It makes your listening much more accessible by automatically playing music when they’re in your ears and pausing when you pull out your earbuds. On-device controls allow you to adjust volume and manage music, take calls, or activate voice assistant in no time. Beats Flex represent a different approach from the premium audio company, and it’s one that it has mostly nailed here. They beats solo pro wireless offer solid audio output, good battery life and that all important style factor. Realistically, you can get the same or better audio for cheaper elsewhere though, so whether these are right for you is down to style versus substance. Well, if you get the fit right in your ears it’s hard to fault the Beats Flex for the price with music sounding clear and packed with crisp detail.
Battery life is important for wireless headphones, and doubly so for banded headphones like these that don’t come with a charging case. Apple claims on its website that you get up to 12 hours of listening time, and our own testing mostly matches up with those claims. We got a little less than that on average, but we’re also usually listening to music at full volume because we hate our eardrums.
Thanks to their W1 chip, it’s also easy to seamlessly pair them with different Apple devices. However, while fans of EDM and hip-hop may enjoy their bass-heavy sound profile, they lack an EQ to finetune their sound to your liking. Their companion app also lacks a lot of functionality and doesn’t offer that many extra features.
Beats Flex come with four sizes of eartips, so most people shouldn’t have much trouble finding a good fit. The soft, pliable eartips are relatively easy to swap out, but you also don’t have to worry about them coming beats flex review loose unintentionally. 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.
In the world of true wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the older-style neckband models typically occupy the cheaper end of the market. They have wires connecting the earbuds to each other but Bluetooth to the phone. They work perfectly as running or gym earphones even without official water resistance, and their sound quality is easygoing and enjoyable.
For some people it is more comfortable than in-ear form. The first number of the IP rating refers to protection against dust, while the second number refers to protection against liquid. E.g. a first number of 6 denotes that it is completely dustproof, and a second number of 7 denotes that the device can withstand full immersion in water. Would it be nice to get a more secure fit using in-ear fins for running? But that’s the only real complaint we have with the Beats Flex. And it’s a minor one considering you could spend a little more elsewhere in the range for such a fit.
There’s no noise-cancelling either, but with the correct seal you’ll still enjoy good levels of passive noise isolation. Check out our recommendations for the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the best wireless earbuds for iPhone, and the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds under $50. You can turn on and off the auto-pause that activates when you remove them from your ears. You can also turn on and off auto-call answering, but that’s about it. The Beats Flex’s passive soundstage is bad, which is to be expected for closed-back in-ears. To create a large and out-of-head soundstage, the outer ear needs to be activated by sound resonances.