OnePlus has shown that it is a strong player in the wireless earbuds market. It has a range of good audio products, from the cheap Buds Z to the high-end Buds Pro. The company just put out its first set of earbuds under its Nord brand, which was previously only known for its cheap phones.
Like the Nord phones, these earbuds are a better deal than the rest of OP’s products, but they don’t do everything perfectly. Even though the price of $39 is very reasonable, these buds are a great balance between quality and price.
What’s It Like To Use OnePlus’s Nord Buds?
The OnePlus Nord Buds are about as simple as true wireless earbuds can get for a low price. This isn’t the most eye-catching product on the market. It’s almost entirely made of matte black plastic, and the only design detail is the shiny plastic disc on the side of each earbud.
There aren’t many extras or features to point out. But there are many good things about being simple. The OnePlus Nord Buds are pretty easy to use. The earbuds have the usual silicone tips, and their wide stems make them easy to put in your ears.
You might sometimes have trouble putting on or taking off a mask because of the stems, but they are short enough that I don’t find this to be a big problem. At about 4.8 grams per bud, these are light and comfortable to wear for long sessions.
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How Do You Control the OnePlus Nord Buds?
The OnePlus Nord Buds are pretty much just like any other pair of truly wireless earbuds when it comes to how they are controlled. You can control the Nord Buds with a series of taps on the glossy panel on the side of each bud. There aren’t any real customization options in the HeyMelody app.
You can turn off the ability to tap once, twice, or three times, and you can also turn on the press-and-hold function to switch devices.
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Should You Use The HeyMelody App For The OnePlus Nord Buds?
You should get the HeyMelody app for iOS or Android from OnePlus if only to get firmware updates. The app asks for a lot of permissions to collect data right away. If this makes you feel uneasy, it may help to know that this is a pretty simple piece of software.
As I said before, there is a simple EQ with presets and the ability to set a custom profile, battery readings, and the ability to turn off controls. That’s about it.
At the beginning of the review period, there was a firmware update that added Game Mode for lower latency and less audio-visual lag. It works, but I didn’t notice any lag when I first started using the earbuds.
How Do the OnePlus Nord Buds Connect?
The OnePlus Nord Buds are a pretty basic set of wireless earbuds, so it makes sense that the ways to connect them are also pretty basic. Apple devices don’t have Google Fast Pair or H2 quick pairing, so you have to pair it the old-fashioned way on both iOS and Android.
The earbuds connect with Bluetooth 5.2 and can play music in SBC and AAC formats. It’s too bad that earbuds made by a company that makes Android phones don’t have a codec like aptX that supports higher bitrate audio on Android devices.
AAC is still a little unreliable outside of Apple’s ecosystem, even though it has gotten better over time. Basically, this is the least amount of connectivity you need to have in order to not feel too far behind the times.
How Long Does The OnePlus Nord Buds Battery Last?
OnePlus says that the Nord Buds can be used for up to 7 hours on a single charge, and our tests showed that this is pretty close to the truth. The OnePlus Nord Buds lasted 6 hours and 27 minutes on a single charge while playing music at a peak volume of 75dB(SPL).
This is just over 30 minutes less than what was promised. If you listen to music that isn’t too loud, you might be able to go longer than 7 hours. The charging case, according to OnePlus, has enough power for 23 more hours of listening, and nothing during the review period has made us doubt that.
The Nord Buds can also be charged quickly. If you plug the case in for 10 minutes, you’ll have 5 hours of playback time. Even though there is no wireless charging, this is a $40 USD pair of wireless earbuds, so it’s not a big deal.
This is the good battery life for truly wireless earbuds, but it’s not amazing. Don’t expect them to last longer than a pair of AirPods or set a new standard for sustainable product development.
How Does the Nord Buds from OnePlus Sound?
The sound profile of the OnePlus Nord Buds is pretty typical for wireless earbuds. The earbuds do a good job of boosting bass up to about 100Hz, but other than that, their frequency response is pretty close to our personal preference curve, with small dips in the midrange and high range every now and then.
Low, Middle, and High Sounds
When you put on the OnePlus Nord Buds, a song like “Words and Guitar” by Sleater Kinney and Courtney Barnett sounds great. The increased bass response makes the bass guitar a little louder than it would be otherwise, but not so loud that it drowns out the other sounds in the song. In fact, all of the instruments and vocals sound clear and separate.
But while simple four- or five-piece band arrangements sound good, songs with a lot of layers can start to sound a little unclear. In Viva Las Vengeance, a song by Panic! As the song gets louder at The Disco, the rumble of the bass guitar starts to drown out the piano, and you can pretty much only hear the beat of the drums.
The loudest parts of the song are still easy to hear, but when you use the Nord Buds, you lose a lot of detail in songs with a lot going on.
Can You Use the One Plus Nord Buds For Phone Calls?
The OnePlus Nord Buds microphone still has some of the noise that is common for this type of product, but it sounds pretty good. Deeper voices sound clear and loud, and it’s not a problem if the sibilance sounds very sharp.
But the microphone doesn’t do much to block out background noise, and while the sound of wind doesn’t completely drown everything out, the processing it uses to stop this makes voices sound very muffled and unclear.
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