Both the two earphones have class 1 Bluetooth for extended range and Fast Charging feature. Powerbeats High Performance is more comfortable and stable as they have adjustable, secure-fit ear hooks. They have IPX4 ratings too; they are resistant to sweat and water splashing. However, AirPods may be lost easily in your bags as these tiny earbuds don’t have any cable attached to them. I am going to compare the Flex earbuds with Beats X, AirPods, AirPods Pro, Powerbeats Pro, Powerbeats high performance, and urBeats 3 one by one.
When used correctly, they prevent the earbuds from falling off. Some people aren’t worried about rich lows and bright highs and all the beautiful robust sound in between. Others are picky about how music sounds when it’s reverberating beats flex review around inside our ears, and Beats Flex just do not meet my standard of quality. You’ll get a nice sealed in noise just because of the nature of the earbuds, but there is no special software that makes these noise canceling.
If you fall into that camp, we can’t recommend the Beats Flex for you. After trying a few combinations of eartips we eventually landed on a decent seal and were finally able to test out the Beats Flex’s audio quality. What we heard is pretty much what you’d expect – a deep v-shaped sound that accentuates the highs and lows of the audio spectrum at the expense of the mids. I saw battery life drop from 60% to 55% when using the buds sporadically during a two-hour span. You can even leave them paired to a device for hours, inactive, and the battery levels will barely drop.
The Flex are more comfortable, feel better built, and have longer-lasting continuous battery life. However, the BeatsX have a more stable in-ear fit and come with a case. They also have a better-balanced sound profile, which some users may prefer. The Flex lasted 10 hours, 24 minutes before it was totally out of juice. Although this falls short of the listed specification, you can always rely on the quick charge feature, which gives you an extra 90 minutes after just 10 minutes on the charger.
Beats Black and Yuzu Yellow colors are available at launch; Smoke Gray and Flame Blue will join in 2021. Availability from Apple starts on Wednesday, October 21 on apple.com. Authorized resellers will start selling Beats Flex on November 20.
Another thing to be aware of is that the Beats Flex aren’t rated for sweat or water resistance. If you need that reassurance, you’ve got to pay more money for the Powerbeats — also a neckband-style design — or the completely wireless Powerbeats Pro. Beats doesn’t include any kind of pouch with its $50 earbuds, so you’ll just have to carry them loose. Apple has stuck with its W1 headphone chip inside the Beats Flex, giving them the usual instant setup process and synced pairing across devices tied to your iCloud account. It would’ve been nice to have the newer H1 chip, since that’s required for the automatic switching feature between iPhone, iPad, and Mac that’s included as of iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur. Losing that touch of convenience is the tradeoff you make for the $50 price.
These buds also have their own automatic playback/call management system that will pause/resume music or answer/end calls when snapping the buds together. No, this isn’t the same as wear detection, where all you would need to do is remove the buds from your ears to stop music. It’s intuitive and serviceable for when you want to stop songs to engage in brief chats. Bundled with the earbuds are a USB-C charge connector, quick start guide, warranty card, and four sets of ear tips, in various sizes. Their integrated mic has a mediocre recording quality, so your voice sounds muffled and thin over the phone.
I attribute the cleaner audio presentation and small glimpses of bass resonance to the Beats Flex’s great isolation. A proper fit establishes a tight seal that blocks out ambient noise from coming into the soundscape, so you can enjoy full sound to the best of the buds’ capabilities. Check out our recommendations beats studio3 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 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 Flex are a mix of wireless and traditional earbuds; Bluetooth to the phone but with a cable that sits around your neck and wires to earbuds themselves. The Beats Flex are a simple set of quality Bluetooth earbuds that get the basics right for at a more affordable price. We test beats solo pro wireless dozens of earbuds every year, and few of them offered as poor of a fit as the new Beats Flex. Without wingtips to hold them in, the Flex can easily fall out, making them a poor choice for the workout crowd and anyone who’s ever had problems keeping earbuds seated properly.