Surface Earbuds Hands-on: Light and comfortable ear disks

Truly wireless, smart and continued earbuds are the next big thing.

AirPods, Pixel Buds, Echo Buds. Now Microsoft has joined the fray with its Surface Earbuds, and if the showing at its New York consequence is any indication, they may be amongst the best.

Following the keynote, I had a take a chance to spend time with the Earbuds at 1 of the displays. It was loud — although Microsoft did provide an isolated surface area to cut down on some of the exhibit dissonance — and decorated, merely the Earbuds impressed me.

Allow's start with the most crucial thing: sound quality. Microsoft'due south terminal run at audio, the Surface Headphones, did many things right. Simply, audio wasn't one of them. It seems the Earbuds fare meliorate.

Music was loud and full-bodied, at least in the short sample I got to hear. It's hard to say without spending more time with the Earbuds, but they certainly seem amend than the Surface Headphones. That said, the Earbuds lack noise cancellation, a central function of the Surface Headphones that make up for the lacklustre audio.

A Microsoft spokesperson at the result told me the company decided against dissonance cancellation due to prophylactic. The idea behind the buds is that you tin employ them on-the-go. If you're walking around in the metropolis, you lot want to be able to hear what'due south happening effectually you to avoid danger. It'due south a fair signal, merely considering Sony's new wireless earbuds offer noise counterfoil and a workaround so you can hear what's happening, Microsoft's argument isn't compelling plenty.

Design makes the Surface Earbuds highly-seasoned

Thankfully, the Earbuds take several other things going for them. For one, the pattern is unique.

When Microsoft offset revealed the large, disk-shaped Earbuds, I idea the company had lost its mind. Turns out it held onto its sanity until the bombastic ending of the keynote and lost it later announcing the Neo and Duo. Anyways, the design of the Earbuds looked odd at starting time glance. I couldn't imagine anyone walking around with these large white disks protruding from their ears.

Then I tried them on.

The Surface Earbuds are by far the most comfortable wireless earbuds I've always worn. Granted, I have not worn AirPods, but Apple'south wired earbuds never quite fit comfortably in my ears so the AirPods probable wouldn't either.

Microsoft engineered the Surface Earbuds to be incredibly light, which helps with the in-ear feel. But Microsoft also designed the Earbuds to piece of work with the natural shape of the man ear. Instead of a circular plastic dome that sits in the ear canal like most buds, the Earbuds' earpiece is an oval, almost egg-shaped. A Microsoft spokesperson told me that the shape helped the earbud rest on two points of the ear and in exercise it worked well.

When I tried them on, I had to slide the Earbuds in at an angle, then rotate them downwards to lock the buds in place. Information technology was a flake disruptive at start, only once I got the hang of information technology, the fit was snug. Of course, more testing needs to be washed – the demo didn't allow me to examination how the buds worked if I was moving around a lot or if my ears were sweaty.

The outside of the Earbuds, with the odd disk-shape, is another thing.

Early on concerns well-nigh touch-controls

At that place'southward a reason why the Earbuds feature a large disc on the outside: bear on controls. You can swipe up and downwardly to change book or left and right to switch songs. Double-tapping plays or pauses music. A tap-and-hold conjures whichever digital banana is on the connected device — Cortana on Windows, Assistant on Android and I assume Siri on iOS, but Microsoft didn't explicitly mention the last ane. Further, from the sounds of it, the Earbuds will bring up the default Assistant on Android. Those who adopt Alexa won't be left out in the cold.

In that location's even a gesture to phone call up Spotify on the continued device. The level of control was impressive, but things started to autumn apart when I tried the gestures for myself.

The main upshot I had was with the directional swiping. The Earbuds had a hard fourth dimension determining if I was swiping up and down or left and correct. In my brief time with them, I ofttimes skipped songs when I wanted to change volume or vice versa.

With some practice, information technology got better, but it was never perfect. Touching the Earbuds was unpredictable — you never knew what would happen.

Additionally, the Earbuds offer a multifariousness of other smart capabilities, similar live translation with over 60 languages and integration with Office 365 — the latter 0nly being in the U.S. for now.

That said, I got a run a risk to demo how the Earbuds work with PowerPoint, and it was incredible. Every bit I spoke, the buds displayed a live transcription on the PowerPoint slide. Users tin likewise advance the slides by swiping on the Earbuds, just this was disabled during my demo.

Battery and charging options we deserved

Finally, the battery and charging attribute of the Surface Earbuds was 1 surface area I think Microsoft almost nailed. Beyond a few pocket-sized problems, the design of the charging case was perfect.

To start: USB-C and wireless charging. That'south all I've ever wanted in the charging case of truly wireless buds, and Microsoft delivered.

The charging case itself is large only non heavy. It appears to be fabricated of a glossy plastic, which attracts fingerprints and smudges similar you wouldn't believe. It isn't a screen, so I can forgive information technology, but I prefer to go along my devices smudge-free when possible.

When you open the lid, the Earbuds rest neatly inside. There's a fiddling LED to indicate charging. Nonetheless, this is also where the biggest result with the case lies: information technology's hard to go the Earbuds out. The disk side faces upwardly, is flat and nearly affluent with the case, aside from a small lip around the buds. I found it hard to grip the buds to pull them out. I imagine with practice, it'd become more than natural, simply in my testing, it was an badgerer.

Microsoft engineered the case with magnets to prevent users from putting the Earbuds in an wrong mode. The case repels the buds if you become it wrong, which helps since the symmetrical disk shape can make it hard to tell which style they go.

Thankfully, yous won't have to put the Earbuds in the example that often. Microsoft claims the buds last eight hours and the instance has some other 16 hours for a total of 24 hours of battery. That's quite a fleck more than than the AirPods, but on par with what Sony's earbuds offer without dissonance counterfoil.

Again, it's hard to say but how well the Earbuds perform without spending more time with them. However, the Earbuds are amongst the well-nigh exciting of what Microsoft announced today and the initial time with them suggests they're a promising new product.

The earbuds are slated to release early on 2020 for $249 USD (roughly, $329 CAD). It'southward unclear when the Surface Earbuds will release in Canada, only Microsoft says it plans to drop earbuds in more regions in early 2020.