POCO launched the POCO Buds X1, the company’s latest true wireless earbuds, in India earlier this week. The main highlight of the earbuds are the lightweight design, 46dB Hybrid ANC and long battery of up to 38 hours with the case. Is it worth the price of Rs. 1699? Let us find out.
Box Contents
- POCO Buds X1 in Titanium colour
- Ear tips in Small and Large sizes (Medium pre-installed)
- User manual
Design and Build quality
The charging case has an oval-shaped box that has a matte finish that feels nice to hold and doesn’t attract fingerprints and is not prone to scratches easily. The POCO branding is present on the back. You can see the LED indicator on the front, which only glows in white colour.
The USB Type-C port is on the bottom, along with a pairing button. The charging case measures 57 x 55.9 x 26.8mm and weighs 38.5 grams, making it compact and light-weight, so you can carry it in your pocket.
Opening the case, you can see the slots for buds, and they don’t fall off easily.
Similar to the case, the headset also has a plastic finish, but has a glossy finish throughout, so it is prone to fingerprints. You can see mics on the bottom and vent on the top. The earbuds measure 31 x 21.4 x 23.45mm and weigh about 4.2 grams. These feature an in-ear design, and it doesn’t fall out of your ears when running, cycling or during strenuous workouts.
On the bottom there are charging contact points. It doesn’t have sensors for in-ear detection, so you will have to use the touch controls for play/pause. The earphones also have IP54 ratings for dust and water resistance so that it can withstand splashes or light rain, but you can’t immerse in the water.
There are touch controls on the back of both the earbuds that lets you control play or pause or skip music, launch voice assistant and accept or reject calls. The touch area is on the top, and lets you access it easily.
Connectivity, Pairing, and Controls
It has Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC and AAC audio codecs. The pairing process is very easy, just remove the buds from the case, and the lights blink to show it is in pairing mode. Enable the Bluetooth function on your device, and select the ‘POCO Buds X1’ and connect. It also has Google Fast pair support. I didn’t face any connectivity issues during my use with the realme 13 Pro+ and OnePlus Nord 4. You can switch between multiple devices, but doesn’t let you connect to two devices at the same time.
The earbuds turn on when you remove them from the case. You just need to place the buds in the case to turn them off. To save power, it turns off automatically when it is not connected to any device for 10 minutes.
This lets you skip tracks, switch between noise cancellation modes, and adjust volume – all with a tap. The controls can be customised in the Xiaomi Earbuds app on Android and iOS.
| Function | Left earbud (L) | Right earbud (R) |
| Play / pause, Answer a call | Double tap | |
| Next song | Triple tap | |
| Switch noise cancellation modes | Press and Hold | |
Volume control is disabled by default, but you can customise them with the app. You can change actions for single tap, double tap and triple tap. Tap and hold is set for noise control, but you can change them to voice assistance.
Audio Quality
The POCO Buds X1 packs 12.4mm dynamic drivers with a titanium-plated polymer. This can handle high, and middle frequencies well, but low frequency audio or bass is a bit low, which you can manage with EQ.
You can enhance treble, bass and voice in audio effects option, and there is also a manual EQ mode. Wish it had multiple custom EQ options. Since these are loud, it is good even in 50% volume. However, there is audio leaking issue, so others can hear the music in high volume.
Noise Cancellation and Call Performance
Regarding the Noise cancellation, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) blocks the ambient sound up to 46dB. It does a good job in cancelling noise. You can switch between noise cancellation, transparency and no noise cancellation with tap and hold gesture.
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. There is no separate low-latency gaming mode, but the company says that it has 60ms low latency.
Coming to the call noise cancellation, they excel in calls with dual microphones and AI noise reduction, even in windy conditions to cut out wind up to 6m/s to ensure crisp, clear calls.
The company said that the AI call noise cancellation has been trained with 2200 hours of voice data from different dialects, different genders. It also said that it has noise data close to about 1000 hours that is trained on subway voices, railways, you know, cross junctions, and added that it has done close to about 20 hours of data on wind noises, varying from zero meters per second to about 20 meters per second. All these with the help of software, and the quad mic setup, make sure, everything is crystal clear. This worked well for calls and cuts out the wind noise and most traffic noise easily.
Battery Life
The earphones pack a 45mAh battery that promises 7 hours of standalone battery life without ANC. During my use with AAC and noise cancellation enabled occasionally, I got slightly over 5 and a half hours in about 50% volume, which is good. For calls, it lasts only for around 4 hours with ANC enabled, since it uses call noise cancellation tech.
With the 480mAh charging case, it promises up to 36 hours of total battery life without ANC. Charging the case fully with the earbuds takes about 2 hours. It also has fast charge, so that you get 2 hours of playback (Case + Earbuds combined) without ANC with 10 minutes of charging.
Conclusion
Overall, the POCO Buds X1 are good budget Bluetooth true wireless earbuds with ANC in the Rs. 2000 price range. It also does a good job in call noise cancellation and offers a good battery life. Wish it had in-ear detection and dual-device pairing, which is available in a few earbuds even in the price range.
Pricing and availability
The POCO Buds X1 will be available at an introductory price of Rs. 1,699 from Flipkart starting from August 5th.
Pros
- Good audio quality
- Compact, lightweight case
- Good ANC and transparency
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- No in-ear detection
- No Dual-device pairing