Realme Buds Air 2 Neo unveiled: lower price, same Active Noise Cancellation
As expected, the Realme Buds Air 2 Neo launch about a month and a half after the original Buds Air 2. The Neo buds and their case have a different design, though all the good features are still on board. Even better, these are some of the most affordable TWS buds with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).
The Neo buds match their pricier siblings with 25 dB noise reduction (enabled by the same custom Relame R2 chip). There’s a Transparent mode if you need to chat with someone in person and dual mics for in-call noise cancellation if you need to talk to someone remote.
Battery life isn’t quite as good when you have ANC enabled – these last 20 hours total (vs. 22.5 hours), though they do last a bit longer with ANC off (28 vs. 25 hours). The buds themselves last the same (5 hours) before they need to get back in their case. On the plus side, charging is faster (10 minutes of charging get you 3 hours of play back, up from 2 hours).
The Realme Buds Air 2 Neo have 10 mm drivers with a Liquid Crystal Polymer coating. Each bud is connects to your phone with an individual Bluetooth 5.2 link, which ensures a stable and low latency connection. In gaming mode these can get down to 88 ms latency.
Realme Buds Air 2 Neo
Codec support is fairly limited, you only get AAC HD on top of the basic SBC. That is the case with the other Buds Air 2 as well. Anyway, you can use the Realme Link app (Android only) to set the noise cancellation level, adjust the equalizer, turn on Gaming mode and so on. Some of those you can trigger with the touch controls.
Like the other Air 2 buds, these have an IPX5 rating, giving them resistance against sweat and rain.
The Realme Buds Air 2 Neo will be available in Pakistan first at a price of PKR 8,000, which works out to $53/€44. For comparison, the Buds Air 2 cost PKR 10,000 in the country. You can have them in two colors – Active Black and Calm Grey. They will be available soon at Saamaan, but there’s no stock yet.
