A little sweat is probably okay , but these aren’t heavy workout headphones. Apple provides four tip sizes for the Beats Flex in the box, and while everyone’s ears will differ, I had few issues with the default tip size. What I did have issues with beats studio3 was the overall comfort of wearing neckband-style headphones for any considerable length of time. The neckband cable matches the colour of your chosen Beats Flex pair, with a pair of long, lozenge-shaped control boxes in line to the left and right.
The good thing about neckband style wireless earbuds is that the battery lasts way longer than true-wireless earbuds. Apple claims Beats Flex has a battery life of 12 hours of listening time and I can tell you that I haven’t yet had to charge them and I’ve been using them for hours at a time for five days straight. With AirPods or Powerbeats Pro, I have a limited amount of time before I have to take them out and charge them in the middle of the day.
At the other extreme, the high-end delivers clean vocals, though again some of the sparkle that pricier headphones serve up wasn’t quite there. The most welcome surprise was to the midrange, where Beats’ earbuds deliver an unexpected level of detail. When you remove the headphones from your ears, a magnetic system “sticks” them together, back to back, and automatically pauses music playback, which is very convenient. You have to fumble a bit at first to find the playback and volume controls on the case, but you get used to it quickly. However, we would have liked the cable between the two boxes to be a little longer, especially if it rests on a jacket and not directly on the neck. My one minor complaint is that the play/pause button is pretty hard to feel out blindly with your thumb.
The other thing to note is that although there’s no active noise cancellation on the earphones, if you manage to find an adequate ear fit, you’ll get a good level of passive sound isolation. It doesn’t support iOS 14 features like the ability to automatically switch to another device because the Flex is running beats solo pro wireless on Apple’s H1 chip, but you’ll still get audio sharing, which is neat. They’re three times more expensive than the Flex at $150, but the audio is so much better. They also pack in the latest Apple Bluetooth chip, the H1, so you get access to things like hands-free Siri on top of the quick-pairing.
Since they’re fairly small in size and have a flexible plastic and silicone design, you can easily stash them in most pockets or bags without an issue. They have an 11-hour continuous battery life, which should be enough for daily commutes. Unfortunately, they struggle to isolate bass range against noise like bus or plane engines. The people I talked to said I sounded clear and the noise reduction outdoors in noisier environments was good. You can answer and end calls with the button on the left module, where there’s also a rocker switch for volume control. While playing music, tapping the universal control button twice skips tracks forward.
Once you get used to wearing the buds, finding the controls becomes second nature. It took me a bit of time to get accustomed to how high up the controls are, but once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing from then on out. There was a time when the name “Beats” meant “these headphones have way too much bass.” That time has come and gone , with the Flex going lighter on bass than most other Beats I’ve heard recently. Whether you’re looking to buy your first pair of Bluetooth earphones, then, or you’re the type of person who regularly breaks or loses them, you really can’t go too far wrong with the Beats Flex. They offer unbeatable value for money and should really make you question whether you need to spend more. The only significant shortcoming considering their low price is that the Flex don’t come with any waterproofing.
The group delay is below the audibility threshold for the entire range, ensuring a tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. However, these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently. The entire range is overemphasized, so mixes have extra thump, punch, and boom, which fans beats solo pro wireless of genres like EDM and hip-hop might appreciate. The Beats Flex have a bass-heavy sound profile, which is well-suited for thumpy genres like EDM and hip-hop. Unfortunately, their treble is underemphasized, resulting in veiled vocals and lead instruments as well as dull sibilants like S and T sounds.
Second, it ensures that when you’re reaching for the buttons they’re easy to find, and you’re not rubbing any external microphones accidentally. That reduces the tearing-like sound that someone might hear on the phone if you’re speaking to them over your Beats headset. Unlike Powerbeats, the Flex don’t have any additional way to grip onto your ears. Beats told us a reason for this – and a reason for the lack of a pouch too – was that most of their customers simply don’t use them. And, to reduce extra unnecessary waste, the company opted to get rid.
We don’t love them as much as the top-tier AirPods Pro or even the Powerbeats Pro, but if you just bought a new iPhone and want a pair of affordable Beats earbuds to go with it, the Flex could fit the bill. The Beats Flex headphones are a slightly weird product in this way, because even at their price point, there are actual true wireless buds that you can buy. And naturally enough, Apple has a number of actually wireless buds at higher prices that you could also aspire towards. Inside the Beats Flex is Apple’s W1 chip, and it’s great to see this handy piece of silicon at the heart of these cheaper earphones. Bring the Beats Flex close to an iPhone and – as you do with AirPods – you’ll get instant pairing across all your connected devices. Don’t expect fancy new features like auto-syncing or Spatial Audio as neither of them are supported by this chip.
Their sound profile is also better and reasonably balanced. Unfortunately, all these features are absent in Flex wireless earbuds. This chip gives you an easy pairing feature with any Apple devices that are synchronized to iCloud. Flex wireless earbuds don’t come up with a carrying case or pouch.