battery life has also been improved compared to the predecessor. It still doesn’t have the volume control option from the earbuds, and still has a glossy case.
Priced at Rs. 4,999, it will be available from Amazon.in, Flipkart, realme.com and offline stores starting from August 29th. There is a cheaper Buds Air 5 model with a single driver and no LDAC support, but it still comes with 50dB ANC at Rs. 3699.
Pros
- Good audio quality with dual drivers, LDAC support
- Dual-device connectivity
- Good call quality
- Better ANC compared to Buds Air 3
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Glossy case is prone to scratches
- No volume control option