Deal! Sony LinkBuds in just $149.99 at Best Buy

Most true wireless earphones are designed to isolate you from outside noises by sealing your ear canal with silicone or foam tips or by using microphones and active noise cancellation circuitry to block out your surroundings. It’s a clever idea, and if you can get the LinkBuds in your ears securely, they sound pretty good. Unfortunately, for some users, the open design results in a very uncertain fit.

We’ve never seen a pair of true wireless earbuds that look like the Sony LinkBuds, the first to have a fully open design that exposes your ear canals. Each earbud is made up of a ring-shaped driver connected to a rounded housing; the ring part surrounds your ear canal, while the housings sit just above your ear conch, held in place by a rubber fin. Sony includes a variety of fin sizes in the box, which is important because the LinkBuds won’t stay in place unless the fins hook under the cartilage that folds in the middle of your ear.

There’s a small button on the front of the charging case; press it, and the lid flips open to reveal the earbuds and an LED light that shows how much battery life is left. A pairing button and a USB-C charging port are located on the back of the case. The charging case is made of recycled plastic from car parts, which, when combined with the plastic-free paper packaging of the LinkBuds, gives Sony’s earbuds some eco credentials.

The earbuds have an IPX4 water-resistance rating, so you can use them while working out without worrying about a little sweat or rain. They’re also secure enough to wear while running – shaking your head violently would be required to dislodge the LinkBuds.

Despite their small size, we found the Sony LinkBuds to be uncomfortable to wear. We’re not going to hold that against Sony; we’ve never gotten along with earbuds that sit in the conch of our ears, and that’s entirely due to our anatomy. So, if your ears are smaller in size, the LinkBuds may be unsuitable for long listening sessions.

The Sony LinkBuds’ controls are quite clever. Like many other true wireless earbuds, you can control your music playback by tapping the housings, but because the LinkBuds are so small, it can be difficult to tap them accurately enough to get the desired response. To get around this, Sony has implemented a feature called Wide Area Tap, which allows you to control the earbuds by double- or triple-tapping the area in front of your ears. That’s right, you can pause/play your music or skip to the next track by simply tapping your face.

These controls worked surprisingly well, though you do need to tap quite firmly for the earbuds to register your movements – we discovered the best spot to tap was the tragus (the small flap of cartilage in front of your ear canal). In the Sony Headphones Connect app, you can customize the controls to your liking; for example, you could assign a double-tap to the left earbud to lower the volume. The new LinkBuds, include the company’s Speak-to-Chat feature, which automatically pauses your music if you start talking – and if the earbuds don’t detect your voice for 15 seconds, they’ll assume your conversation is over and resume your music.

Lucas Simonds
Lucas Simonds
Lucas Simonds is a skilled content editor at Bollyinside, specializing in "How to" and "Tips & Tricks" articles focused on Gaming, Software, and Apps. With a genuine passion for video games, he not only writes about them but also actively engages in gaming. His commitment to providing insightful and approachable content has earned him a trusted reputation within the online community.

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