Realme Buds Air 5 Pro Review: Good Sound Quality, ANC, And More Under Rs 5,000
Gone are the days when you had to look for good wireless headphones for over 10,000 rupees. We have seen brands like OnePlus, Realme, OPPO, CMF and others offering great sounding TWS headphones for under Rs 5,000. These affordable headphones not only look great, but also have a great design language, active noise cancellation, and other great features. Realme Buds Air 5 Pro is a pair of TWS earphones from Realme. The headphones cost just Rs 5,000 and we take a look at how they perform compared to the current competition.
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- The Realme Buds Air 5 Pro case has a familiar oval design. It features bright colors available in Sunrise Beige and Astral Black. For testing, I received the Sunrise Beige color variant, which is mostly white and features orange accents in the rubber earcups of the headphones. Astral Black is a solid black option with no highlights, at least in the photo. I suspect the black version attracts more visible dirt.
- On the right side of the case there is a small matte silver button for Bluetooth pairing and a USB-C port underneath. The surface of the cover features a transparent accent to highlight the Realme brand.
- The charging case is very light and robust. Due to the glossy nature of the cover, opening the cover is very easy even without any gaps. Don't expect a premium appearance here. The design fits the price range, nothing more. The glossy nature of the case means that unless you cover it with paint or leather, you will see scratches and scuffs over time.
- These headphones feature a finely polished housing design. The angled earbuds sit comfortably in the ears and the delivery includes three pairs of earbuds to choose from. Medium size earbuds are included as standard, and you can perform an earbud fit test via the Realme Link app to check if the earbuds fit your ears.
- The headphones fit perfectly over your ears and stay in place even while running. It doesn't feel heavy and I can wear it for hours without feeling uncomfortable. The headphones are IPX5 certified and can withstand light splashes, but cannot survive submersion in water.
- The Realme Buds Air 5 Pro come with 50 dB active noise cancellation, which is an excellent feature in this price segment. When traveling by train or plane, the headphones provide sufficient noise reduction for loud noises and ambient noise. Even when playing music at 50 percent volume, some background noise was filtered out, such as an announcer calling the next train station or the screaming of a train. The Buds Air 5 Pro don't completely block out ambient noise, but their ANC performance is very good for the price.
- Realme has added cool features like LDAC codec support, Hi-Res Audio certification, and spatial audio. The latter offers an immersive 360-degree experience with sound coming from all angles. Location sound can be activated via the Realme Link app. In fact, the Realme Link app is essential if you want to customize your personal audio preferences. It is one of the best companion apps on the market and Realme has done a great job over the years to improve the app's interface and features. The app allows you to switch between multiple audio options or adjust the equalizer to your liking, enable High Definition Audio (LDAC), run a headphone compatibility test, customize gestures, enable pairing of two devices, and more. Perhaps
- Wear detection is also a great feature as it can automatically play and pause music regardless of whether the headphones are in your ears or not.
- Talking about sound quality, the Realme Buds Air 5 Pro are tuned to deliver deep bass as standard, which will appeal to bass lovers. The TWS headphones are equipped with a dual-driver coaxial acoustic architecture consisting of an 11mm woofer and a 6mm planar tweeter. The 11mm bass control delivers powerful beats for rock songs and deep tones for pop music. However, this comes at the expense of good sound. With the standard bass profile, the headphones are best suited for hip-hop and pop music.
- Quickly switching natural balance presets via the Realme Links app is useful for those looking for the right amount of bass without overloading the mids and highs. And with this balanced sound signature, mids and highs sound clearer, improving the listening quality of lively rock and pop songs.
- The connection is perfect with Realme Buds Air 5 Pro. I had no problems pairing the headphones with my Android phone or iPhone 14 Plus. I also didn't notice any connection interruptions during the test period. After enabling device pairing, I was able to switch between my MacBook Air and the iPhone 14 Plus.
- I found the touch controls a bit difficult to use at times. Play or pause media, skip to the next track, switch between ANC and transparency, and more. Double, triple or long press on the top of the left or right stick performs certain actions. Realme can customize these actions via the Link app, for example. When working with headphones, I often miss hitting the upper body.
- Charging the case from zero to 100 percent takes less than an hour. Realme claims that with 10 minutes of charging, the headphones can deliver 7 hours of music and a total of 40 hours of playback. That's true because I use the headphones for several hours every day and the case doesn't need to be charged after a week.
thoughtfulness
Priced at Rs 4,999, the Realme Buds Air 5 Pro are TWS headphones packed with useful features. They offer good noise cancellation that rivals some high-end TWS headphones. It's great to see features like LDAC support, Hi-Res Audio and spatial audio in headphones under €5,000. In addition, the Realme Buds Air 5 Pro offer excellent battery life.
When it comes to sound quality, the Realme Buds Air 5 Pro are clearly aimed at bass lovers, but you can use the Realme Link app to adjust the sound profile if you prefer a balanced sound. The disadvantages include the cheap-looking glossy casing and the awkward touch controls, but neither is a problem. If you can do without LDAC support and dual drivers, the vanilla Realme Buds Air 5 (review) at Rs 2,999 with the same 50dB aNC will do the trick.
Editor's Rating: 8/10
Good arguments:
- The battery life is amazing
- Good sound quality for bass lovers
- Impressive ANC and surround sound
Switch:
- It felt like a weak state
- Touch controls can be difficult at times
