Google Pixel Buds Pro review

Price When Reviewed

$199

Best Prices Today: Google Pixel Buds Pro

Much like its Pixel phones, Google’s various versions of Pixel Buds earbuds have had their fair share of problems.

The 2017 originals had an uncomfortable design connected by a literal piece of string, while the follow up Pixel Buds 2 three years later had awful connectivity issues.

The cheaper Pixel Buds A from 2021 proved Google had learned from its mistakes, and sold at a competitive price.

Thankfully, the new high-end Pixel Buds Pro pick up and run with this success and are Google’s best buds yet. You’ll pay for the privilege with a $199/£179/€219 price tag, but the Pros are finally worth recommending alongside earbud heavy hitters like Sony, Bose, and Apple.

Design & build

• Good fit
• Cool colour options
• Great touch controls

Google hasn’t messed with its design language here, and the look is very similar to the Pixel Buds 2 and Buds A. The Buds Pro come nestled in a nice feeling matt white case with a thin black line hinting at where it flips open.

It’s black inside where the buds reside for charging, with a hidden LED on the front to indicate the case’s battery charge: green for good or orange to indicate it needs a top up via the USB-C port on the bottom.

Like most wireless earbuds the design of the case is indebted to Apple’s original AirPods, but Google has forged its own path with the actual buds’ design.

I personally struggle with the fit of many wireless earbuds as I have small ear canals, but the Buds Pro fit me excellently with the smallest ear tips. As an aside, I like that the packaging is completely recyclable, and the alternative ear tips come in a tiny cute paper tube with caps – the cleverest way I’ve seen spare tips packaged.

The buds are approaching bean-shaped and at first glance don’t look like they will be comfortable, but with a little push and twist they fit my ears well. I occasionally needed to adjust them, and I found they worked their way loose when I was eating, but not when talking on the phone or running.

This is great news particularly when the wing tips of the Pixel Buds A are not present. I’m confident that people with larger ears than me (which, I assure you, is most people) will have no issue with a snug fit. I struggled with the fit of the Sony WF-1000XM4, which are too big for me, and though I liked the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds their design is not as subtle or attractive as the Pixel Buds Pro.

Against the ear when wearing the buds are the L and R indicators and the metal charging connectors while the outside is a matt plastic that houses the touch sensitive controls on both sides.

A tasteful ‘G’ logo is embossed on either bud, and I am a huge fan of the yellowy green ‘lemongrass’ colour of my review unit, though you can also choose from orange (‘coral’), blue grey (‘fog’), or grey black (‘charcoal’).

The earbuds are IPX4 rated, which means they’re good for use in the rain or if they get splashed, and the case is IPX2, which basically means don’t get it wet. Each earbud weighs 6.2g and the case with earbuds in is 62.4g – easy for any pocket to handle.

Sound quality

• Very good bass
• Well-tuned high ends
• No hi-res codec support

Most importantly, the Pixel Buds Pro have outstanding sound quality that matches and sometimes surpasses that of Apple’s AirPods Pro.

The Buds Pro have better bass response and an overall better tuned soundscape when listening to most genres of music thanks to each bud’s impressively punchy single 11mm driver. Add to that Google’s digital signal processing and very good active noise cancellation (ANC) and you’re laughing.

Up front though – despite my ears not agreeing with the fit, the Sony WF-1000XM4 are still the best sounding wireless earbuds you can buy.

On the Pixel Buds Pro, Elliot Smith’s ‘Needle in the Hay’ is handled well with the acoustic guitar sounding as live as the recording intended and the close vocal is well rendered. There’s good separation, even when streaming from lower-than-CD-quality-sources such as Spotify. Using hi-res services like Tidal and Qobuz sound better but that’s down to the audio file itself. The Buds Pro don’t support hi-res audio.

Turnstile’s ‘Mystery’ packs a considerable punch and the Buds Pro kept up with very good low end bass guitar and kick drum snap that cheaper earphones simply can’t give you. The low end prowess means these are also great ‘phones for hip hop and rap playback. ‘Dr Dre’s ‘Forgot About Dre’ sounds huge with the bass, riff, and hi-hat all represented on a great level.

Any genre I threw at the Buds them was pleasing to my ears though, and I have no complaints about the sound quality on offer for the asking price though there is one caveat here.

To get technical, the Buds Pro only support the AAC and SBC audio codecs, not the popular aptX codec that it’s widely agree creates the best frequency responses of compressed audio files from Android devices and allows for hi-res compatibility.

In my testing AAC worked well (and is also there for iPhone compatibility), but it’s odd Google isn’t catering to aptX or aptX HD where rival products do.

Unlike other earbuds such as Sony’s WF-1000XM4, there’s no in-app EQ settings for the Pixel Buds Pro on the Pixel Buds app, aside from one toggle called volume EQ that boosts bass and treble frequencies at lower volumes. I found it didn’t make much difference.

Google told 9to5Google the Pixel Buds Pro will get a “full 5-band EQ” setting by the end of 2022, but do not buy the Buds on a software promise if this is important to you. Wait, or buy the Sonys.

Despite these oversights, for most people it won’t matter. If you want to listen to high-resolution music downloads on the best codecs, you will be shopping for over-ear wired headphones instead. For the modern streamer, Pixel Buds Pro sound great, though can’t take advantage of the Spatial Audio feature when using Apple Music that AirPods can.

The Buds Pro are good for voice and video calls, though the microphone quality isn’t as clear as AirPods Pro and doesn’t cancel out as much background noise as Apple’s buds for the person on the other end to hear you better.

Noise cancelling & smart features

• Excellent ANC
• Bluetooth Multipoint
• No EQ options

One of the best things about the buds is their touch controls. Many great sounding earbuds ruin their good fit by having physical buttons on the outside that when pressed shove the bud painfully into your ear.

Not so with the Buds Pro, whose touch controls only need one feather-tap to play or pause on each bud, with a double tap skipping track and a triple tap going back a track. Swiping back to front turns volume up, and the opposite turns it down, while a press and hold can be configured for either bud to invoke Assistant or switch between ANC and transparency modes.

A great Fair Pair feature also means pairing to any Android phone is a breeze, with a notification on the screen when you open the buds near a phone.

As for the ANC, it is very good if you can find a good seal with the three sizes of ear tip. I used the Buds to listen to podcasts on a transatlantic flight and they easily tuned out the engine roar, though the AirPods Pro’s ANC has less static sound when nothing is playing than the Buds Pro.  

Transparency is also great, letting in outside sound so you can talk to people or stay safe by being aware of traffic, for example.

Also very good is the Bluetooth Multipoint support that allows the Buds Pro to connect to two audio sources at the same time. Paired to a Pixel 6a and MacBook Air, the buds easily played audio from each with no hitch. To change an audio source, you just connect another device and one drops out, you can’t select within the app.

The Adaptive Sound software feature seen on the Pixel Buds A is not here, likely because the Buds Pro’s ANC means the software doesn’t have to level out the audio according to your ambient surrounding sound anymore. Additionally, the old Bass Boost option has been removed from the Pixel Buds app, which is integrated into Pixel phones as a searchable audio setting but must be downloaded as a standalone app on any other Android phone.

There’s no Pixel Buds app for iOS, so I wouldn’t recommend the Buds Pro if you have an iPhone because you lose a few smart features Android users can enjoy here, such as Google Assistant for notification reading and hands-free invoking of the digital assistant, but for audio playback they do sound good connected to an iPhone.

Battery life & charging

• 11 hours with ANC
• Case holds up to 31 hours
• Wireless charging

Pixel Buds Pro also hit it out the part with their battery life, which is excellent. With ANC on, I found Google’s promise of 7 hours of playback on a full charge to be accurate, not having to put them in the case to charge for a whole near-eight-hour flight.

A fully charged case will also give 20 hours of playback with the power it can expel. Google also says without ANC the figures go up to 11 hours of playback and 31 hours of charge.

Charging via USB-C is easy though there is notably no cable included in the box. The case also supports wireless charging, so you can charge using any Qi charging pad or even off the back of a modern phone that supports reverse wireless charging like Google’s Pixel 6 or the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Price & availability

The Google Pixel Buds Pro cost $199/£179/€219, which is excellent value for the quality of the product.

It is cheaper than the $249/£239/€279 Apple AirPods Pro, $279/£249/€279 Bose QuietComfort Earbuds, $280/£250/€280 Sony WF-1000XM4, and $199/£219/€229 Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro. though the Bose and Sony can be found for less if you shop around.

Verdict

Much like AirPods with iPhones, the Pixel Buds Pro are the best choice of wireless earbuds if you have a Pixel phone, but I also recommend them over the Galaxy Buds Pro, which have annoying touch controls in comparison.

The Buds Pro have the best touch controls of any earbuds on the market, superb bass and treble response, a snug fit, solid ANC, and very good battery life. Add to that the tight Google integration of Assistant and you’ve got Google’s best buds yet at a price that should be attractive to any Android customer.

Specs

• 11mm dynamic drivers
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Three microphones
• 11-hour battery life (31 with case)
• 7-hour battery life with ANC on (20 with case)
• USB-C
• Google Assistant Support
• Bluetooth Multipoint
• Touch controls
• IR sensors for in-ear detection
• Google Translate support
• IPX4 sweat- and water-resistance
• 22.33 x 22.03 x 23.72 mm, 6.2g (earbuds)
• 25 x 50 x 63.2 mm, 62.4g (case)
• Lemongrass, Coral, Fog, Charcoal

Best Prices Today: Google Pixel Buds Pro