Fidget Spinner or Earbuds? đ€ | Sony LinkBuds (WF-L900)
The LinkBuds from Sony. Does it only stand out for its funky design and a name thatâs easy to remember?
Or does it offer enough to justify its price tag? Or should you just save yourself a hundred bucks and get yourself the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live?
Sound Quality
Letâs not beat around the bush and get a few things out of the way.
Do not, I repeat, do not buy these for sound quality. If you are serious about audio then any open ear style earbuds wonât satisfy your needs. The bass on these buds are weak sauce since they can never seal your ears, but weâll talk more about that later.
The open design means that they let in a lot of noise. So don’t use these in very noisy places. Similar to other Sony buds or headphones you do get EQ presets and manual adjustment options in the app.
(Noise Cancelling)
Ok, this is where we normally talk about noise cancelling. But we wonât. Because there is literally a hole in these buds. You can’t cancel holes. And weâre actually happy about that. Let us explain. These are open ear style earbuds so even trying to claim they can do active noise cancelling, would just be a joke. *cough* galaxy buds live *cough*.
đ§ Buy the Sony LinkBuds: https://geni.us/SonyLinkBuds
đ§ Buy the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live: https://geni.us/BudsLive
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Build Quality
These buds are really called the LinkBuds, something we didnât expect from Sony. But for you hardcore Sony fans out there, fret not, they also have a name that they gave it when their office cat jumped on the keyboard. The WF-L900. So thereâs your new password.
Apart from the easy to remember name, itâs also easy to pick a colour, since there are only two options: grey and white. And about the case, the moment you pick it up, youâll notice how tiny it is, so theyâre really easy to carry around. It has a little button to open the case and a button on the back to put them into pairing mode to link them to your device. And for the Android users out there, it also comes with Android fast pair, which works like a charm. The moment I popped open the case, a notification showed up on my phone and the buds were linked in seconds.
The case and buds do feel a bit cheap though. Theyâre not very sturdy. Weâre curious to see how they hold up. But, our environmental friendly hearts loved hearing that the case is made from broken up recycled car parts mixed with elements of stone. We think more companies should focus on making throwaway disposable earbuds and do their bit for the environment.
Design
Letâs address the elephant in the room. That design! The LinkBuds look like the love child of a fidget spinner and wireless earbuds. The fidget spinner bit goes into your ear which has the speaker. At the other end we have the earbud itself which nestles into your concha with an arc supporter. You get 5 different sizes of these arc supporters so finding a size that fits you shouldnât be a problem. And weâve got to say, everyone’s ears are unique and it can be tricky to find good fitting earbuds. But the LinkBuds do this well. They are really comfortable and fit securely. So that, linked with its IPX4 rating, make them a proper pair of workout buds.
And if youâre out for a run outdoors, you probably want to be aware of your surroundings, and that links nicely to our next point. As weâve mentioned at the start, these are open ear style earbuds. Meaning youâll always hear whatâs going on around you without having to take them out of your ears. Earbuds with a similar design are the Galaxy Buds Live from Samsung. Weâre fans of them because of how comfortable they are and great at calls too.
Well I guess that calls for call samples! Click HERE for a few basic microphone samples compared to some other buds.
What did you think of the microphone quality?
Weâll be sure to include the LinkBuds in more extensive tests in the future.
In terms of ‘vakman’ controls, donât expect too much. You can answer, end or reject a call. And you can triple tap a bud during a call to switch connection to and from your smartphone. We thought they would be a great recommendation for work from homers.
Extra Features
But a misser from Sony here is the lack of multipoint. They can only stay connected to one device at a time. Good news though. You can force a connection from a previously paired device. No need to disconnect or put it into pairing mode. In our opinion, this is the next best thing to multipoint connectivity.
Something to be aware of is that the LinkBuds seem fine for quiet environments or a run outdoors. But if you plan to wear them for a long time in noisy environments, youâll be probably cranking up the volume. This might not be great for your hearing – you donât want to damage those precious cochleas. A louder volume also uses up more of the battery. Sony claims 5.5 hours on the buds and a total of 17.5 with the case. Which is below average. The Buds Live for reference give you 7.5 on the buds and 28 hours with the case. The LinkBuds surprisingly donât support wireless charging, so they lose out on another battery related point compared to the Buds Live.
The way you can interact with the LinkBuds is also interesting. You have your boring touch controls. But you also have an option in the app called âWide Tap Areaâ. This means you donât need to tap the earbud itself, but around it near your temple area will also do the job. It worked quite well and no ghost taps in our experience. In the app you can change what a single or double tap does separately for each bud. But you have to choose from preset options. You donât get fine grained tuning to change what each tap does independently.
What you can do independently, is use any earbud on its own. They also come with wear detection. So if you forget to wear trousers, the earbuds will remind you.
Ok, ok, we all know you donât need trousers if youâre working from home or shooting YouTube videos. Right? Right?
But being wary of our wear jokes, what we meant is that the buds can detect if you take out an earbud and will automatically pause audio and resume again once you put them back in. And if thatâs too old school for you, the LinkBuds come with Sonyâs speak-to-chat feature. Meaning the audio will pause if it detects youâre trying to speak. But if you talk to yourself, weâre not judging, or you like to sing along, then you might want to keep this off in the app.
And because of the open ear design, Sony predicted youâll be adjusting the volume quite often. This is why theyâve included an âAdaptive Volume Controlâ option so it can do this based on your ambient sound levels. We didnât find this to be very reliable and preferred to keep the volume controls in our own hands.
Wrap up!
Overall, we admire the bold design choice, excellent comfort, fit as well as microphone quality. But for the price theyâre retailing at, itâs hard to recommend them especially when youâve got some many lower priced earbuds which include active noise cancelling and better sound quality. But if open ear design is a hard criterion for you then we would suggest taking a look at the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live. Dirt cheap at the moment and ticks a lot of the same hole-shaped boxes.
Youâve been wondering if we wear trousers and weâve been DHRME. Namaste!