Again, the best sound is experienced outside of music, with Beats’ drivers emphasizing vocals to hear dialogue better. I loved using these buds to take in my daily dose of political news via CNN clips, along with other YouTube content I normally binge during downtimes. Even poorly recorded podcasts like The Game Informer Show received a boost in clarity. Beats keeps the full plastic construction intact, along with the tangle-free wire and magnetized earbud housing, all of which still feel premium. You’ll notice the inline mic and multifunctional button on the left module have been modified for enhanced usability; no more pulling the mic close to your mouth on phone calls.
Beats puts a single driver in each earbud, with a dual-chamber acoustic design and vents to help balance pressure inside the ear. Given the price, I didn’t have expectations of the finest audio, but I proved to be pleasantly surprised. Designed to snake around the back of your neck, the cable is finished in a soft-touch rubber that won’t let them tangle up, while two in-line blocks house the beats studio3 battery and other electronics. At 18.6 grams they’re hardly heavy; Beats includes four eartips in the box, and I found that with the right size it was no problem having them stay in place, despite the cable weighing on them in my ears. In the process they’ve become the cheapest wireless headphones that Apple sells, the company having quietly stripped third-party options from its shelves.
Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence. If your budget can stretch northwards a little, Earfun’s true wireless option bypasses potential cable noise, sounds better for detail through the higher frequencies and lasts longer before needing a charge. Having cables to the earbuds means you won’t lose them quite as easily as true wireless models. The battery in the Flex lasts for just shy of 12 hours between charges. A 10-minute quick charge when the battery is low provides about 90 minutes of playback.
The BeatsX were already one of the most responsibly packaged headphones I’ve come across, and the Flex go even further. The simple black cardboard box isn’t much bigger than a deck of cards, there’s virtually no plastic inside or out, and it can all be easily recycled. Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word recorded clearly. The signal was strong, despite some typical Bluetooth distortion fuzzing up the edges of words. Before that, I was PCMag’s lead audio analyst from 2006 to 2011.
Thankfully, the neckband houses a USB-C input, so you can charge this with the same cable that charges your Android phone and laptop. Beats Flex uses a USB-C connector for charging, which is a first for the company.Apple — make up your mind about USB-C! These are the first USB-C headphones in the Beats line up. In fact, there’s only a USB-C to USB-C cable included so hopefully you own a power adapter with a USB-C port. Hopefully, this is a sign that Apple will soon ditch lightning cables altogether so that we can have one USB charging standard to rule them all.