Everyone's got a pair of "Pro" wireless earbuds these days. From the five-star AirPods Pro 2, the recently-reviewed Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and the new Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, these products indicate their respective brand's flagship status with a now-widespread naming convention.
Into this arena of consummate professionals enter the OnePlus Buds Pro 3, a pair of noise-cancelling wireless earbuds that are seeking to take on the established class leaders with what their maker describes as "killer sound quality". Following on from the second-gen model, OnePlus has teamed up with Danish audio specialist Dynaudio in the hopes of producing, with the aid of multiple technical improvements, the brand's "best-ever earbuds".
The new contenders have been designed from start to finish in partnership with the audio engineers at Dynaudio and offer dual drivers with an 11mm woofer and a 6mm tweeter. The woofer sports an additional magnet and a rebuilt diaphragm for improved audio sensitivity and a more sonically accurate performance, whereas the tweeter makes use of an improved voice coil and diaphragm for "sound production exactly as the artist intended".
Whether or not sound quality turns out to be as good as claimed, the buds' battery life looks like a winner either way. The Buds Pro 3 grant you a massive 43 hours of total listening time from a single charge, while a ten-minute boost will give you over five hours of playtime in a pinch. Those are outstanding numbers when you consider that the Sony WF-1000XM5 only offer 24 hours of total time and the AirPods Pro 2 will give you a maximum of 30 with the case, although they are beaten by the astonishing 52 hours total offered by the Cambridge Audio Melomania M100.
The OnePlus offer standard active noise cancellation (ANC), as well as an "Adaptive Noise Cancellation" mode which adapts on the fly depending on your environment, similar to what we've seen with Apple's Adaptive Audio" and Samsung's parallel "Ambient Sound Mode" technology.
Many of the expected wireless earbuds features round out the OnePlus' capabilities. Google-compatible spatial audio technology is onboard, while Bluetooth Multipoint lets you connect to two devices simultaneously and switch between them on the fly. The IP55-rated buds offer on-ear touch controls via a squeeze and swipe system for managing functions such as play/pause, answering calls and changing music volume.
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are available now in two colours, Midnight Opus (black) and Lunar Radiance (off-white), priced at £199 (approx. $260 / AU$385).
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