Realme Buds Air review: Going fully wireless now easier on the pocket: Buy Now
When Realme's CEO Madhav Sheth unveiled the Realme X2 Pro in India, he ended his presentation by taking out a pair of Apple AirPods lookalike and kept calling it 'my Airpods' until he walked off the stage wearing it. Realme has since then been teasing its first truly wireless earbuds and the social media crowd hailed it as an AirPods clone. Realme released it under the name of the Buds Air and as rumours suggested, it went for very affordable pricing- Rs 3,999 to be exact.
At Rs 3,999, the Realme Buds Air is extremely cheap by any means, especially when you consider what Realme has to offer. The Buds Air look like AirPods and they also work like AirPods- this is a trait that's not present in the sub-Rs 5,000 category. Realme says the Buds Air pack in a lot of new technology to make life easier and that got me interested in it quite a lot, given that it offered a proposition that doesn't make sense for the price Realme is asking.
Hence, I have been living with Buds Air for a while now and I think Realme has marked a revolution in the wireless earbuds category that the market needed badly for years. How? Read on to find out.
Yes, it's an AirPods clone and that's a good thing
Everything about the Realme Buds Air screams Apple AirPods. Right from the moment I took the Buds Air out of the box, I mistook it for a pair of the new AirPods. The curvy rectangular case seems to have taken massive inspiration from the Apple earbuds. There's also a LED indicator on the top to show the battery and connection status. Even the USB-C port is in the same location as the Lightning port you find on the AirPods case. The only difference is the small pairing button on the front that you need to hold for three seconds to activate the pairing mode.
The AirPods déjà vu doesn't stop as you open the lid. The earbuds themselves resemble the AirPods, complete with the iconic stalk and all the sensors. The shape is also identical to the buds on the AirPods and if you found the AirPods to be a good fit, chances are that it won't be any different for the Buds Air.
Is so much of AirPods inspiration a good thing? For me, it works as the design is extremely practical to live with and it works without bothering in any way- those owning the actual AirPods disapprove of my choices and have stopped talking ever since I started using these (shots fired). The earbuds slot in the ear easily and they stay in comfortably, with the stalk jutting out towards the cheeks. Even when you use the touch controls, they don't dislodge- that's a big win for the user. It would have been better if Realme went for silicon ear tips for a better fit but the plastic ear tips are quite comfortable for hours at a stretch. The ear tips with notable panel gaps, however, scrape up a lot of debris and on the white variant, I had to constantly keep cleaning them as well as wipe my ears every time I had to use the earbuds.
The case is itself is slim and I was able to carry it easily in my trouser pockets. The fit and finish could have been better but considering the price, I honestly can't complain. The best part is that there's USB-C port for charging the case and that meant I only had to carry a single USB-C cable while going around- every other audio accessory maker should bow before Realme for this decision. There's even support for wireless charging that I never ended up using- if you have a Samsung Galaxy S10 or Note 10, you can fill up your Buds Air on the move. Sadly, there's no fast charging and it takes up to two hours for the battery to fill up.
On the whole, the AirPods inspired design makes the Buds Air easy to use. It's surprising that it took three years for a company other than Apple to create a near-perfect clone of the AirPods. But hey, it's finally here and it's a well-rounded product.
Is it as easy to live with as the Apple AirPods?
Realme says it is and the company has gone to great depths to ensure that. I have used a pair of the original AirPods and the Buds Air are quite close to the originals, if not better in some ways.
Realme has built-in some smart features to differentiate from the cheap AirPods clones you can pick up on Aliexpress. You open the lid and the Buds Air connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth automatically (provided you keep your Bluetooth switched on). Realme uses a custom R1 chip for the seamless connectivity and in my time with the earbuds, they always connected even before I put one of the earbuds in my ear.
Whenever you need to pair the Buds Air to a new device, you have to hold the pairing button for 3 seconds and it hooks on to your new device. However, you can still connect to the Buds Air from the previous device by manually selecting the device from the Bluetooth menu.
Once you open the lid, the LED indicator glows to show the battery status- green blinks for battery above 75 per cent, yellow blinks for above 50 per cent and red blinks for when you need to plug it into the sockets. The indicator lights up again as you put the earbuds in the case.
The Buds Air have wear detection and that's a very useful feature. Both the earbuds have an optical sensor to detect proximity and they pause the music when you take any of the earbuds out of your ear. Clever, right? Sadly, if you keep that earbud with its face on the table or any other solid surface, the Buds Air thinks it's in your ear and it starts playing the song. Hence, you have to keep it facing the space to let it know that you have removed the earbud. Maybe using an accelerometer could have solved this issue.
The touch controls are surprisingly responsive and they work exceptionally well. A double-tap gesture will play or pause the music playback as well as accept or reject a call. A triple-tap will skip an audio track while a long-press will summon the Google Assistant or Siri. The touch detection is superb and never did I have to tap so hard as to dislodge the earbuds from my ear.
At Rs 3,999, the Realme Buds Air is extremely cheap by any means, especially when you consider what Realme has to offer. The Buds Air look like AirPods and they also work like AirPods- this is a trait that's not present in the sub-Rs 5,000 category. Realme says the Buds Air pack in a lot of new technology to make life easier and that got me interested in it quite a lot, given that it offered a proposition that doesn't make sense for the price Realme is asking.
Hence, I have been living with Buds Air for a while now and I think Realme has marked a revolution in the wireless earbuds category that the market needed badly for years. How? Read on to find out.
Yes, it's an AirPods clone and that's a good thing
Everything about the Realme Buds Air screams Apple AirPods. Right from the moment I took the Buds Air out of the box, I mistook it for a pair of the new AirPods. The curvy rectangular case seems to have taken massive inspiration from the Apple earbuds. There's also a LED indicator on the top to show the battery and connection status. Even the USB-C port is in the same location as the Lightning port you find on the AirPods case. The only difference is the small pairing button on the front that you need to hold for three seconds to activate the pairing mode.
The AirPods déjà vu doesn't stop as you open the lid. The earbuds themselves resemble the AirPods, complete with the iconic stalk and all the sensors. The shape is also identical to the buds on the AirPods and if you found the AirPods to be a good fit, chances are that it won't be any different for the Buds Air.
Is so much of AirPods inspiration a good thing? For me, it works as the design is extremely practical to live with and it works without bothering in any way- those owning the actual AirPods disapprove of my choices and have stopped talking ever since I started using these (shots fired). The earbuds slot in the ear easily and they stay in comfortably, with the stalk jutting out towards the cheeks. Even when you use the touch controls, they don't dislodge- that's a big win for the user. It would have been better if Realme went for silicon ear tips for a better fit but the plastic ear tips are quite comfortable for hours at a stretch. The ear tips with notable panel gaps, however, scrape up a lot of debris and on the white variant, I had to constantly keep cleaning them as well as wipe my ears every time I had to use the earbuds.
The case is itself is slim and I was able to carry it easily in my trouser pockets. The fit and finish could have been better but considering the price, I honestly can't complain. The best part is that there's USB-C port for charging the case and that meant I only had to carry a single USB-C cable while going around- every other audio accessory maker should bow before Realme for this decision. There's even support for wireless charging that I never ended up using- if you have a Samsung Galaxy S10 or Note 10, you can fill up your Buds Air on the move. Sadly, there's no fast charging and it takes up to two hours for the battery to fill up.
On the whole, the AirPods inspired design makes the Buds Air easy to use. It's surprising that it took three years for a company other than Apple to create a near-perfect clone of the AirPods. But hey, it's finally here and it's a well-rounded product.
Is it as easy to live with as the Apple AirPods?
Realme says it is and the company has gone to great depths to ensure that. I have used a pair of the original AirPods and the Buds Air are quite close to the originals, if not better in some ways.
Realme has built-in some smart features to differentiate from the cheap AirPods clones you can pick up on Aliexpress. You open the lid and the Buds Air connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth automatically (provided you keep your Bluetooth switched on). Realme uses a custom R1 chip for the seamless connectivity and in my time with the earbuds, they always connected even before I put one of the earbuds in my ear.
Whenever you need to pair the Buds Air to a new device, you have to hold the pairing button for 3 seconds and it hooks on to your new device. However, you can still connect to the Buds Air from the previous device by manually selecting the device from the Bluetooth menu.
Once you open the lid, the LED indicator glows to show the battery status- green blinks for battery above 75 per cent, yellow blinks for above 50 per cent and red blinks for when you need to plug it into the sockets. The indicator lights up again as you put the earbuds in the case.
The Buds Air have wear detection and that's a very useful feature. Both the earbuds have an optical sensor to detect proximity and they pause the music when you take any of the earbuds out of your ear. Clever, right? Sadly, if you keep that earbud with its face on the table or any other solid surface, the Buds Air thinks it's in your ear and it starts playing the song. Hence, you have to keep it facing the space to let it know that you have removed the earbud. Maybe using an accelerometer could have solved this issue.
The touch controls are surprisingly responsive and they work exceptionally well. A double-tap gesture will play or pause the music playback as well as accept or reject a call. A triple-tap will skip an audio track while a long-press will summon the Google Assistant or Siri. The touch detection is superb and never did I have to tap so hard as to dislodge the earbuds from my ear.