Amazon Echo Buds review: Alexa in your ear with Bose noise reduction
1Reported today on The Guardian Technology
For the full article visit: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/13/amazon-echo-buds-review-alexa-in-your-ear-with-bose-noise-reduction
Amazon Echo Buds review: Alexa in your ear with Bose noise reduction
4 /
5 stars
4 out of 5 stars.
First Amazon true wireless earbuds offer a lot for the money but need attention in some areas
Amazon's first attempt at a set of true wireless earbuds gets a lot right, with Bose active noise reduction technology and hands-free Alexa.
At £119.99, the Echo Buds undercut rivals, some of which cost more than twice as much. Their design is generic: large, kidney-shaped with a glossy touch panel on the outside and a standard silicone eartip on the inside.
The eartip supports the earbud with the majority of the rest of the body sitting outside the ear. But the earbuds are large and heavy at 7.6g each, meaning they sit proud of your ear. They started to hurt after 30 minutes.
Three sizes of silicone eartips are supplied along with three sizes of wings for securing the earbuds in place if needed, which I didn't.
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The touch panel on each supports two gestures on each earbud: double-tap or tap and hold. Each earbud can do different things, choosing from pause/play, track skip, activation of Alexa or Siri/Google Assistant, muting the microphones, activating active noise reduction or transparency modes, with or without pausing the music, which is great to have.
Taking one earbud out pauses the music too, which resumes when you put it back in. The only control that's missing is volume, which you will have to adjust on your phone.
Activating the controls can be a mixed bag: sometimes they work as intended; at other points both gestures can take a few goes to register. You end up tapping harder and harder, which makes loud banging sounds in