OnePlus Buds Pro 3 review
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are the latest pair of true wireless earbuds from the company and the sequel to the 2023 OnePlus Buds Pro 2. The new model comes with all the bells and whistles, including a dual driver, dual DAC design with Dynaudio tuning, adaptive noise cancellation, pinch gestures, faux leather design, and spatial audio. They can even track the position of your neck, so you can finally stop slouching.
Today we will be evaluating OnePlus' newest flagship audio product and see how it stacks up in this competitive market.
Design and comfort
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 moves from the horizontal case design of the previous two models to a vertical layout. The cases of this generation have a two-tone design, with a leathery texture on the front and back and a metallic finish on the sides.
The exterior finish is neither real nor vegan leather but just hard plastic textured to look like leather. As such, it only looks like leather but the moment you hold the case in your hand, it's immediately apparent it's just plastic.
The front and back of the case have logos for OnePlus and Dynaudio, respectively. On the bottom is the charging port with an LED that indicates the charging status. On the right side is the pairing button.
Open the lid and you are greeted by the two earbuds and another LED for pairing status. The hinge on the lid is very well made with absolutely zero side-to-side movement.
The earbuds are beautifully designed with perfectly polished cylindrical stems. The glossy plastic switches to a matte-finished ring with the Dynaudio branding, just before it switches into the interior plastic. The interior plastic bits have the L and R logos carved into them that make them act like vents, much like on the Nord Buds 3 Pro.
The stems on the earbuds are pressure-sensitive and support gestures. You can squeeze the stems once, twice, or thrice for different gestures. There's also a volume adjustment gesture, which works by grabbing the stem like you would for a squeeze gesture but then sliding your index finger up and down rather than squeezing them.
Overall, despite the slightly plasticky feel of the fake leather on the outside, the case and the earbuds are well-designed and have good built quality. The earbuds are also IP55 certified, so that's a bonus.
In terms of comfort, the Buds Pro 3 are decent. The plastic shell is slightly chunky so even though it didn't hurt or feel uncomfortable in my ears, I could always feel their presence and not forget that I was wearing them. I did find the default ear tips, while supple, would slip out of the ears too easily. The left one would periodically get loose on its own and need to be readjusted.
Software and features
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are compatible with the HeyMelody app for Android and iOS. On OnePlus devices, the earbuds can be controlled through the Bluetooth settings. Either way, you are getting the same options.
The app features the usual assortment of settings; you can adjust the ANC, which in this case includes three levels of attenuation along with an automatic Smart mode, EQ, a Hi-Res mode toggle (enables sampling rates over 48kHz for LHDC), Golden Sound (customizes the tuning to your hearing), and Spatial Audio, which also includes head tracking through onboard motion sensors.
The app also lets you customize your earbud controls. You can customize single, double, and triple squeeze gestures, along with the slide gesture. As with other models, I've found squeeze gestures generally superior as they are tough to trigger accidentally when wearing or removing the earbuds.
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 also feature the neck vertebrae health feature that was added later for the Buds Pro 2. It uses onboard sensors to detect your neck position and using the OHealth app provides reminders to fix your posture.
The earbuds also have multi-device pairing, and you can manage all paired devices through the app. The feature is disabled by default so you will need the app to enable it.
On the HeyMelody app, you can enable a Game mode to reduce latency. On OnePlus devices, the paired device will automatically trigger the game mode when it detects a game being launched.
Finally, you can also update the firmware through the app. This is supposed to make the device better, but, as you'll soon see, can also make it worse.
Performance
Audio quality
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 feature a dual-driver design, which includes an 11mm woofer and a 6mm tweeter. Each driver also gets its dedicated DAC for reduced crosstalk, interference, and better power management.
The earbuds support SBC, AAC, and LHDC 5.0. There is no LDAC, which means for a vast majority of Android devices, you will be downgraded to AAC as LHDC is still fairly uncommon. There is also no Bluetooth LE audio or LC3 support.
OnePlus claims the Buds Pro 3 are tuned by Dynaudio. All the EQ presets in the app have a Dynaudio label next to them, even though four out of five presets are identical to what you find on almost every other OnePlus audio product. It's only the 'Dynaudio featured' preset that stands out as its description reads 'Balances bass, mids and treble to replicate the sound of Dynaudio speakers.' Sounds promising, right?
When I first got the earbuds and switched to this preset, it was like catching lightning in a bottle. Here was a very consumer-grade product aimed at the average user with outstanding, audiophile-grade tuning for at least one of its presets. It didn't matter if the sound matched Dynaudio speakers or, indeed, if it was even tuned by Dynaudio. It was good, period.
Apparently, it was too good, or perhaps not good at all depending on which focus group OnePlus consulted, because in came an update a week later that absolutely ran that Dynaudio featured preset into the ground. Gone are the beautifully balanced bass and mid-range with bright sparkling highs and replaced with what now sounds like listening to your car audio while standing outside the car. The bass has been jacked up and married to a filthy, muddy mid-range, which makes the entire lower half of the frequency spectrum sound bloated. They also got rid of any and all high-frequency energy so now it just sounds like a 96kbps MP3 recording of an AM radio broadcast.
I would like to think this was a mistake but OnePlus doesn't have the greatest track record in these matters. Even the so-called Hans Zimmer Soundscape Tuning preset on the Buds Pro 2 was utter rubbish and would make Zimmer curl up in a fetal position if he were to ever listen to it.
The original Dynaudio featured preset on the Buds Pro 3 was a slam dunk moment for these earbuds but with that defenestrated, we have to fall back on the remaining presets. The so-called Balanced (Default) preset is, in true OnePlus fashion, anything but balanced. It's a classic v-shaped tuning, with raised bass and treble and suppressed mids. I don't mind this preset much as the bass boost is largely tasteful and the bright highs are more or less how one would expect them to be. It's just that the mids are suppressed a bit too much, which pushes vocals way towards the back of the mix, and often makes you want to increase the volume to compensate.
I struggled to figure out how the Bold preset differs from Balanced at first as they sound very similar. From what I can tell, Bold has slightly less mid-bass and high-end sparkle, making it a less v-shaped version of Balanced and thus generally more balanced, ironically.
Serenade turns the bass and treble down considerably from Balanced while also jacking up the mids. This is unabashedly a mid-forward tuning and does work for some genres and content but it goes a bit too far with the mids and can sound a bit honky.
The Bass preset sounds like Balanced with more bass. There's not much else to it.
OnePlus also provides you with a six-band EQ to customize the sound further. As is usual for OnePlus, the baseline 0 value for the custom EQ is the Balanced preset, and not a true 0, so you are essentially tuning the Balanced preset. You can't make adjustments to any of the other presets.
Finally, there is the BassWave feature, which provides a dial to turn up and down the bass. I'm not sure why this needs to exist when you have custom EQ aside from the fact that you can enable it on top of other presets rather than replacing them.
Despite the crime that was committed with the nerfing of the Dynaudio featured preset, what saves the sound of the Buds Pro 3 is that it's very detailed. The driver combination sounds quite good and while you aren't quite getting wired levels of detail here, I was quite impressed with what I was hearing. These are easily some of the most detailed wireless earbuds on the market today. The drivers also have decent imaging performance with an okay soundstage.
Microphone
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 have decent microphone performance. The audio is clear but the voice sounds a bit robotic. There is also a small amount of artifacting in the voice, which makes it sound a bit crunchy, for the lack of a better word.
However, the earbuds do a great job of masking background noise, even when it gets loud or windy. Your voice also remains understandable under these conditions. So while not the best overall, it's a decent setup for calls.
Noise cancellation
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 have adaptive noise cancellation, which means it adapts the level of noise isolation to your surroundings, even if you manually set it to the max level.
Noise cancellation on OnePlus earbuds has been great for some time now and the Buds Pro 3 are no exception. You get truly flagship-level noise cancellation here that works really well in almost every environment. It also adapts well to windy conditions, turning down the ANC level to eliminate the buffeting effect. I'm also particularly pleased with the way it tunes out voices in your surroundings, something they have focused on with this model. If there's anything they can improve upon, it's reducing the sound of keyboard clicks, as they do tend to come through probably more than they should.
The transparency mode also works well although there is some room for improvement. The sound is very natural but it seems to focus more on ambient noise patterns than, say, someone speaking to you. I think the transparency system should do the opposite of the ANC and prioritize voices more, especially for those in your immediate vicinity.
Latency
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 have excellent latency performance. Usually, wireless earbuds tend to rely on the game mode to bring down the delay but the Buds Pro 3 work incredibly well out of the box even with a desktop PC, which doesn't even have a companion app, let alone a game mode. Game mode makes this even better, making these perfectly viable for casual gaming.
Connectivity
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 had good connectivity performance during testing. Even when using the LHDC codec at 900kbps, the connection was stable while walking around the room, something you absolutely cannot take for granted on earbuds as this is not at all common.
The dual connection feature also worked well and it was pretty straightforward to pair the earbuds with, say, a PC and a phone. Once paired, you can change settings on the earbuds through the phone app even if it's playing audio from the PC.
Battery Life
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 have a claimed battery life of 6 hours with AAC and 5 hours with LHDC while playing music. With ANC disabled, OnePlus claims 10 hours for AAC with no claim for LHDC.
While the ANC on figures are the most relevant, it's not easy to test battery life with ANC on as it requires contact with skin (preferably your ears) to activate. It's also difficult to test with adaptive ANC as you need a constant background noise so it doesn't change levels throughout the test. This means the testing was only conducted with ANC disabled.
In this mode, I managed to get 8 hours and 47 minutes of usage out of the earbuds after continuous audio playback while using the LHDC codec. With AAC, you can probably expect an hour more, getting it close to the claimed 10-hour mark. OnePlus' claims are generally reliable, so this isn't surprising.
With that in mind, the 5 hours claimed figure with ANC and LHDC is fine but also a bit unremarkable.
Conclusion
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are priced at $180 but can be had for $150. As usual, OnePlus is undercutting the bigger brands while more or less offering the same bells and whistles.
Outside of audio quality, the Buds Pro 3 is a very well-made product. It has good design and build quality, comfort, all the features you'd want, excellent noise cancellation, good microphone quality, great latency performance, and decent battery life. You basically have all the ingredients for a winner, especially for the price.
But then we come to the audio quality. While the default tuning is inoffensive, it's hard to overstate how much the nerfing of the Dynaudio featured preset negatively affected the overall audio evaluation. Someone at the company delivered a nearly perfectly tuned preset and then someone much worse at their job took over and decided to ruin it. You rarely get to see this level of self-own, yet here it is. Unless OnePlus reverts this change, most people outside of early reviewers will never get to experience the original tuning, which saddens me.
I now have in front of me two units, one of which is still on the original firmware that I'm never upgrading. The other has been updated and what people will actually be buying. The first one is what I'll be using going forward. The other one is back inside its box.
Pros
- Good design and build quality
- Convenient squeeze gestures
- Feature-rich app with good customizability
- Good microphone performance
- Great noise cancellation and transparency
- Great latency performance
Cons
- Outstanding audio quality ruined by a software update
- No LDAC; LHDC still a rarity on phones