OnePlus Buds 4 Review: Brilliant Sound, Great Value!

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Oneplus Buds 4

In the present moment, we have the newest addition in the line of one of the mainline headphones of OnePlus, the OnePlus Buds 4. Just like its previous versions, the Oneplus Buds 4 occupies the position below the Pro and is expected to offer much of the Pro product features and performance at a reduced cost.

The OnePlus Buds 4 comes with a number of enhancements vis-a-vis its predecessor, the Buds 3. They will have larger dual drivers, as well as they are coupled to a new dual DAC, as in the Buds Pro 3. An upgrade to the LHDC 5.0 implementation has made the sampling rates to support up to 192 kHz. It (ANC) now has a greater frequency response with the ability to perform up to 55dB of noise cancellation. The latency has been cut short by 47ms and lastly, the battery lasts longer.

The OnePlus Buds 4 will sell at the price of 119 euros and will be 20 euros more expensive than their predecessor and 80 cheaper than the Buds Pro 3. Time to check out their performance against their siblings.

Look and feel

Similarly to the Buds 3 that took over the design of the Buds Pro 2, the Oneplus Buds 4 take over some design elements of the Buds Pro 3 and add some elements of Nord models.

Companion-wise the case has an equivalent general profile to this of the Buds Pro 3 case though it does not have the contact on the back and front. Rather, it compromises with normal metallic texture which is of glabrous texture. It is this in-betweenness of being a rough yet a glossy surface that makes the case too slippery to hold and therefore by the same token may slide out of your hands, particularly when you go to the extreme of trying to open it with only one hand.

The lid itself is easy to open by itself with a pleasant weighted action and pleasant snap back of the lid.

The design of the earbuds is quite different to other earbuds and have chunky stalks that seem out of place on the portion that is placed in your ear. They also have the flattened part on the back that can be called the Nord Buds models, and there you can have access to the touch gestures on the stalks.

The new design of the ear tips with deeper insertion depth is compared to the Buds 3. This implies that the ear tips will be in the ears further inside the ear having a bigger seal. That helps with noise cancellation performance, as we shall see below, but it unfortunately makes it worse when it comes to the underwater effect some people frequently complain about with in-ear earbuds. I have not been bothered by it a great deal in the past but always noticed it on the Oneplus Buds 4 and never seemed to get used to it.

The more bulky stalks of the earbuds also make it very easy to grasp onto them when taking them out of your ears or the charging case and vice versa.

Similar to the Buds 3, the Oneplus Buds 4 are covered with IP55 surface resistance to dust and water, thus being absorbent to water sprinkles. The quality of finish and build is fair in general but below-par when it comes to the small details such as the nature of the curves of the head of the lid and the case. It does not fit so the seam will always appear off tilt at any angle particularly on the zen green model we got.

Features and software

The versions of the OnePlus BD4 and OnePlus are compatible with each other through the OnePlus Bluetooth setting, or with iOS devices and non-OnePlus devices on the HeyMelody app.

The software experience is characteristically like what we have witnessed in our earlier OnePlus audio products. You are provided with ANC controls that have options to turn ANC on, a new mode called Ambient, transparency mode and ANC off. The degree of ANC can be also controlled via another menu.

Oneplus Buds 4

Included in audio customization is the Sound Master EQ having only three presets in this unit, the BassWave push and pull adjusting slider, and a custom six-bank EQ. The audio emulating 3D sound of the phone comes through the OnePlus 3D Audio feature, though, as with the Buds Pro 3, it lacks head-tracking. Finally, the Golden Sound feature can be mentioned where an individual can create his/her own audio curve by means of running a hearing test.

The HeyMelody app has a game mode as well which reduces latency. This option is not available on OnePlus phone since the ones will activate this feature automatically whenever game is started.

A new Buds 4 feature is having the capability to adjust the volume of alerts that you hear. These are the tones that sound when you alter something, e.g. the ANC mode. The beeping is not my favorite thing and it also complicates comparing things during testing, so I was glad to use the option to turn the sounds completely off. Hopefully the same option can be used on other OnePlus audio products as well.

Like other earbuds offered by OnePlus, most adjustments done in the application are saved on the earbuds and synchronized with any other device they are connected with.

Performance

Audio quality

OnePlus Buds 4 has a dual driver arrangement with one 11mm woofer channeling the low and mid frequencies and a 6mm tweeter taking up the high frequencies. Although the Buds 3 also featured a dual driver set-up; the Oneplus Buds 4 takes it one step further; they have a dual DAC system to drive each of the drivers separately. It is probably merely plucked out of the Buds Pro 3 since that model has the same specifications.

Bluetooth is via the 5.4 version with a compatible SBC, AAC, and LHDC 5.0 audio transmission. Said to run a top 24-bit, 192kHz audio transfer and have bandwidth of up to 1Mbps, even more on the connectivity part.

Even after the laundry list of features and specifications, the Oneplus Buds 4 has an ultimately pedestrian audio quality. In large part this is the result of the default tuning, which is a step up and two steps back relative to the Buds 3 and Buds Pro 3.

To realize this it is necessary to make rapid summary. The Buds 3 and the Buds Pro 3 are both neutral-tilting but very bright tuned earbuds almost to the point of showing off the tweeter units. The Buds 3 in particular can be sibilant at times accompanied with piercing highs with the Buds Pro 3 showing an occasional hiss at times as well.

That is no longer the case with Oneplus Buds 4 and it is a massive plus. OnePlus, however, appears to have overcompensated in an effort to correct that deficiency and ended up creating two new ones, instead.

To begin with, the Oneplus Buds 4 are bass-driven to ear-straining levels. Although both Buds 3 and Buds Pro 3 cannot be discussed as clinically neutral in terms of bass, both of them are very well retained in this direction, thus you can get all the bass you want, but not spreading it all over the frequency range, like it would with the majority of bass players. The mid-range, as well as the lows, is very pronounced in Buds Pro 3 in particular, and that is quite admirable.

The Oneplus Buds 4 do not give a damn about any of that and sound like they are in permanent bass boost mode. This leaks into the lower mids which is muddy and bloated due to the amount of bass energy leaking in. It is unfortunate since the mids sound nice, far better than the Buds 3, which sound slightly hollow, but are obscured by three licks of the goop of bass.

Then there is treble and the upper-mid-range. Well, OnePlus has definitely learned to put a check on the highs, this time around, but it has also gone a little overboard and made them very boring and lifeless as well. At the high end, you lack the feeling of air and brilliance that you get on the Buds Pro 3 and all-in-all the sound is quite dark and lopsided towards the low end.

This makes me question the effectiveness or even the point of the dual driver, dual DAC design because with a single driver it is very easy to achieve this sound. Simply take up two entry level Sony earbuds and this is literally the same sound only with perhaps even less treble intensity.

I futzed a little with the BassWave and EQ but I could never get the sound the way I wanted. I guess it works in the earbuds as long as you fiddle long enough with it until it sounds correct but you can also get something that sounds correct right out of the box.

The tuning of the Oneplus Buds 4 is a disappointment because with the Buds 3 and above all the Buds Pro 3, OnePlus demonstrated that it was on the right path. But with the Buds 4 we find ourselves in Goop City once again. Here s hoping that this acts as feedback that we do not experience more of this regression in future OnePlus Buds Pro 4.

Microphone

The OnePlus buds 4 perform well with the microphone. There is no excessive warbling as the voices come through clear. Sometimes it had a little audible distortion, but this was hardly noticeable.

The quality of the voice is affected and in noisy conditions becomes somewhat lower. Nonetheless, the earbuds work very well in silencing the ambiance, and people can still be heard.

This is too bad since the Oneplus Buds 4 lack support of the Bluetooth LE Audio, meaning that you would not be able to have multiple high-quality stereo input audio since you use the microphone. This implies that they cannot be used in activities such as gaming with the use of voice chat.

Noise cancellation

The OnePlus Buds 4 are active noise cancellation. OnePlus asserts that Buds 4 suppresses up to 55dB sound and it has a greatly expanded frequency band of 5500MHz. To save you the math, yes these numbers are superior even to the ones on the Buds Pro 3. OnePlus also boasts of increased vocal noise cut in a 50-3000Hz range therefore it reduces the surrounding noise and you can listen to less tunnel talk.

The regular ANC mode is at three levels which are; low, moderate and high. It also has an auto option that would switch to the other three modes according to the amount of ambient noise.

Whereas low and moderate are at a fixed noise cancellation level, high is capable of automatically setting even lower depending on the ambient noise. Thus, if auto is chosen and high is chosen then you have auto selection out of auto selection.

Oneplus Buds 4

Besides the ANC on mode, there is transparency mode and new adaptive mode. The transparency mode does not need any explanation; however, the adaptive mode is a new and interesting outcome. It functions more as an alternative to the ANC on and transparent mode but is effectively somewhere between the two as, depending on the surrounding sound, it may decide to: turn ANC on or allow the noise to enter. It also has the ability to block some of the sounds and only what it considers to be necessary is heard through the aspect of the ambient noise entering.

Honestly speaking though, I really do not know whether it ever being used as intended or it did and I simply did not recognize the intent. It allowed ANC when in a train, and when at stations, the announcements did not pass through as would have been the case. Thereafter, when someone in the lawn switched on the mower, it was in transparent mode, and all that noise reached my ears. In the end, the earbud and I were both somewhat mixed up and did not know how to go about it.

Luckily that is combated by the ability to simply deselect it and manually use the ANC on and transparency modes. And you will be happy you did it because the two are superb.

Good ANC are shockingly good here. The earbuds create a snug fit in your ears as noted earlier which simply muffles out more sound compared to not just the loose-fitting Buds 3, but also the Buds Pro 3. And when the ANC strikes full blast then you might as well be on the engine of the plane as in the cabin will make no difference.

The ANC performance on this is quite flagship level. The Buds Pro 3 which actually is a flagship of OnePlus is more prone to allowing more noise more so the high spectrum. The Oneplus Buds 4 have both of that taken care of, as well as, having outstanding low-end isolation. Its final work is excellent to the point that it becomes disturbing and uncomfortable sometimes. Indoors I often ended up toggling to use the transparency mode or the lower power ANC modes due to the strength of the high preset becoming cumbersome at times and the minor pressure exerted by the ear tips did not help.

The transparency mode is also the best like ANC. The difference you hear when you turn on a transparency mode versus just taking the earbuds out is the ultimate grader of a transparency mode and on the Oneplus Buds 4 it was often nothing. I would even forget that I had the earbuds on at all with this mode on and no sound being played had it not been due to the slight pain at the ears tips.

With the ANC there is one point to consider. ANC on in high mode /transparency mode, Low/moderate mode, ANC off sound differently. When switching the ANC set high preset into off mids expand and are a bit overly just in the mix. The same can be also found switching between ANC on high and moderate / low presets. The difference is much less switching moderate/low to ANC off, though it can be heard. It is necessary to suppose that the ANC high mode sound is what the user should have experienced because it is turned on by default, and OnePlus did not feel like tuning the other modes to it.

Latency

The OnePlus Buds 4 possess the decent latency performance. Applications that do not take into account the delay do have significant delays. But as soon as the game mode has been activated either manually or automatically on the Oneplus devices, the latency is significantly reduced and is not really a problem anymore. There is a claimed 47ms when used with other OnePlus devices, which is as low as it is possible to be at current around the figure.

Connectivity

Connectivity of the OnePlus Buds 4 is not bad. No drop-outs or jitters, and able to walk around the house a little bit without dropping. The earbuds are multi-device friendly, thus you can be paired with two devices at once.

I did find a problem when pairing to OnePlus devices, as LHDC performance I had found to be inconsistent with earlier OnePlus audio products that support this codec. No idea why but once paired with a OnePlus the best you can probably get in terms of LHDC bitrate is approximately 400kbps, and 1Mbps is Utopia. Anything over 400kbps cannot be used due to huge audio corrupts.

Curiosity made me match with a Nothing Phone (2), which has the more pleasurable application of LHDC 5.0 I have found on a smartphone. The control over Bluetooth codec preferences and bit rates includes a much finer level as well. I could get it to settle at 1Mbps 24-bit, 192khz on that phone. This also happened with the Buds 3 and Buds Pro 3, so it did not occur only in the Oneplus Buds 4.

Despite all this, it would appear that the LHDC implementation on OnePlus phones is less than ideal and, therefore, the company can not go about marketing its earbuds touting the 1Mbps transmission bitrate capability when said capability is not actually available with its phones.

I might also tack on that the Oneplus Buds 4 do not automatically adjust to increased sampling rates without you manually overriding them in the developer options of Android. The app has a High-Res mode toggle which allows a sampling rate above 48kHz, that is, it goes up to 96kHz and 192kHz. One would think that when this option is enabled, it should also switch to one of them but instead it stays at 24-bit/48kHz as when the option is disabled and one has to dig through and manually enable the values. Otherwise, what setting in effect does is nothing, and the sound you get is the exact same as with it off no matter how you slice it because literally nothing is different. It is literally a placebo and you believe in the things being great when they are identical.

Battery life

OnePlus Buds 4 are fitted with a 62mAh battery in each earbud and a 530mAh battery in the case.

According to OnePlus, playtime with AAC is 11 hours, with LHDC is 9 hours, both without ANC. When I tested AAC and LHDC 5.0 I achieved 11:14 with the former and 8:40 with the latter locked to 24-bit-48kHz at 500kbps. It implies that the reported numbers are rather close in the company.

This would indicate that the perceived 6 and 5.5 hours numbers with the AAC and LHDC respectively whilst being used with ANC are likely to also give the accurate numbers as well. The figures are realistic enough, given the degree of noise canceling being made available here, and you should be able to watch two movies during a long transatlantic flight before needing to pause a little to recharge. Oneplus Buds 4.

The Oneplus Buds 4 does not allow any other mode of charging other than the USB-c cable on the case. This model does not have wireless charging. Oneplus Buds 4.

Conclusion

To summarize the OnePlus Buds 4 with the fastest adjectives, it can be stated that the headphones are complete noise-canceling monsters. These have ANC and transparency modes that are good enough to embarrass earbuds/cans three times the price. Oneplus Buds 4.

Sure, sound is not good but it is less of a problem when you are outside than when you are at home. And though everything related to the earbuds is otherwise average, it at least passes muster within the price range. Oneplus Buds 4.

It is no Swiss Army Knife of earbuds. They are specialists, and by golly do they make an ass inducutive dream of a clinic in ANC quality. In case one wants to shut out his/her everyday journey to work and is merely seeking something to complement the silence, one does not need to look beyond. Oneplus Buds 4.