They did it. Sony finally learned how to name headphones. After years of naming their products with letters, dashes and numbers, they finally came up with “LinkBuds”, a simple name for a not-so-simple pair of earbuds.
LinkBuds are truly wireless (TWS) in-ear headphones that have an “open” design compared to the “closed” design of silicone ear-tipped models like Sony’s WF-1000XM4 or Apple’s AirPods Pro. It’s much more similar to the regular AirPods which don’t promise noise-cancelling. In fact, the LinkBuds promises the opposite — an open listening experience that allows you to hear your surroundings as well as your own media.
Coming in either all grey or all white, the design of the LinkBuds balances minimalism and futurism quite well. The material consists of recycled plastic materials which give the buds a rough and speckled look, and they come in plastic-free packaging. Each bud consists of a Mentos-shaped part linked to an open ring that produces the sound. To help keep it in your ears, they also provide silicone “supporter” arcs that attach to the buds and come in four sizes.
The standout feature (other than the design) from these earbuds is the microphone quality. As seen in this video by Chris Welch from The Verge, the LinkBuds was able to cancel out almost all of the background noise including music playing overhead as well as traffic. It’s not perfect, but the LinkBuds’ ability to isolate the voice in loud environments is seriously impressive. Sony claims to achieve this with AI machine learning using “more than 500 million voice samples” to extract the voice clearly.
Here’s a sample of how the LinkBuds microphone performs. First clip is recorded on an iPhone with a Shure MV88. Second clip is all LinkBuds audio. They really do a great job at cutting out loud background noise.
— Chris Welch (@chriswelch) February 15, 2022
(Yes, I chipped my tooth a couple days ago. Be nice.) pic.twitter.com/hChMpRomZb
Another peculiar thing about the LinkBuds is the controls. Instead of tapping on the small buds, you control them by tapping on your skin in front of your ears. You can double-tap or triple-tap to adjust playback. In addition to that, you could also just use voice assistants like Google Assistant or Alexa.
Sony implemented Google’s Fast Pair technology, which allows for quick pairing with Android devices. Similarly with Microsoft’s Swift Pair, the same goes for Windows 10 or 11 computers or tablets.
The specs for these earbuds are quite middle-of-the-road. It comes with IPX4 water resistance, 5.5 hours of charge from the earbuds and 12 more hours when you include the case. Charging up is pretty fast though, providing 90 minutes of playtime from just 10 minutes of charging. It also goes without saying that the LinkBuds do not come with active noise cancelling (ANC) or ambient sound because the design provides an open sound anyway.
You might be wondering why they called it the LinkBuds. I first thought it was because of the linked ring design of the earbuds, but Sony said that the name specifies how it “links” you to your world, online and offline. They plan to do this with 360 Reality Audio, which uses head-tracking to make it sound like you’re in a music studio or live venue. For this product’s launch, Sony will also be partnering with groups like Spotify and Niantic, the creator of Pokemon Go and the Bitcoin AR game, to link your online and offline worlds even more.
Pricing and availability
The Sony LinkBuds are available to order today in countries like the US or U.K., but the Malaysian product page just says “Available soon”. It has a suggested retail price of RM849, making it slightly more expensive than the 3rd generation AirPods, priced at RM829. If you’re interested, keep an eye on the product page as well as other Sony authorised dealers.
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