OnePlus Buds Pro 2 review: good-sounding earbuds with spatial audio for Android

The earbuds cost £179 and compete directly with the similarly priced Pixel Buds Pro and £249 AirPods Pro, but with the added advantage of having an app for Android and iPhone so they are truly cross-platform.

The Buds Pro 2 have a fairly simple design and are slightly more compact than most rivals, including the AirPods Pro 2, making them light and comfortable to wear for long listening sessions.

The earbuds last up to six hours between charges with noise cancelling turned on, and charge just over three times from the little flip-top case for a total of 25 hours playback. The compact case is nice and pocketable, and charges in 100 minutes via USB-C but also has Qi wireless charging.

The Buds Pro 2 tick all the Bluetooth connectivity boxes. They support the latest Bluetooth 5.3 with Fast Pair for Android, plus AAC, LC3 and LHDC audio standards, making them suitable for a wide array of devices. Either earbud can be used on its own for mono audio or calls, they support seamless switching between devices and can connect to two gadgets at once.

The companion app has a full equaliser as well as a sound customisation system that performs a five-minute hearing test and tweaks the audio to your personal hearing profile accordingly.

Spatial audio requires games, music and video streaming apps to be updated, with the feature live for YouTube at the time of testing and other big firms expected to follow suit in the near future.

The earbuds have adaptive active noise cancelling that can ramp up or down depending on ambient noise, but it is fairly weak, meaning it was best left on its maximum setting. Even then they struggle with higher notes, including a car tyre noise, the typing of keys in an office and wind noise.

Call quality was pretty good, but while my voice remained clear for the caller the earbuds let a fair amount of background noise through in busier environments.

OnePlus rates the batteries for at least 80% of their original capacity after 500 full-charge cycles but they are not replaceable nor are the earbuds repairable, ultimately making them disposable. The earbuds are not made from recycled materials and the company does not publish environmental impact reports or offer trade-in or recycling.

The OnePlus Buds Pro 2 cost £179 ($179) shipping on 16 February.

For comparison, the Nothing Ear 1 cost £149, the Google Pixel Buds Pro cost £179, the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2 cost £279.95 and the Apple AirPods Pro 2 cost £249.

With an app available on Android and iPhones, they can be fully used with either platform, unlike some competitors. Support for connecting to two devices at the same time is a rare but welcome feature. A comfortable fit, decent battery life and a nice and compact case also make them easy to live with.

The lack of on-board volume controls is a little disappointing, but the biggest issue is that like most other true wireless earbuds the battery cannot be replaced, ultimately making them disposable and losing a star.