When I was working on the review of the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, I was fortunate enough to also have the chance to do some testing on the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 which are OnePlus’s latest in their headphone lineup. I have not done many reviews on headphones her earphones as I am not an audiophile by any means but I wanted to give these a chance as I was quite taken with the previous OnePlus Buds Pro 2, which I reviewed alongside the OnePlus 11 earlier this year.
I have to say that I am glad I took the time to give these earphone’s some decent use as I am very pleased with them. Normally I use AirPods 3’s as my go-to headphones regardless of the device I am using at the time as they seem to be one of the better-fitting styles of earphones. I generally don’t get on with headphones with Eartips on them as they don’t sit well in my ears. So let’s see more about the design of the Oneplus Nord Buds 2
Design
The Nords Buds 2 like its fellow namesake from the phone line up is a step down for the higher-end devices and it does mean that some of the fancier bits of the design seen on the pro series of devices are lost here. However, that is possibly what makes them a touch more appealing to me. They are not trying to be fancy and glitzy, they are trying to just have enough space on board for all elements of the earbud. They have managed to cram a lot of that elements in but I will come back to that soon in the hardware piece.
So this time around we have got some flat and chunky stems for the buds which include a small aperture at the bottom for a microphone. Further up at the top of the stem is where you will find a touch-sensitive button which is there to allow the input of tap commands. Sitting on the top of the stem’s upper edge is again another microphone which I presume is part of the noise-cancellation/transparancy technology on board.
Moving around to the main body we can see that this is about an average size for this style of earbud end there are some indications of what is inside this section. There is a small mesh grill which looks like it is an opening to let air into the earbud. flanking either side of this aperture you find two metal disks that look like they are contacts for the charging dock. What is notably absent is a skin contact sensor that would allow the earbud to detect when the device has been removed from your ears. This in turn would trigger an action to pause the playback of the media being consumed.
Finally, the buds taper down to a narrow section which is where the ear tip is fitted and this is the component that will actually sit just inside your outer ear canal and provides the seal to help with that passive noise cancellation. It is slightly oval in shape and has a fine mesh grill to cover it to stop the ingress of dirt and other debris. As for the Eartips themselves you get them in pairs of course with Small, Medium, and Large as you would expect to see. I really do like that tips have got some extra debris guards built into them as this stops stuff getting onto the mesh of the actual Earbuds which is a nightmare to keep clean.
I do like the design of these buds a lot and if I had to bring them into fault in one way it would be that they are a bit chunky. Whilst this is not an issue in normal use I have found that if I was wanting to use them at night when I went to bed they were a bit unpleasant when used with the earbud resting on the pillow. it felt like the Earbud was being pushed into my ear which did cause some discomfort.
The other component of the Nord Buds 2 is the charging/carry case. Again like the Buds, this is a slight step down from the likes of the Pro line up i n that we don’t have wireless charging on board but it has everything else you would expect to see on a charging case. On the front of the case is where you can see the status LED which will display different states depending on the charge level of the buds.
On the rear, you have got your USB Type C Port which allows charging of the earbuds. next to this is the power and pairing mode key. On the inside, we see some nicely sculpted cavities for the Earbud to reside in and right at the base of these cavities is where the pogo pins for charging sit. I also feel that this is a small magnet on either side of the midline of the case that will hold the earbuds in place and help “pull” them into their correct position. You get a reassuring clunk when you are putting the earbuds in the case. it is not a too dissimilar feeling to what Apple do with the new MagSafe cable on the newer Mac laptop lines.
All in the design of the OnePlus Buds 2 is very pleasing and they feel like a good quality product. OnePlus has also used Eco-friendly materials in the charging case that embraces elements of the cosmos into the design to convey the power and the strong bass of the Earbuds. What that marketing speak means is that there are some white flecks in the design of the finish of the charging case on the bottom half!
Hardware
As I have previously alluded to in the above section the amount of stuff that has been fitted into the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 is impressive. The main attraction is of course the massive 12.4mm driver which has been used to allow the Earbuds to have a higher quality bass experience. Alongside that, you have a titanium-layered diaphragm to improve the stiffness of the sounds for clearer audio. Moving away from the physical hardware to the control circuitry this is a dual-core processor that is used to control all the functionality including the Active noise cancellation which can be used in either ANC mode for maximum noise dampening or transparency mode which will allow the outside sounds in meaning that you can hear enough from the outside world to allow for you to hear someone who may be trying to speak to you or perhaps, more importantly, a passing vehicle. All this time you are still getting good crisp sounds with minimal interruption.
As an experiment, I am wearing the earbuds while typing this review and I am not able to actually hear the clicking of the keys of the keyboard while I am typing with ANC mode on. When I turn the ANC off then I can hear the bottoming out of the keystroke even with some music at a moderate volume. The difference between the modes is enough to be noticeable but no more than that.
In terms of the batteries that are to be found in the buds, we have got a battery that will give up to 5 hours of usage without the charging case or 27 hours of use if they are being topped up from the case, this is with ANC on. If you turn ANC off then these times will increase to 7 hours for the buds alone and 36 hours when used with the case. I have used the earbuds for taking calls on my laptop at work and I found that this figure seemed to be pretty accurate as I had to switch out from using the buds after about 5 hrs from a full charge in the case.
When it comes to pairing this is done quickly and easily as I have tested this on both a Windows and Mac laptop and had no issues, I have also used the earbuds on a variety of phones including the Oneplus Nord CE 3 Lite. When you had the Buds Setup with that phone in particular you are able to get the use of a Dirac Audio Tuner when listening to music and when watching movies you get the benefit of Dolby Atmos for Mobile. On My Pixel 7 Pro, there was no Dolby support but I was able to do some tweaking with the software.
One last little treat before we move to the software section is that the Nord Buds 2 are rated with an IP rating of IP55 so even in the sweatiest of workouts in the great outdoors you should not be presented with any issue in usage. Just don’t take them sm=wimming as that would not be covered by this rating level!
Software
It always feels a bit strange talking about software for earbuds but this is a part of the experience now so let’s dive in. As is the case with the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 that I reviewed previously when the Nord buds 2 are paired to a OnePlus device that has been recently released then you will get an inbuilt UI accessible from the phone Bluetooth settings menu that will allow you to tweak the setting of the Earbuds in terms of what the various taps will do and how they will sound. For anyone who is not using a OnePlus device or an older OnePlus device, this is available via an app called HeyMelody. This app will allow you to control the same aspects of your earbuds. I have included a few self-explanatory screenshots below so you can see what functions you have in the app.
There is one software-based feature that is not present on the Nord Buds 2 which will be a differentiator between these and the Pro range. We don’t have the ability to use Spatial Adio on these earbuds as it is not su[pprted by the software or indeed the internal hardware. For me, this is a non-issue as I can honestly say I didn’t miss it and I possibly even prefer to not have it. As far as things go Android is not really pushing the Spatial audio experience that hard at the moment and if they are then you need specific hardware on both the phone and the earbud to support it in certain apps. So not a big deal but I thought it was worthy of a mention.
One last thing if you are using this with a OnePlus device that is running Oxygen OS that is a little easter egg. The Nord Buds 2 encourage you to customise the Popup that will appear on your phone when the buds are activated when you open the case. it is indicated by an animation on the case and an emoji on the phone. I did not spend much time on this so the one I had was the stock one which was not very exciting but I thought I would add it here in case you wished to know. Editor Note I was unable to change the customization despite having the latest Firmware on the Earbuds so your mileage may vary
The Nord Buds 2 will pair very quickly with Oxygen OS phones via the pop-up notification once this shows up then within 2 seconds of you pressing the button on the rear of the case it should be paired which is nice if you frequently have to repair your earbuds, although I can’t see why you would have to do this frequently.
Performance
I found that in most circumstances the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 were really good and provided a clear and crisp sound if in some instances a bit base-heavy. I found them enjoyable to wear and when listening to music they sounded really good. I also used the to watch some videos from my phone and I was happy with the depth of the sound that was synced perfectly with the action on the screen. There were no serious issues when I was using them but as I mentioned in the very first paragraph I am not an Audiophile and I can only say what I heard in terms of the sound that was delivered to my ears. If you really want to find out more about the tones and the sound profile then you can of course do a deeper dive into these headphones from other sources but in my eyes, these are a really good performing headphones and I would be happy to replace my Airpods 3’s with them.
Conclusion
if you want an inexpensive but feature-packed pair of headphones that will work relatively seamlessly with Android devices then these will work for most people. If you have a Oneplus phone then these would be a definite recommendation as they integrate really well, in a similar way to the iPhone and the Airbuds. The sound is clear and precise and if you like a bit of extra bass then you are in for a treat. Given the current pricing and the relatively consistent deals that are offered by OnePlus then these are a good buy. The current price at the time of completing this review is £58.65 which is a nice discount on the standard RRP of £69 You can check these deals out on the OnePlus website.
Definitely worth a look and we would love to know your thought if you have picked up a pair in the comments