Realme is a popular smartphone brand and it has been receiving recognition for its various audio solutions. The brand started offering affordable wireless earphones a few years back, and the new Realme Buds Air Pro is its attempt to enter the mid-range audio segment. Priced at Rs. 4,999 the Realme Buds Air Pro offers features such as noise cancellation, app support, and a dedicated gaming mode. We thoroughly tested them out to see how well they performed in the real world.
Design and build
Unboxing the Realme Buds Air Pro instantly reveals their premium build quality. The earbuds sit in a cobble-shaped polycarbonate casing that is both, thin and light. The case fit easily even in tight jeans pockets. The earbuds are available in four colours - Soul White, Matte Black, New Wave Silver, and Rock Black. Our Soul While coloured unit looked very similar to the highly-priced Truly Wireless Earbuds. The casing’s glossy finish looks premium, but it is susceptible to fingerprints and scratches. Realme is offering optional cases, which should help keep the earbuds clean and protected.
The front of the case has a small LED indicator and a Realme logo. The LED indicator turns from green to red when the battery level drops. The case is strong, and the lid can be opened its lid with one hand. The hinge on the backside is made of metal to ensure durability. There is a paring/reset button on the right side of the case and a Type-C port at the bottom for charging the device. However, there is no wireless charging support.
The earbuds weigh close to 5 grams, so they're barely noticeable even after hours of use. These earbuds comfortably fit in the ears, and they don’t fall off even while walking and running. The buds ship with three additional ear tips helping users to find a perfect fit. You can even use the earbuds in the gym or light rain as they are IPX4-rated. However, there is no IP rating for the case. Both earbuds also come with built-in ambient sensors that automatically pause the music when you remove the earbuds.
Features
The earbuds come with 10mm drivers to deliver richer and deep bass. These are the brand’s first earbuds to offer Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and they use the Realme S1 chip for low power consumption. Realme claims the ANC is capable of cancelling noise up to 35dB. There are three modes to switch between – General, Noise Cancellation and Transparency. This feature is usually seen on higher-end earbuds.
The Realme Buds Air Pro comes with in-built touch control on both earbuds. A long press changes the noise cancellation modes while a single tap answers phone calls and controls music playback. Realme also lets you customise these touch functions in the Realme Link app. The app can be also used to check the battery level of each earpiece and the case, change noise cancellation modes, and select one of the three special modes – Game Mode, Volume Enhancer, and Bass Boost. Realme claims the Game Mode brings down the earphone’s latency to as low as 94ms, so you can watch movies and play games with perfect audio-to-video sync.
The Realme Buds Air supports Google Fast Pair feature. This makes paring easy, as you only need to open the lid of the case near your Android smartphone and tap the Pair pop-up. The earbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 for stable connectivity, and they support SBC and AAC codecs.
Performance
The Realme Buds Air Pro aren’t the flattest sounding earbuds, as they are tuned to deliver more bass. The Realme Link app currently doesn’t feature a built-in equaliser, so there’s no scope of tuning the sound to your liking. We listened to the different genres of music and felt the lower frequencies were bass dominant most of the time. The mid and high frequencies sound decent, but the earbuds lose some clarity at full volume. These earbuds may not please you if you are an audiophile, but considering their price, they perform significantly better than other earbuds in their class.
Noise cancellation on the Realme Buds Air Pro is very impressive. Once we turned it on, the earbuds blocked the wind, ceiling fan and traffic noises. They are great at blocking constant frequencies, but they pass some human voices when you are not playing music. The Transparency Mode on the earbuds also works great as advertised. The earbuds are pretty sensitive at detecting voices, and we were able to hear the ambient sound through the microphone and have conversations without taking off earphones.
The Realme Buds Air Pro offers up to 30M range. We were able to keep the phone in one room and travel across the hall without losing connection. We also answered multiple voice calls with these earbuds, and the recipients on the other side barely complained.
The Realme Buds Air Pro case comes with a 486mAh battery. We were able to get nearly two and a half hours of battery life with the ANC feature turned on. The battery life can vary on the volumes and audio codecs you listen to. The case was able to charge the device up to 3 times, but this may also vary on your usage. It takes nearly an hour to fully charge the case along with the earbuds.
Conclusion
The Realme Buds Air Pro are one of the most inexpensive Truly Wireless Earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation. There are no significant drawbacks as they are well-designed, they have plenty of features and decent audio performance. These earbuds are ideal for casual music listening sessions, answering voice and video calls and even for playing games. The ability to customise touch controls with app, along with additional features such as the Game Mode makes them significantly better than the competition.
Note – Prices are subject to change. Please refer the product page for the latest prices, details and availability.
