OnePlus just launched the Buds Pro 3, the company’s latest premium earbuds, in India today. These promise improved 50db ANC, have 11mm + 6mm Dual Drivers Co-created with Dynaudio, feature dual DACs, and uses Google’s Spatial Audio technology. So, are these the best true wireless earbuds worth the price of Rs. ? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box contents
- OnePlus Buds Pro 3 in Lunar Radiance Colour
- USB Type-C charging cable
- Ear tips in Extra Small, Small and Large sizes (Medium sized tips pre-installed)
- User manual
Starting with the design, the headset comes in a new oval charging case with rounded corners switching from the old rectangular case, and it fits in your pocket. It has a new faux leather texture that offers a good grip, and looks premium, thanks to the metallic finish all around. It also doesn’t attract fingerprints, smudges and is also not prone to scratches.
The Buds Pro 3 also comes in Midnight Opus colour. The charging case weighs 61.13 grams, making it slightly heavier than the predecessor. It measures 64.70 x 52.45 x 25.75mm.
There is a tiny LED indicator on the inside that glows in green and red colours.
The USB Type-C port is present in the bottom, with a tiny LED indicator that is useful to show the status when you are using wireless charging. The function button is on the right side.
The headset has a plastic build, but it has a dual finish, with the stem design featuring a glossy finish that attracts fingerprints easily, same as the predecessor. You can also see the microphones on the outside. This uses squeeze or press controls that we had seen in the older models.
The earbuds measures 33.60 x 21.15 x 25.00mm and weigh about 5.28 grams and feature an in-ear design. The earbuds come with medium-sized ear tips pre-installed, but you can change to bundled Large, Small or new Extra 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.
Overall, the headset offers a good build quality, especially for the casing and fits your ears perfectly so that they don’t fall off your ears easily, even during outdoor activities like running or cycling. The earphones also have IP55 ratings for dust and water resistance, so it can withstand splashes or light rain, but you can’t use it when swimming. Unlike the case of the Buds Pro 2 which had IPX4 ratings for water-resistance, the case of the Buds Pro 3 doesn’t have any IP ratings.
Connectivity, Pairing, and Controls
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 supports Bluetooth 5.4 with LHDC 5.0 Hi-Res audio codec with a transmission rate of up to 1Mbps for HD sound quality on supported devices, it also supports AAC codec that works in phones that have it.
The pairing process is very easy for OnePlus (6 or later) devices. Just enable Bluetooth on the OnePlus phone, open the charging case of the buds, place the charging case close to the phone, and follow the prompts. To connect to a non-OnePlus phone or other Bluetooth device, place the Buds into the charging case with the cover opened. Press and hold the setup button in the case for 2 seconds to enter Bluetooth settings. Then, select OnePlus Buds Pro 3.
There is a fast pair option which works in latest Android phones. We tested it on the Pixel 8, Galaxy M35 and the OnePlus 12R, and never faced any pairing or disconnection issues. Since the phone pairs with the case and not the headset, you will need the case if you want to reconnect it or even turn on the headset if it’s disconnected from the phone.
You can enable dual connection option that lets you connect to two devices at the same time and switch the audio playback between them.
| Function | Left earphone (L) | Right earphone (R) |
| Play / Pause and Answer call / Hang calls | Squeeze once | |
| Play next track or Reject a call | Squeeze twice | |
| Play previous track | Squeeze thrice | |
| Enable noise cancellation | Squeeze and hold for 1s | |
| Enable Zen Mode Air | Press and Hold for 3s | |
| Volume control | Slide on right or left earbuds | |
You can customize the controls from the settings if you have an OnePlus phone, or even from OPPO and realme phones. Others can use the Hey Melody app on Android and iOS.
You can’t edit single squeeze for play/pause. But you can customize double-squeeze, triple-squeeze to set it to voice assistant, game mode or Zen more air. OnePlus has finally added slide to control volume, which is a good mode, and you can also switch the slide feature to switch track.
You can also choose at least two from Noise cancellation, Transparency, Noise cancellation off, when you touch Squeeze and hold either earbud. You also can’t change long touch and hold, which is set to launch Zen Mode Air by default.
The Zen Mode Air which was first introduced with the Buds Pro plays white noise. There are Five white noise options to choose from – Summer Waves, Countryside Camping, Morning Park, Forest Rain, and Courtyard Meditation. Once you download all the sounds, you can save one white noise to the earbuds and enter the Zen Mode Air by squeezing the buds for 3 seconds, even though if the buds are not connected to the phone.
The Earbuds fit test option plays music to ensure that your ear tips make a good seal with your ear canal for better noise-cancelling.
Audio Quality
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 has Dual Driver that includes a 11mm woofer that uses 30-layer ceramic-metal diaphragm and dual-magnet drive covering a wide frequency range as low as 20Hz, and the 6mm tweeter has 35 micrometer planar voice coil flat diaphragm that covers frequency above 11kHz till 40kHz. The company says that it has been co-created with Dynaudio.
The earbuds also feature dual BES2700ZP DACs, one for the tweeter and one for the woofer for no crosstalk, no interference and better power management.
LHDC 5.0 worked with OnePlus 12R and an upcoming realme phone, but not with other devices. OnePlus said that it will work with older OnePlus flagships, but this doesn’t seem to work with a lot of devices.
The audio quality is crisp with clear vocals and good amount of bass that is punchy, and you can use the EQ and tune the Basswave to further improve it. Highs are better than the predecessor with a lot of details, and the mid-range is good as well.
Spatial Audio and EQ
OnePlus has switched to Google Spatial Audio technology, so it is compatible with a wider range of audio devices. It works with multi-channel audio formats on YouTube, Google TV or simple
dual-channel audio. There is also a self-developed spatial rendering algorithm, for an immersive head tracking experience.
The earbuds also support activity level and posture reminders generated by the built-in IMU sensors, called Neck Vertebrae Health, but this needs the O Health app and doesn’t work on all the devices.
It features five equalizers developed with Dynaudio – Balanced (default), Bold, Serenade, Bass and Dynaudio featured – so that every song can be heard how it should. You can also create custom EQ.
If you feel the bass is not enough, there is BassWave feature that boosts bass even more, and you can select the strength. Golden Sound lets you customize the audio based on the ear canal and hearing characteristics. There is also Hi-Res mode.
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 good job. Compared to 48db ANC in Buds Pro 2, this offers 50dB ANC. There are Smart, Max, Moderate and Mild modes.
The Smart noise cancellation option works well in blocking the noise automatically depending on the noise outside. The quality is better, and the voice noise cancellation is now 8db compared to 6db in the Buds Pro 2.
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 feature is useful when gaming, and is activated in OnePlus phones with the game mode enabled.
Coming to the call noise cancellation, it uses AI-powered noise reduction algorithm and three ENC microphones to cut external noise, and also uses Bone Conducting VPU for clear voice pick up. This does a good job in cutting down wind and traffic noise. During my use outdoors, wind noise was complete cut out to the receiver, but the traffic noise was faintly audible.
Battery Life
The earphones pack 58mAh battery that promises about 10 hours of standalone battery life on AAC, 6 hours with AAC + ANC and 5 hours with noise cancellation and LHDC enabled. During my use with LHDC and mixed use of with and without noise cancellation, I got about 6 and half hours in about 60% volume, so it is good, and is better than the Buds Pro 2. For calls, it lasts only for 4 hours since it uses call noise cancellation tech.
With the 566mAh charging case, it promises up to 43 hours of total battery life without ANC and 25.5 hours of total battery life with noise cancellation enabled in AAC and 21.5h with LDHC. I got about 35 hours with mixed use, which is good.
The green light in the case indicates that the battery is high, and it turns red when it is low. You can also see the charge left in the case in the HeyMelody app when the earbuds are placed in the case.
Charging the case fully with the earbuds takes about an hour. It also has fast charge, so that you get 5.5 hours (charging case + earbuds combined) of playback with 10 minutes of charging. The charging case also offers wireless charging, so you can simply drop your earbuds onto a Qi Wireless charging pad, but it takes over 2 hours to charge the case fully.
Conclusion
Overall, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 is a worthy successor to the Buds Pro 2 with improvements in each segment such as audio quality, call quality, ANC, battery life, build qulity and what not. It still has the compact design, and gets the much-needed slide to control volume feature. Wish it had the widely supported LDAC or aptX adaptive / lossless codecs.
Priced at Rs. 11,999 , which same predecessor, it will available from Amazon.in, oneplus.in, OnePlus Experience Stores, Flipkart, Myntra, Reliance, Croma, and, as well as offline partner stores such as Reliance Digital, Bajaj, Croma, Vijay Sales, and more starting from August 23rd.
Pros
- Good audio quality with LHDC 5.0, dual-device pairing
- Excellent call quality
- Up to 50dB ANC with smart mode is Impressive
- Good build quality
- Good battery life with fast charging, wireless charging
Cons
- No LDAC or aptX adaptive / lossless
- No IP ratings for the case