OnePlus Buds 3 Review

We have recently been looking at a lot of OnePlus products lately, and have been amazed by the quality and attention to details. Our review of the OnePlus R12 smartphone was well received, not only by us in our review period, but the number of you that reached out after purchasing to let us know it was a fantastic phone. At GamesReviews, we never claim to be the most technical people on the planet, but what we do know is how people like to use their phones from day to day. The same philosophy we apply to smart phones – that most people don’t care about peak brightness, etc. – extends to other products as well. So that brings us to our review of the OnePlus Buds 3.

The review device we received was the cream colored buds, and they look phenomenal. I’ve used a range of earbuds in the past, but none have looked as classy as these. I am so used to a jet black earbud, or the classic Apple white. And while you can get these in a black, I think the cream colored buds are a nice accessory to anything you might be wearing.

The sound quality here is superb, with dual drivers that are not a feature in many earbuds on the market. While words like a 6mm tweeter and a 11mm woofer might not mean anything to you, they combine to give a great audio experience regardless of what you are listening to. Whether music from Spotify, audiobooks from Audible, movies on Disney+, or even playing on my Nintendo Switch, the quality was fantastic in all situations, with little-to-no distortion or odd audio sounds.

We can say these are great features that deserve your praise, but you are paying for these features. These are not cheap, run-of-the-mill earbuds you might pick up at BestBuy or Amazon – this is a quality product with a price to match. Not as expensive as the competition, I would argue, but almost equally as impressive.

The fit is also outstanding. With a few different options to get you going, these nestled nicely in my ears. I’m not generally an earbud kind of guy, as I have almost always preferred over-the-ear headphones. But these were much more comfortable than I was expecting. And I tested them in the most extreme way possible (in my opinion).

When camping with my family, I love to listen to music or audiobooks to fall asleep. Anytime I review a new set of earbuds, I always test them in one place that most people likely wouldn’t use them at all – in my bed while sleeping. These headphones provided me with an additional bonus: a pretty great noise cancelling fit. Not only was it drowning out the noises around me without anything playing, but once the audiobook and music flooded my ears, I was in my own world.

With most headsets, even ones that sound great, they are both out of my ears by morning, and I spend a few minutes hunting through the sheets looking for my buds. Over an entire week of wearing these to bed, I only lost them one time. That’s pretty impressive because not only do they stay in my ears while I toss and turn at night, but they are comfortable enough as well – no waking up and removing them, as I did so often with other earbuds.

The included stylish case does more than just house the earbuds when not in use. It also charges them, extending the battery life of the device off a cord for a good long while. I never fully tested the capabilities of the headset, but it was days – and in some cases over a week – before I even thought about plugging them into charge, and who knows how close they were to dead during any of those intervals. So often we talk about battery life like it matters if a device lasts 2 weeks, or 2 days. In reality, most people are charging their earbuds every few days, and this one easily hits that target.

Overall, I’m really impressed with these earbuds. The sound is fantastic, the fit is clean and comfortable, and everything about it screams quality. They are not the cheapest earbuds you are going to spend money on, but they do a fantastic job at justifying the price. If you are looking for new buds, we cannot recommend the OnePlus Buds 3 enough. Two words of warning – the microphone quality is sub-par at best, so I wouldn’t aim to use these for phone calls; and second, there are no play/pause features which might create an issue for some!