Back in 2014, Apple acquired Beats Music. I suspect that the main reasons that they acquired the company were to get the smart people working there to work for Apple and to acquire the online streaming music service that eventually became Apple Music. But the acquisition also brought to Apple the Beats brand of headphones. Because there are wireless versions of Beats headphones, Apple has two distinct wireless headphone brands: AirPods and Beats.
My AirPods Pro are one of my favorite Apple devices. It is no exaggeration to say that I use them every single day. I use them for work-related tasks like phone calls and videoconferences. I use them to listen to music and podcasts. I use them when I'm watching a video on my iPad and don't want to bother the people around me. And the noise cancellation works quite well.
Yesterday, Apple released the new Beats Studio Buds, a $149.99 product that is less expensive than the entry-level AirPods ($159) and yet it has many of the same advantages of AirPods Pro ($249) including active noise cancellation. I haven't tried the Beats Studio Buds myself, but based on the large number of initial reviews that I have read, they seem to be a reasonable alternative to AirPods and AirPods Pro.
As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac explains, the new Beats Studio Buds "feature an in-ear design similar to AirPods Pro, but without the stem."
While AirPods currently only come in white, with the Beats Studio Pro you can choose between white, black, and red. Like AirPods Pro, they come with silicone tips in three different sizes. Jeff Dunn of Ars Technica says that "each earbud is exceptionally light and compact, giving off a sense of near-weightlessness in the ear."
The top of each of the Buds has a small physical button for playback control, switching between active noise cancellation and transparency mode, and/or accessing Siri, depending upon how you configure the buttons to work. (You can also just say "Hey Siri" without pressing a button.) Pressing a button controls playback, and you can assign functions to press-and-hold. Miller notes that a downside of this design is that "it's pretty easy to accidentally trigger one of the controls when you adjust an earbud’s fit in your ear."
The Beats Studio Buds have a five-hour battery life (or eight hours if you don't use noise cancellation) and 24 hours of playback with the charging case. That's similar to AirPods and AirPods Pro.
Most of the reviews that I read said that the sound was pretty good for a $150 device. Over-the-ear Beats headphones have a reputation for being bass-heavy, but many reviews found that to be less true for this device.
Reviewers noted that the noise cancellation works, but it is noticeably inferior to the more expensive AirPods Pro. For example, Chris Welch of The Verge says that he "was underwhelmed in most scenarios where I tested it." He adds: "The Studio Buds do a poor job at eliminating basic traffic street noise, which makes me wary of how they’d manage on a plane. The transparency mode also lacks the natural feeling of the AirPods Pro and other premium buds like the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds." Similarly, Dunn notes: "the Studio Buds' [active noise cancellation] isn’t bad: it has a noticeable effect, and it doesn’t let chunks of outside noise come through wherever you go. ... This is just a competitive category, so while the [active noise cancellation] here is fine, it doesn’t stand out as a slam-dunk value." David Carnoy of Cnet reported that Beats Studio Pro "didn't muffle the noisy HVAC unit in my apartment as well as [AirPods Pro] did, nor were they as successful at muffling New York street noise." Tim Gideon of PCMag says that there is a faint white noise hiss that is "a hallmark of less-than-top-notch noise cancellation."
Some reviewers also noted that when you are using the microphone on the Beats Studio Buds to have a telephone conversation, your voice sounds more muffled compared to AirPods or AirPods Pro. Dunn offers some recordings at the end of his review if you want to hear them for yourself.
So what are Beats Studio Buds missing that you get with AirPods or AirPods Pro?
First, there is no wireless charging case. I rarely use this function with my AirPods Pro so I don't consider this a big loss. Even with AirPods, you don't get a wireless charging case with the $159 version; you need to get the $199 version to get wireless charging.
Second, there is no in-ear detection. When you are listening to music and you remove AirPods or AirPods Pro from an ear, the music stops. With the Beats Studio Buds, the music continues to play.
Third, there is no instant device switching because Beats Studio Buds don't have a W1 or H1 chip. I enjoy using this feature with my AirPods Pro. I can listen to music on my iPhone, pause the music and start playing a video on my iPad and the AirPods Pro switch automatically, then I can go back to my iPhone again all without having to touch any settings.
Fourth, there is no instant pairing via iCloud. When you pair AirPods or AirPods Pro to one of your Apple devices, other Apple devices using the same iCloud account know about them. With Beats Studio Buds, you need to manually pair to each different device.
Fifth, there is no audio sharing with another pair of headphones.
Sixth, you only get partial support for spatial audio, a feature that Apple has been pushing lately. The Beats Studio Pro has no gyroscopes or accelerometers, so it doesn't support head-tracking spatial audio for videos. On the other hand, spatial audio in Apple Music seems to work for all types of headphones (even though it may sound better on some devices than others), so that does work with Beats Studio Pro.
If you are looking for something like AirPods Pro that features noise cancellation but you don't want to spend $250 for AirPods Pro, the Beats Studio Buds seems like a reasonable alternative. AirPods Pro are better, but they are also $100 more. With the Beats Studio Buds, you lose a few features and the noise cancellation and microphone isn't quite as good, but you still get a nice portable product that will work well with your Apple devices.
