Beats Flex review: an ideal replacement for Apple’s EarPods

Thanks to their W1 chip, it’s also easy to seamlessly pair them with different Apple devices. However, while fans of EDM and hip-hop may enjoy their bass-heavy sound profile, they lack an EQ to finetune their sound to your liking. Their companion app also lacks a lot of functionality and doesn’t offer that many extra features.

In the world of true wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the older-style neckband models typically occupy the cheaper end of the market. They have wires connecting the earbuds to each other but Bluetooth to the phone. They work perfectly as running or gym earphones even without official water resistance, and their sound quality is easygoing and enjoyable.

Beats Flex come with four sizes of eartips, so most people shouldn’t have much trouble finding a good fit. The soft, pliable eartips are relatively easy to swap out, but you also don’t have to worry about them coming beats studio3 loose unintentionally. Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word recorded clearly.

Read on to find out more about the Beats Flex budget wireless earbuds. The left-side housing includes a pair of buttons, but they’re easy to distinguish between by feel. Along the edge is an elongated volume rocker, while a raised, round button on the face of the housing offers playback control.

beats flex review

There’s no noise-cancelling either, but with the correct seal you’ll still enjoy good levels of passive noise isolation. Check out our recommendations for the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the best wireless earbuds for iPhone, and the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds under $50. You can turn on and off the auto-pause beats solo pro wireless that activates when you remove them from your ears. You can also turn on and off auto-call answering, but that’s about it. The Beats Flex’s passive soundstage is bad, which is to be expected for closed-back in-ears. To create a large and out-of-head soundstage, the outer ear needs to be activated by sound resonances.

You can even pay monthly if you want – it’s $8.33/mo for 6 months plus a $3 down payment (for a total cost of $52.98). You get great bass output, which is basically a requirement in Beats headphones beats solo pro wireless which made their name from punchy bass . Tracks like Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name of and White Stripes Seven Nation Army had the kind of punch that we’d hope for.

Without the H1 chip, you also won’t get hands-free “Hey ‌Siri‌” support, so you’ll have to press the voice assistant button on the left-side neckband housing in order to access ‌Siri‌. With nearly identical neckband housings on each side, it takes a little bit of practice to remember which functions are located where, but once you learn that it’s easy to control things by feel. Unlike ‌AirPods Pro‌, Beats Flex don’t have active noise cancellation, but I still found they did a pretty good job shutting out background noise and letting me focus on what I was listening to. There’s some added thump to the drum loop, and the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with power and depth—these earphones will not disappoint lovers of boosted bass. The vocals are delivered cleanly and clearly, though some sibilance is added to the mix.

I think I prefer the simpler Beats Flex layout, which helps reduce weight (they’re 8% lighter than BeatsX) without compromising usability. The left-side housing also includes a black patch where the microphone lives, as well as the USB-C port. The launch of Beats Flex comes at the perfect time, given that Apple has stopped including wired EarPods in the box with new purchases of iPhones, even older models that used to include them.