Home » Technology » Xiaomi Redmi Buds 4 Pro Review: Annoying Software Imperfections and Slippery Design, But Great Sound Quality at an Affordable Price

Xiaomi Redmi Buds 4 Pro Review: Annoying Software Imperfections and Slippery Design, But Great Sound Quality at an Affordable Price

In May 2022, Xiaomi introduced the Redmi Buds 4 Pro wireless headphones. It hit the market at the end of September of the same year. I’ve been using them regularly since Christmas and the longer I have them the more annoying they get. However, not because of the sound quality, but because of a lot of software imperfections that the manufacturer decided not to fix and leave as they are. So illogical and annoying. However, you can learn to live with them, if only for the price that, for a price of around 1,600 CZK, it offers high-quality material processing, strong suppression of ambient noise and good music reproduction.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

Slippery pig… but you get used to it

The case of my headphones is white, shiny, unfortunately slippery. Hard to maintain with completely dry hands. In addition, it is light and small, more than once it happened that the whole box fell out of my hands. Miraculously, however, the chosen material does not receive scratches when it hits the ground. The consequences of impacts on the ground are minimal, scratches or dents are hard to see. It doesn’t matter if they fall outside in the room or outside on the pavement. With other headphones, it happened to me that the separating cap loosened or fell apart, now everything here holds together well even after a few falls from the height of the pants pocket. Unfortunately for me, they don’t come with a protective case. In addition, the box is perfectly shaped so that it does not take up much space and fits well in the pocket and does not make an unnecessary bulge.

The same applies to headphones. Their structural processing in the upper part after being stored in the box is not completely logical, so taking it out requires feeling and learning the griff. In the beginning, they very often slipped out of my fingers. Now it only happens to me when I’m inattentive and impulsive. If you fall into a wet sink, you don’t have to worry, they are waterproof. The silver strip of a different type of plastic on the earphones accepts scratches more poorly, they are more visible here than on the white surface. However, this is not a disaster. Even after a few falls, the headphones are completely free of any damage inside, nothing has fallen out, nothing has fallen apart, nothing knocks in them.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

The weight of one earphone is 20 grams, they do not press in the ears, they are comfortable to wear. When trying other headphones I always had the white oblong stick pointing down, but with the Buds 4 Pro it has to be towards the lips or it won’t stay in my ears. After two hours of wearing, the headphones start to feel slightly uncomfortable in the ears, the ears are warm, and when using the ambient noise function, the body tells itself to relax. I rate the processing positively, except for the top end, which is difficult to grip with your fingers.

Clumsy controls on headphones

For the Pro version, I expected the touch control to be adjustable and smooth. It is not adjustable, they register the touch of a finger with little success. Any instruction where a tap is required, let alone multiple, is rarely recorded and executed correctly. The opposite often happens, the headphones simply respond to touch and from areas they shouldn’t. Their shape is also bad, they are rather bigger for the ears and for those with smaller ear holes, they will fall out easily and do not fit well in the ears. It took me over two months to find the right position for them in my ears to make sure they wouldn’t fall out. When I found the right position, I was glad for it and got used to wearing them.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

A problem with the software, the fault is on Xiaomi’s side

The Buds 4 Pro comes with the Mi Buds M8 app, which immediately after pairing announced that it had an update for the earphones. Great, but how to do it, the update kept giving an error and no instructions on how to do it. Only the reply from the developer after two weeks that the headphones must be in the box and with the lid open helped. The update went through and there hasn’t been another since January. However, there are many errors in the application and in the headphones, the developer does not respond and the headphones are forgotten. The application crashes when it doesn’t and doesn’t close when it does, the aforementioned instructions for updating the headphones are missing, contact with the developer is unanswered, clicking between noise reduction modes is more like a lottery bet, the function settings on the headphones are missing, the equalizer is not available and the loss report is pointless, it works completely wrong and annoying and the handset still won’t help to find etc. And the notification that the battery is about to die, forget it!

However, the problem is not on the developer’s side. The problem is on the Xiaomi side! The developer is Andrei Zhukouski, not the manufacturer of the Xiaomi headphones. So this is a project of a user who was not satisfied with the fact that Xiaomi does not deal with phones of other brands. So if you don’t own a Xiaomi and want to use the full functionality of the headphones you bought, you have to rely on the app from the fan.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

Connectivity issues

During regular listening, the headphones decide to stop playing once every one or two weeks and start making unpleasant noises in your ears in the form of grunts, jerky short sections of the song being played or just noise, or preferably nothing at all. Putting it in a box or forgetting the BT connection won’t help. It must be reset using the button on the box. It’s not pleasant, it’s repetitive, and completely random.

ANC does not work for this. So it works, but only on a so-called good word. You click by holding the handset or in the application, and within three seconds you are back in normal mode or in transparent mode. Putting them in the box and turning off BT will help, sometimes not even that and you need to leave them disconnected for a minute or two and completely turn off the Mi Buds M8 application, or reset the headphones. When ANC is already missing, the problem with clicking modes is in ANC itself, i.e. in its intensity. When it comes down to it, ANC is done well here. And if I can praise, it’s the speed of connecting to the phone after taking it out of the box, very fast! Likewise, the latency when playing games is good, the delay is not noticeable, so they are suitable for gaming.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

Music quality

The LDAC codec for Hi-Res audio transmission combined with a Spotify song running at the highest audio quality is nice, you can tell the difference, but not so much that it’s a deciding factor for me. If you are not listening in ANC mode, the quality of the sound experience is poor for the ears, like any other cheap headphones. So I recommend listening only in ANC, even if, for example, in a room with people talking, it won’t completely transport you into the Zen environment of your music or spoken word, but it will create a certain barrier. The battery goes down quickly when listening with noise reduction, instead of 9 hours in normal mode, you have 4 hours. It will make up for fast, but not wireless, charging. And the box charges the headphones approximately 4 times.

The sound itself is clear, the voices during the songs are clear, well audible, the bass is generally weaker, rather than electronic dance music you can listen to folk or serious music.

Source: Dotekomanie.cz

The last mode, transparency, is more for torturing your enemies. Put headphones in their ears in transparent mode and let them go about their normal life. Such a cacophony that the headphones can invent, add color and highlight completely inadequate sounds, it cannot last even a few minutes.

Do you want to make a call? In most cases there is no problem, the other party can hear you just fine, you don’t have to make sure they hear you or repeat what you said over and over again. An unpleasant situation is when you are in a room where there are people who are talking or making noise, then the other party hears the surrounding noise rather than the caller’s voice. Outside, it’s only a problem if you’re close to a busy road or when a tram is passing by.

Worth it?

They say everyone gets used to it, I did too. I’d rather have more expensive and maybe even better headphones, but I hate losing expensive things and it happens to me often with headphones, but I’m not saying they should be your first choice, there are too many compromises and mistakes. For the price they’re selling for, I’d rather look elsewhere. The problems outweigh the positives, the sound quality, the LDAC codec for Hi-Res audio does not save it, the impractical, but still nice shape, not at all. If you want Xiaomi, I wouldn’t spend more than the new Xiaomi Redmi Buds 4 Active, which cost around 500 CZK and also have ANC. In a similar price category, you won’t find much show, the weak triple version of Niceboy won’t dazzle. You would rather try to look for Panasonic RZ-B310WDE-K or Philips TAT3508WT. Or pay extra for better models of just over 2,000 CZK from JBL or Phillips.

2023-08-06 06:00:18
#necessity #virtue #wireless #headphones #Redmi #Buds #Pro #recenze

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