Financial Associated Press | small K evaluation room (reporter Tang Zhixiao) 19 news, in the current many headphones mainly "noise reduction" function, Sony released the new product LinkBuds is unusual, the main music into the background sound.
"This headset is the same as bone conduction, you can hear the ambient sound when you wear it, but it's not the main sports model. It's all purchased by some office white-collar workers," the clerk of the Sony Experience Store told the Little K Evaluation Room, "and its sound quality is better than that of bone conduction headphones." The first dozens of headphones in our store have sold out. ”
Judging from the information provided by the clerks, many white-collar workers bought LinkBuds with the mentality of trying new concept products. In fact, Sony has long released this "full open headphone" product. However, this type of product was subject to the process design at that time, and could not achieve light body weight and qualified sound quality performance.
At present, the first batch of LinkBuds is sold out on the market, in addition to the reasons why users want to try new designs, another major factor that cannot be ignored is also the epidemic.
"Sony China's headquarters are in Shanghai, and the products need to be distributed from Shanghai to various stores," the clerk explained, "although the distribution of headphones is now sent directly from the Malaysian factory, but due to the impact of the epidemic in guangzhou, the speed of distribution has also been affected." You book now, and I can't guarantee when I'll get the product. ”
Putting aside the freshness of the headphones and the impact of the epidemic on product shipments, is the product strength of LinkBuds, which is sold out on the market, enough to support it to overcome the shortcomings of the previous generation of fully open headphones and become a more mainstream market accepted product?
Non-intrusive design with eco-friendly design concept
The exterior design of LinkBuds is more "individual", and it is difficult to see the shadow of other brands of TWS headphones from its body. Although it is a ear-hanging headphone, it does not have the cavity design of a traditional earphone.
In its place is the hollow "ring" – this is the sound unit of LinkBuds, which is also the key to LinkBuds' ability to keep users in constant contact with the outside world.
The body color of linkBuds is not exactly gray, but is dotted with reflective particles of matte material. At first glance, it looks like it's dusty, but in fact, it's due to LinkBuds' use of recyclable, eco-friendly materials.
There are also no buttons on the fuselage, and users can customize the double-click or triple-click surface of the left/right headphones according to their own needs to achieve the function of switching songs or adjusting the volume.
In addition, the tapping surface is not limited to the surface of the headset, and the user can even switch/adjust by tapping the ear screen or cheek.
Back to the charging compartment design of LinkBuds, it also uses recyclable environmentally friendly materials, and the volume and weight are much smaller than the previous Sony-introduced in-ear noise-canceling headphones WF-1000XM4, and there is no burden to carry.
The charging compartment integrates a pairing button and USB-C charging port as well as a battery indicator. Unfortunately, it only supports wired charging, not wireless charging, and also abandons Sony's previous NFC contact pairing design.
From the overall design language point of view, LinkBuds maintains the design concept of "light and insensitive" and "environmentally friendly", and is highly recognizable.
Pursue a "senseless" wearing experience but cannot charge wirelessly
LinkBuds focuses on "transparent listening", in other words, to integrate music into real life and become one of the background sounds. Therefore, the actual experience of wearing feeling and transparency mode is very important.
Since the body design of linkBuds is different from other TWS headphones, the way it is worn is also different. It neither hangs from the pinna by its own weight nor can it be stuffed into the ear canal.
In fact, it is through the friction of the curved brace and the fuselage, stuck outside the ear canal, and does not invade the ear canal at all.
This also raises two doubts: First, is it strong enough to wear without feeling? Second, is the sound quality and volume satisfactory?
Based on the special way LinkBuds are worn, it is crucial to choose a curved brace that fits the shape of your ears. LinkBuds offers four sizes of curved braces that users can easily wear to suit their situation.
However, because LinkBuds does not rely entirely on the synergy of microphones and software algorithms to achieve transparency mode, it allows users to hear outside sounds directly through the hollow cavity.
Therefore, once they get used to wearing it, users can easily fall into the confusion of whether the headphones have fallen off and unconsciously touch their ears.
As for sound quality, LinkBuds uses a ring driver on the sound unit, with a high-performance neodymium magnet. Users can also adjust the equalizer in the Headphones Connect App.
In the App, the user can also turn on the "smart no-pick" function: when the headset detects the user's voice, the currently playing music will be automatically paused, and after about 20 seconds, if the user's voice is not detected, the background audio will continue to play.
So a brief conversation is fine. For long conversations, it is still recommended that users manually pause music to avoid audio playing automatically.
In a quiet environment, LinkBuds can really have a good listening feel, because it is an open headphone, so the performance in bass accent is not as powerful as other in-ear earbuds.
When it comes to the noisier subway, bus and other means of transport, it is difficult for users to notice the details of the music sound, and at this moment the background sound and music have been integrated.
Because the BeamBuds vocal unit is exposed outside the ear canal, the volume adjustment is too large, and in a quiet environment, others will also hear the music that the user is currently playing.
As for the call performance of the headset, the small K evaluation room found that LinkBuds can adjust the vocal and ambient sounds during the call in the App after a long period of experience, thereby highlighting the human voice.
In practice, in noisy environments, such as cafes and roadsides, the caller can indeed hear a certain degree of ambient sound, but the call sound is not greatly affected.
From the perspective of daily use, LinkBuds has indeed done a better job of integrating music into life: ambient sound and music are mixed into the ears, coupled with non-invasive wearing methods, it is indeed suitable for long-term wear, which is also in line with the fact that consumers who buy offline are mainly white-collar workers.
At present, it is regrettable that as a TWS headset that has reached the price of thousands of yuan, the wireless charging function has not been added, and the NFC pairing function has been removed.