In today’s review we will see some very interesting headphones from the workshop of the Chinese giant Xiaomi. The new generation of Buds headphones recently arrived in the newsroom for testing, and since the AirPods 4 landed on my desk, since they are competition for these AirPods, I spent the last few days with this new product in my ears. So what is she like?
Technical specifications, elaboration and design.
Although some would probably say that this is another copycat attempt from Xiaomi, given that the Buds 5 headphones began to flood the domestic market only after the introduction of the AirPods 4, this is not the case. Respectively, Xiaomi may have been inspired by Apple, but it already introduced the Buds 5 headphones in China in July, while the AirPods 4 did not make their debut until September. In terms of functions and design, both models are more than similar.
In terms of shape, the Xiaomi Buds 5 are very similar to the fourth-generation AirPods, making them fit in your ears as comfortably as Apple’s headphones. So, if these types of earbuds suit you, this is the place for you. The Xiaomi Buds 5 charging box is a little larger, but it can provide the earbuds with up to 39 hours of battery life when ANC is turned off. In the case of the AirPods, we’re talking “only” about 30 hours, so the Buds 5 clearly have the advantage here.
As for other technical specifications, the headphones are compatible with both Android and, of course, iOS, while full compatibility is helped by the Xiaomi Earbuds app, through which you can adjust many things, including the ANC intensity. , sound modes and much more. of other things. But we’ll talk about that later. The USB-C port on the bottom handles charging and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity. The good thing is that the technology, created by Xiaomi’s team of audio experts in collaboration with Qualcomm and Hi-Res HiFi sound, provides an authentic sound experience, like that of a live concert. Whether you’re at home, on the road or at work, the music sounds the way the artists intended. What’s more, these headphones aren’t just about sound. but also about microphones. They were equipped with an intelligent wind noise suppression algorithm, thanks to which you can comfortably make calls from the headphones even if the wind blows around you at a speed of up to 43.2 km/h. So outdoor errands with the occasional whiff around you won’t trample on your voice.
While the AirPods are only available in white, in the case of the Xiaomi Buds 5 you can choose between white, black and titanium gray versions, and in all cases the case and earbuds are a combination of glossy and matte plastic. The price of these headphones is 2,490 CZK.
Proof
I must say that I really wanted to try the Xiaomi Buds 5, as I was very curious to see how good a competitor it was for the AirPods 4. It is the AirPods 4 that I find a great success from Apple for its ANC and sound component of high quality, so calling them to a duel by Xiaomi is a pretty bold step. But I have to say that in some ways it was worth it.
Pairing the earbuds with the iPhone takes a matter of seconds, but for full functionality, you will need to download the aforementioned Xiaomi Earbuds app from the App Store. However, it is completely in Czech and generally works very reliably, so I think using it won’t bother you too much. Once downloaded, the process of pairing the headphones with your phone is very simple, as is installing the latest firmware to ensure your headphones perform at their best.
Before moving on to the sound evaluation, I must praise Xiaomi for allowing everything to be configured in the app. For example, it has a menu for setting up gestures, where you can configure various gestures to your liking: a single press of the left or right button, a double press of the left or right button, a triple press of the left or right button. , or press and hold the left or right button, while of course each button can be set to something different. As a result, you can generously set track rewind, increase or decrease volume, play and pause, but what’s more, you can also activate sound recording or control photography, that is, activate ANC or the assistant of voice.
Sound recording is an extremely interesting topic that I see with headphones for perhaps the first time in my life. You have two options in particular: record the sound captured by the headphones or, and this is much more interesting, record a phone call. All you have to do is activate this option in the app and then make a call, or accept it and then activate the feature. Once this happens, the earbuds will start recording the call and then allow you to save it to your phone for playback. The only limit in this case is the recording limitation to 90 minutes, but I think it won’t limit anyone that much. I personally tested the feature during both a classic GSM call and a FaceTime call, and in both cases both my voice and the other party’s voice were recorded. So for me this is an extremely interesting feature, its existence in the app surprises me quite a bit considering how Apple has been fighting against call recording for a long time.
As for the sound component, which is of course the most important of the headphones, I dare say that the Xiaomi Buds 5 definitely sound much better than one would expect for the price of 2,490 CZK. Its sound is clean, energetic, quite dense and, in general, quite natural. Although I find the AirPods to be better in sound, as their naturalness and certainty in each tone is a little better for me, the Buds 5 do not lose significantly to them in any way. Also, if you don’t like the default sound settings, you can customize the sound through the app via sound balance, where there are a total of five preset options, with the sixth one you can create it yourself. Thanks to this, you can customize the sound exactly how you would like to hear it, and I must admit that the differences between the individual modes are really noticeable. For example, with active voice enhancement, the performer’s voice is much more penetrating, while with bass reduction, even compositions with too much bass become much more tolerable.
I also find the active suppression of ambient noise very useful. Also in this case the manufacturer relies on letting a special “noise” into the ear canals, which blocks outside sounds and therefore induces the illusion of isolation from the outside world. Even here I have to say that compared to the AirPods 4 with ANC, Xiaomi loses a little here, since Apple’s ANC is a little more natural, more effective and therefore better, but for headphones for 2490 CZK, the ANC present here is absolutely bombastic. . As soon as you turn it on, nothing will bother you while you walk around the city. Sure, you’ll hear cars honking and stuff like that, but as soon as a car or bike passes by, kids jumping, etc., you probably won’t even notice them.
What I think is really cool is the ability to customize the ANC again in the app. Specifically, I mean its intensity, when you can muffle the surrounding sounds exactly as you want, for example with regard to your safety in case of doubt in the city. With the slider you simply adjust the intensity, which will then correspond to the damping, and that’s it. If I were to evaluate the battery life, it of course varies from person to person depending on how you are used to using the headphones. In my case it lasted a full week with daily calls and a few hours listening to music. That’s nice, but I have to say that I’m a little annoyed by the lack of wireless charging support, which makes my AirPods last, slightly exaggerating, an infinite amount of time. I always have plenty of wireless chargers on hand and I just find it easier to put the AirPods on them for a while to “power” them, so I don’t have to deal with charging them via a cable. So as a result, even if the Xiaomi Buds 5 have better endurance than the AirPods 4, I don’t think anyone will appreciate this more.
On the contrary, they will surely appreciate the fact that the headphones remember their last settings after reconnecting to the phone. So, for example, if you had ANC active and you removed the headphones from your ears, when you plug them back in, ANC will automatically turn on. It is a shame that to activate it you need to use the feet of headphones with pressure sensors or the application, since ANC activation is done through the control center. Apple Ok for the AirPods, but in the end it’s not annoying at all. What, on the other hand, is a bit annoying for AirPods owners, at least at first, is the charging case, which is created in a slightly different spirit than Apple. Instead of opening the top and inserting the headphones into the two holes, here you open a much larger part of the case and place the headphones “lying down”, which takes a while for your hands to get used to. But after a few days of using the Xiaomi Buds 5, you will find this movement completely intuitive.
summary
The Xiaomi Buds 5 headphones are actually a very pleasant surprise for me and at the same time a product that I would love Apple could easily inspire in part. In fact, if you created a section dedicated to AirPods in the iPhone settings, allowing easy updates, various customizations (or a larger number of them compared to what it offers now), etc., you certainly wouldn’t do it. be bad, just as many people might be satisfied with the ANC intensity settings. All in all, the Xiaomi Buds 5 are truly fantastic headphones that, in my opinion, definitely have the potential to surpass the AirPods 4. For the price they can be had, they offer much more than you would expect at first glance.
Discount code
If you are interested in headphones, I have good news for you. Thanks to our cooperation with Mobil Emergency, I managed to get them a discount code. lsa400which will reduce the price of these headphones to 2090 CZK from the original 2490 CZK. Additionally, the code can be used for any color variant. But be careful, it only applies to the fastest top five.
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You can buy Xiaomi Buds 5 here
