Noise launched the Shots NEO, the company’s latest wireless earbuds recently. It is compact, features Bluetooth 5.0, has touch controls and promises over 6 hours of playback. After using it for a couple of weeks, here is the review of the Bluetooth headset.
Box Contents
- Noise Shots Neo in Icy White color
- Different set of ear tips (Small, Medium and Large)
- Micro USB Cable
- Quick start guide
Design and Build Quality
Starting with the design, the Noise Shots Neo has a familiar design we had seen in most budget headsets. Total weight of the case with the earbuds are about 31.6 grams, and the earbuds weigh about 4.6 grams. Even through the headset it is made of plastic, it looks decent, however the quality of the case could have been better since the shiny body is prone to scratches. The earbuds have LED lights that glow in blue, while the light on the case also glows in blue.
There are touch controls on both the earbuds that lets you play or pause music, go to previous or next song, control volume, launch voice assistant and also accept or reject calls. These controls are a bit different from other Noise headsets. Check them out below.
| Function | Left earphone (L) | Right earphone (R) |
| Play/Pause | Single tap | |
| Previous Song | Double tap | |
| Next Song | Double tap | |
| Volume+ | Touch and hold | |
| Volume- | Touch and hold | |
| Voice Assistant | Triple tap | |
| Answer/end call | Single tap | |
| Reject call | Touch and hold for 3 seconds | |
Since it has in-ear buds, these fit your ears firmly and doesn’t fall off easily during workouts or even when running. I have been using this for my runs without any issues. Just remember to select the perfect set of buds. For me the small one was a bit irritating inside your ears. Since it comes with IPX5 ratings, it can withstand sweat and light rain.
Audio Quality
Coming to the audio quality, these earbuds offers fairly good audio quality with decent amount of bass with the 9mm drivers. Volume was good as well and the bass was decent. It doesn’t support AAC audio codec, and has only Subband Coding (SBC). This is capable of bit rates up to 328 kbps for listening to 320-bit MP3s. This is common in Bluetooth devices with Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). Difference between audio quality in SBC and aptX is minimal, but the latency is normally over 100ms with SBC. There were occasional disconnection between the right and left buds for few seconds.
The headset has a tiny microphone which is decent in most cases, but sometime it struggles to pick up your voice clearly for calls, especially in crowded and noisy environment. This is common most Bluetooth headsets in the price range, since the tiny microphone doesn’t catch your voice clearly.
Connectivity, Pairing and AI assistant
The Bluetooth headset supports Bluetooth 5.0, so you can connect it to Android, iOS devices along with MP3 players with Bluetooth support. It pairs to your phone quickly when you remove them from the case, and the LED lights in the headset blinks blue. Left earphone automatically connects to right earphone. After the left earphone connects, on the right earphone you hear ‘pairing’ and the LED indication flashes blue. You just have to select the Shots Neo from the Bluetooth menu on the phone to pair the headphones. You get voice feedback when it enters pairing mode and when it connects successfully.
The headset doesn’t have a companion app, but you can launch Siri on iOS and Google Assistant on Android devices when you tap the right or right earbuds thrice when no music is playing.
Battery Life
The company promises up to 6 hours of battery life when listening at 60 to 70% of volume, and we managed to get about 5 and half to 5 hours of battery life on a single charge when listening in about 70% volume, which is good. The headset automatically turns off when it’s not in use for about 5 minutes and doesn’t have a power off button, so you have to keep the headset in the case and close it.
The case has 400mAh battery that promises 2 more charges or additional 12 hours of battery life, so you get a total 16 hours of battery life. If you have Android phones running Android 8.1 or later, you can see battery life of the Bluetooth headset. It gives audio prompts to charge the headset when the headset has low battery. Charging the headset takes about one and half hours and charging the case from 0 to 100% takes about 2 hours using 5V-1A charger via micro USB port.
Conclusion
Priced at Rs. 2499, the Noise Shots Neo is a decent headset for the price offering a compact design, good battery life and IPX5 ratings. It is available on Amazon.in and Noise website and also comes in Jet Black color.