realme today launched the realme Buds Air7, the company’s latest TWS earbuds in the Buds Air series in India as the successor to last year’s Buds Air6. This gets better ANC, improved battery life and also come in a new transparent case. So, are these the best true wireless earbuds with ANC in the Rs. 3000 range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box contents
- realme Buds Air7 in Lavender Purple colour
- Ear tips in Small and Large sizes (Medium pre-installed)
- User guide
Design and Build
Starting with the design, the headset comes in a rectangular charging case that fits in your pocket. This comes in a transparent cover (Only in Lavender Purple and Moss Green color variants), so you can see the earbuds. Since the case the is made of plastic is shiny, it attracts fingerprints and is prone to scratches easily. The bottom part of the case has a matte finish even though it is still plastic.
There is a function key on the inside and USB Type-C port is on the back along with Hi-Res audio branding. The case measures 61.53×48.53×3.77mm.
Coming to the earbuds, the headset has a plastic finish that is shiny, so it is prone to fingerprints. The earbuds have a light-weight design and weighs 4.9 grams.
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, and a talk mic for call noise cancellation.
On the back, there is a touch-sensitive area on the outer surface with a matte finish, to control play/pause, open Google Assistant and attend or disconnect calls. Overall, the headset and the case have good design and a 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 IP55 ratings for dust and water resistance, so it can withstand light rain, and sweat in everyday use scenarios, but you can’t immerse in water.
Connectivity, Pairing, and Controls
The realme Buds Air7 supports Bluetooth 5.4 with LHDC Hi-res audio codec in addition to SBC and AAC codecs. The pairing process is very easy. For realme and other ColorOS-based phones like OPPO and OnePlus, you can pair it by simply opening the case.
For others, simply press and hold the function button on the case for 3 seconds until the status light blinks, 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 Air7, 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 Fast Pair option 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 realme P3 Ultra and iQOO Neo 10R, 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.
There is also 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, and touch and hold. This also lets you control volume. The app also has Mindflow mode that plays white noise sounds. camera control that works with compatible realme and other ColorOS-based phones.
Audio Quality
The realme Buds Air7 Pro packs a 12.4mm dynamic driver covering an ultra-wide frequency range of 20-40KHz. The bass driver offer clear audio output mainly tuned for bass with clear vocals, but you can use custom equalizer in the settings. Highs are good, but the mid-range is average.
The LHDC 5.0 HD transmission protocol with Hi-Res authority certification, offers a transmission rate of up to 1Mbps for 4 times better detail, and transmitting frequencies up to 24 bit/192 kHz. There is an option to enable it in the app, which worked without any issued.
You can select different EQ modes – Serenade, Original Sound, Pure Bass and Deep bass. In addition to custom EQ option, there is also dynamic audio to adjust low, medium and high frequency audio. If the sound is not enought, there is volume enhancer option as well.
There is Spatial Audio feature in the earbuds. This works with multi-channel audio formats on YouTube, Google TV or simple dual-channel audio.
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 50dB ANC in Buds Air6, this offers 52dB ANC.
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 45ms compared to 55ms in the predecessor. This useful when gaming.
Coming to the call noise cancellation, it uses triple microphones for calls. 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 62mAh battery that promises about 13h (AAC without ANC) / 9h (LHDC without ANC) / 7.5h (AAC with ANC) / 5h (LHDC with ANC) standalone battery life. During my use with LHDC, I got about 5 and half hours with mixed use of with and without noise cancellation in about 60% volume, so it is decent. Talk time is about 6h if you enable ANC.
It also has fast charging support, which offers up to 10 hours of music playback (Case and Buds) on a 10-minute charge. This is better than the Buds Air6. realme claims the battery retains 80% of its original capacity even after 1,000 cycles.
With the 480mAh charging case, slightly bigger than the predecessor, it promises up to 52h (AAC without ANC) / 36h (LHDC without ANC) / 30h (AAC with ANC) / 20h (LHDC with ANC) battery life. 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 Air7 are value for money true wireless earbuds with up to 52dB active noise cancellation (ANC), LHDC 5.0 support and long battery life. It retains LDHC and drivers and improves ANC, and battery life. The transparent design is also attractive.
Priced at Rs. 3,299, same as the predecessor, and it will be available from realme.com, Flipkart.com, and local stores starting from March 24 at 12 PM. With the bank offer, the effective price is Rs. 2,799 which is a good deal for the features it offers.
Pros
- Good audio quality with LHDC support
- Dual-device connectivity
- Good call quality
- Good ANC with smart mode
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Plastic case is prone to scratches