Budget buds are booming. While flagship wireless earbuds like the AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra grab all the accolades, brands like Soundpeats and Anker’s Soundcore lineup have proven you can get good sound, ample features, and even effective noise canceling at a fraction of the cost of the major players.
It’s only natural that mega brands like Apple-owned Beats would want a piece of the action. As Beats’ cheapest fully wireless earbuds to date, the dashingly compact Solo Buds are on the front line, promising a focus on core design and sound quality in lieu of extras like noise canceling. They even use the same speakers as the much pricier Studio Buds+, but after several hours of testing, the Solo's sound left me wanting. It’s clear and relatively balanced, but the fidelity falls short of some of my favorites in their price class.
The Solo serve up some neat features like auto-pairing for both iOS and Android phones and fantastic playback time per charge, but their astonishingly small charging case lacks a backup battery, limiting their total playtime away from an outlet. Without any other standout features like noise canceling or even basic waterproofing, the Solo simply don’t bring enough artillery to compete with the fleet of affordable competitors knocking down your door.
Micro Package, Macro Play Time
The Solo Buds’ most noteworthy design trait is easily their incredibly tiny case, which stands out (or rather disappears), even in a sea of miniature cases. Forget fitting it in your regular jeans pocket, this thing fits in the key pocket. Beats says the case is 40 percent smaller than the relatively compact Studio Buds+ case, and it’s even available in a trendy transparent red colorway—welcome back to 1992, everybody!
Whether the case’s spyware style and ultralight weight of just 22 grams make up for its lack of an onboard battery may depend on how you’ll use the Solo Buds. Their eye-popping 18-hour playback time is enough for the vast majority of scenarios, and I got approximately that much in testing, with the buds lasting multiple days of listening without a recharge. (If you’ve got the new iPhone 15, Beats says you can also plug in the case directly to charge on the go.)
The lack of a case battery does change its functionality in a few other ways compared to most buds. There’s no onboard LED to indicate battery life, so you’ll need to check the buds in your iOS settings or (for Android users) the Beats app before traveling. The case also lacks a pairing button, so manually re-pairing the buds must be done via their onboard controls.
The buds themselves aren’t quite as astonishingly small compared to other tiny buds, but they’re still relatively compact, matching up similarly to other recent Beats buds. They’re a bit stubbier and rounder than the Studio+ but have the same convenient fins on the exterior for pulling them out and putting them in place.