After the OnePlus Nord Buds 3 Pro, it is now time for OnePlus premium TWS – OnePlus Buds Pro 3. Available for Rs 11,999, this is a premium segment for any pair of earphones. I kind of preferred the original Buds Pro’s overall audio output over the Buds Pro 2’s, so interested in checking how OnePlus has improved the sound quality and whether it’s really worth this price tag.
The buds come in a pebble-shaped ivory case that has chrome finish around it and textured faux leather on the bodies. There’s OnePlus branding at the front; while the back carries Dynaudio branding that looks more like you’ve put up a sticker around. The USB type C port and LED indicator are at the bottom. There’s also the pairing button that sits on the right side. The buds magnetically fit into the case with no wobbling happening. Coming to the buds themselves, these have clear Left and Right marks next to the tips, with sensors near the top the aluminium stem and volume slide area in the inner part. The buds weigh about 5.3 grams each while the case adds a little over 50 grams. These come in Midnight Opus and Lunar Radiance colour options, latter is what I tried it; it’s nice and clean but I am not sure how long it would stay dirt-free.
I found wearing the buds to be pretty comfortable to wear and didn’t have to change ear tips (you get three pairs of different sizes on the box) from the pre-fitted medium size. During commutes and walking around, the buds didn’t fall off and didn’t require frequent adjustments either.
The Buds Pro 3 support Bluetooth 5.4 with dual connection, AAC, SBC and LHDC 5.0 (no LDAC and aptX) codecs along with Google’s Fast Pair (no Windows’ Swift Pair). These carry dual drivers (11mm woofer + 6mm tweeter) along with BES2700ZP DAC chipset. The buds can be paired with non-OnePlus devices by long-pressing the pair button for the first connection. I found no issues in connecting it with an Android device, a Windows laptop or an iOS device. For OnePlus phones, you can use the settings under Bluetooth to change stuff as per your liking and use HeyMelody on other devices. OnePlus Pad 2 showed fewer settings than their phones when paired, though.
Coming to the audio quality, I would say the Buds Pro 3 tend to be a little heavy on the bass in a typical OnePlus style. The highs with voices are well-handled but mids can be a little on and off depending on the track with lows overtaking the stage. The Dynaudio EQ presents are definitely worth checking to see which ones you might like; I preferred the Balanced and featured EQ presets with BassWave turned off eventually. You can of course add a customised EQ of your own, too. For pop and Bollywood tracks, vocals are handled well and offer fairly rich strings. The last two firmware updates did make a bit of a change, it seemed, with the last one making it less bass-y than the one before that.
There’s also something called Golden Audio that supposedly scans your ear canal and then asks you to various audio output questions to decide which settings might be best suited for you. It did make the overall soundstage a little larger for when I tried it with no ANC and transparency. Most of the times, squeeze gesture worked reliably but sliding to adjust volume did take getting bit used to and even then wasn’t as quick as simply changing the volume on the source device. When it comes to active noise cancellation, the buds did a decent job of cancelling out low decibels noises but I wouldn’t say it is their biggest strength by any means.
The mics quality is decent enough and can be used for making calls even when outdoors without much additional noise, though I can’t say they are particularly great considering the price. You can use one bud at a time and playback stops and resumes when one is removed and tucked back in, respectively.
Each bud carries a 58mAh battery unit with the case having 566mAh. I found the earbuds standalone lasting 9-9.5 hours with no ANC enabled and hour less with LHDC enabled. With ANC switched on always, and LHDC, expect something like 6 hours. With the case added, you can get six times more of playback. The case plus buds charged in about 75 minutes. It can also be charged using an induction wireless charger, but it took over 2.5 hours to do so when I tried on an ALOGIC Yoga charging stand.
Regarding latency for watching movies and playing games, the buds do a good job of handling bandwidth and rarely ever showed any noticeable latency between the audio and video playback in sync, at least when used with Android.
All in all, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are a well made and comfortable pair of true wireless earbuds. They are a bit heavy on the bass, offer clear vocals and highs, but not quite handle all genres like, say, the Samsung’ Galaxy Buds2 Pro and Sennheiser Accentum, which are two of its direct competitors.