Sony LinkBuds Review: Great Idea, Poor Execution

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By now, you may have seen me write about the Sony LinkBuds not once, but twice. I preordered the LinkBuds as soon as I could because I really wanted an earbud for outdoor activities. Whether I’m commuting or just exercising, I wanted to be safe on the road while still retaining access to my music and, when exploring, directions. The LinkBuds seemed perfect for that. They have an actual hole in the driver to allow external sound through. It’s a fascinating design, and I wanted it as soon as I saw it.

Unfortunately, I’ve already returned them.

Yes, this story is one of those sad ones where I had to say goodbye to a product I bought. But this time the sting is so much worse. These are some great earbuds with just the wrong kind of flaws. Namely, I can’t even use them for the reason I bought them: exercising.

Turns out these earbuds have to stay in your ear to work, and they don’t do that at all.

It’s not all bad, and, in fact, many people may not even have the issues I’ve had. So this review is going to be a mixed bag of praise and disappointment.

But mostly disappointment.

tl;dr

• Pros:
  • Decent sound, minus the bass
  • Definitely allows sound to pass through
  • Innovative controls I’m sorely going to miss
  • Compact case
  • Recycled plastics

• Cons:
  • You may find them uncomfortable to the point of pain
  • Or they may not stay in at all
  • Battery life is a bit short
  • Bass is… hollow? Eh? Okay, pun aside, bass is a bit flat

Sound Quality 7/10

Sound quality is interesting. On one hand, these have surprisingly crisp, clean sound. There’s good detail here. In fact, Sony even uses their DSEE to improve the sound quality of lower quality recordings. Mids and highs come through really nicely. However, there’s some volume lost on the bass. There’s no punch, leading to it feeling flat and smeared.

Your music won’t sound bad with these headphones, it’ll just lack any real feel. That’s because bass requires moving a lot of air in large movements. With your ear canal open to the outside world, these just can’t create the closed-off space for air movement necessary for heavy bass. These were always going to sacrifice bass. You can crank it in Sony’s app, but that’s only going to make it sound muddier. Instead, you can boost the bass clarity and use the equalizer to give it a small boost. This will improve the sound of your bass, but not enough to match most in-ear headphones. I’d compare it more to the original AirPods, or other headphones that don’t create a seal.

I enjoyed listening to music with these. You can still find enough of a beat to get up and move. There’s a lively energy to the sound on these little earbuds. The bass is just lacking any oomph. I wouldn’t consider these a primary headphone. Instead, it’s a set of earbuds for when you want to hear your surroundings more than you want to hear bass.

Sound Transparency 10/10

This is the trade-off for that bass. Instead of noise cancellation or some artificial transparency mode, the Sony LinkBuds pipe the sound in from outside using this fancy thing called sound. Vibrations in the air travel wirelessly to your ear, through your ear canal, and right into your inner ear, all without any electricity involved.

The hole in the middle both makes these look weird and gives them their superpower: natural outside noise. They just get out of the way so you can hear everything around you. It can be a bit distracting, if you’re not looking for completely transparent headphones. However, if you need to hear your surroundings with clarity and detail, these are perfect.

Fit and Comfort 1/10

This was the main reason I returned these. It’s a shame because I liked so many other aspects of these headphones, but, as it turns out, actually being able to wear your headphones is important. Who knew?

These work by sliding under two parts of your ear. The first is obvious. The driver goes in the lower part of your ear, facing your ear canal. The back has a tiny loop. You sort of twist the earbud in and down, which should push this small, flexible loop behind a notch in your ear.

If you have that notch. Not everyone does. Who has two thumbs and only one ear with a notch there? This gal.

Sony could have easily used the same kind of ear hooks Apple used for the Beats Fit Pro headphones. These keep the earbuds in place securely for running and other outdoor activities. Instead, Sony put a flimsy hook that attaches to a part of the ear that not everyone has. Even on my left ear, where this fit better, the fit wasn’t secure enough for running, climbing, mountain biking, or skateboarding. On the right ear, I used the largest size loop so it could fold towards the front of my ear better. This was the only way to keep it secure. By “secure,” I mean I had to fix it every few minutes when I was doing the jostling outdoor activity of… walking. But that was better than falling out immediately.

My right ear, which I struggled to keep these earbuds in, would be uncomfortable after about 1 minute and in pain about 20 minutes later. Actual pain. It got to the point where I couldn’t make it through an album before I had to take these off and let my ears rest for an hour. I’d have a red mark where the ear loop Sony put on the LinkBuds pressed on my ear.

Some people have said these were comfortable. Others have said they’re painful. It all comes down to the fact that Sony designed them to fit in part of the ear that not everyone has, instead of just making it fit in most ears. They also chose an insecure method of keeping them in your head.

The one purpose of these is to let outside sound through, specifically for outdoor activities, and yet if you even try a light jog, these are ending up on the street. Sometimes, I could even just wiggle my ears enough to shake them loose. Yes, I can wiggle my ears. It’s only useful for keeping glasses from slipping down my face and, apparently, shaking Sony earbuds loose.

Controls 7/10

Sony introduced some creative controls with these that I just have to gush over. In fact, when I went back to my AirPods Pro, I was incredibly disappointed. Sony’s LinkBuds make you the button. By tapping around your ear, you could activate controls that are normally on an earbud. Double tap on the area in front of your ear to play, pause, activate a voice assistant, kick off other actions, and more. It’s so cool to just give a double tap near your ear to do something on your phone. It felt futuristic.

… when it worked.

Obviously because the fit and comfort is so bad, you’ll end up adjusting these a lot. Guess what happens every time you adjust an earbud? Did you guess it thought you did a triple tap? Yup. Fixing your earbud would lead to skipping songs. It was so frustrating that I’d have to think, “Do I want to stop these from falling out or see if they’ll stay in until the end of this song?”

Like AirPods and some other popular earbuds, Sony’s LinkBuds can detect when they’re in your ear. However, the sensor seems particularly… sensitive. Not only will it pause from light adjustments, but when you’re putting them down on a table or just holding them, they can think you’ve got them back in your ears and continue playing music. It just doesn’t work as well as you’d expect, but it’s possible Sony could fix this with a firmware update.

There are other features to control these. For example, you can set them up to pause when you start talking. This is great for having a quick conversation with someone and then going back to your music, podcast, or video. However, I found that coughing, clearing my throat, or my unfortunate habit of talking to myself made this feature really hard to live with. Could it be nice under normal circumstances? Sure. But it might need some sensitivity tweaking. You can do this in the app, if you’re using an iOS or Android phone, and it’s not on by default.

Appearance 10/10

I’d always prefer a splash of color, but these cute little earbuds won me over. In fact, when I showed them to friends, one even called them “cute.” Stand it up and it looks like a little snowman. They’re cute! The little bits of plastic in the recycled plastic case give the earbuds a visual texture and remind you that these kept plastic waste from ending up in a landfill or ocean. It looks good and makes you feel good.

I also found that, when you can get them in your ear right, they don’t stick out very far. These don’t look weird in your ears. The case looks great too. It’s small and compact, and perhaps a little too compact, but it’s a nice looking little case you can throw in your bag. Sony definitely made a great looking pair of earbuds here.

Battery Life 4/10

Sony reports that these get about 5.5 hours of listening time, then the case adds 12 hours. I found that, with DSEE on, expanded touch targets, and an equalizer to fix the bass, I was getting about 11.5 hours from the buds with the case. Instead of those 5.5 hours I was seeing under 4.5 hours before the earbuds would die. Consistently, with the case, I was seeing under 12 total hours of playback time. That’s a huge drop from Sony’s estimates. You could stretch it out, but no matter what, these aren’t “all day” buds.

I wouldn’t have minded a nice little ear hook that could have included a larger battery. Sure, the case would have been larger, but the battery life would have been more in line with other earbuds in this price range and, perhaps most importantly, the damn things would stay in your ears.

The LinkBuds support fast charging, but you can’t charge them with over 13 watts. I had a 12 watt charger on hand that worked perfectly. Since I returned these, I couldn’t spend the amount of time I wanted to to test these. I didn’t test how quickly the case and earbuds can charge up from nothing with a fast charger. Sony says 10 minutes of charging can give you up to 1.5 hours of listening time. However, they dramatically oversold how long the battery lasts in everyday usage, so I’d expect less time.

Portability 7/10

This is an incredibly small case, why did I rate portability lower than a 10? Well, you’re going to drop the case. I’m considering handling to be a part of portability. That tiny case has no flat edges to grip it with one hand. To open the case, you practically have to use two hands. No flicking open a lid here. You will have to lift the lid with one hand while holding the case with the other. The plastic is slick too. You’re also going to drop this case a lot. When you do, there’s a greater than 50% chance that the earbuds will come flying out of the case. This fortunately didn’t happen to me while I was testing these walking around the city, but it happened in my apartment often. Once I had to go digging under my couch. It wasn’t fun.

Connectivity 2/10

The app makes it easy to connect your LinkBuds to your iOS or Android device and even jump between two devices. Connecting them to anything else, however, will be a pain. You have to completely reset the earbuds by holding down the button on the back for 15 seconds. Then when you sync with something like a MacBook or a Bluetooth transceiver like the AirFly, the controls all go back to default with no app to change them. You’ll also have to remove the LinkBuds from your iOS and Android device to re-sync them back. The app allows you to back up and restore settings, but I never had a restore actually work. I stopped trying.

I normally test Bluetooth devices with multiple potential devices. After finding out how hard these were to sync, I didn’t dare try to use them with my PlayStation or my Apple TV.

Sustainability 7/10

I love these earbuds for their sustainability options. They came entirely in cardboard packaging. No plastic to unwrap, no little accessories in plastic bags. Just folded cardboard everywhere, packed incredibly densely. It was beautiful.

Then there’s the earbuds themselves. The case and the earbuds are made from recycled plastic. This is plastic that would clog up our oceans and landfills for centuries. Instead, they’re pumping sound into my ears. Fantastic!

However, these are still truly wireless earbuds. They are just delaying the trip of the plastic to the waste pile. Truly wireless earbuds like these, especially ones with small batteries that will degrade quickly, are excessively difficult to recycle. Making these so small, with such small batteries, actually means they’ll end up in the trash sooner than they probably should be.

I’m waiting for more devices to include better recycling options. I want to see compostable everything. For now though, these might be the most sustainable truly wireless earbuds you can find. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty low bar.

Odds and Ends

The first time I tested Sony’s 360 audio I was floored. It reminds me of Apple’s Spatial Audio, but because these allow sound through to your ears naturally, rather than relying on microphones and audio processing, it sounds just a bit more realistic. That is, it seems like sound is actually coming from your device, not the headphones or some other space. However, not many apps support this.

One app that does support 360 audio and the sensors in the LinkBuds is the Microsoft Soundscape app. Soundscape creates a sort of audio map. You can use it to get an audio tour of your neighborhood, or even drop a point somewhere and navigate to it using sound. It’s a handy feature for visually impaired users, who report that it’s a great way to get an idea of their surroundings. With Sony’s LinkBuds, they can also hear their surroundings easily, which is important if you rely on sound and touch to navigate. Real pass-through sound like the LinkBuds provide is far better than any transparency mode Apple or others have created, as it has no delay and comes at full volume, allowing you to better visualize your surroundings. If these fit better, I’d call them the best headphones for blind and vision impaired users.

Overall 3/10

I wanted to love these so badly. They seemed like they would be perfect for outdoor activities. I was so excited for them. Their cool looking design, recycled materials, and high tech features just made me want to love them more. But an excessively short battery life, impossible fit, extreme discomfort, and lack of connectivity really made me come to hate them a little. They had so much potential and Sony squandered it. I even bought third party silicone ear tips made for other accessories and tried to retrofit them for my ear, but I couldn’t come up with a permanent solution and these modifications wouldn’t fit in the case. Instead, I just returned them.

I can save you some time and money: if you’re looking for something to wear while you exercise, look elsewhere. Even a decent fit may not feel secure enough. Personally? I decided to check out some bone conducting headphones from Shokz. So far, I vastly prefer them. I’ll be reviewing those in a few weeks