OnePlus Nord Buds is the company’s first audio product from the Nord series and also its cheapest truly wireless earbuds to date. Starting at just $ 39, the Nord Buds are meant to be a no-nonsense earphone set for those on a budget.
With the Nord Buds, OnePlus has stripped things down to basics, with no active noise cancellation, wireless charging, fancy codecs, or even in-ear detection. However, you do get a few things like an IP55 rating, fast charging, and four AI noise-canceling microphones for calls. All this, in a unique and interesting design.
Let’s see how well it performs.
Design and comfort
The OnePlus Nord Buds have a contemporary design with simple geometric shapes and clean, flat sides. The charging case has the usual pill shape but with flat sides and sharp edges that look distinctive.
The surface of the case has a matte finish with minimal panel gaps and tight tolerances for the lid. The pairing button on the back is also flush with the surface and barely noticeable at first glance.
The earbuds continue the design trend with a flat pill-shaped stem. On the outside there is a concave mirror-like area, which is a capacitive touch surface for playback gestures. The stems are short and only about an inch long.
The inner ear of the earbuds moves away from the sharp geometric edges towards a more organic design. The earbuds are the new oval-shaped ones that OnePlus has used on all of its recent products since the OnePlus Buds Pro days.
The small size and light weight of the Nord Buds make them comfortable to wear for long periods without putting excessive pressure on any part of the ear. You have to be careful while handling them, though, as the small size makes them a little tricky, especially with large fingers.
The finish and build quality of the earbuds and case are surprisingly good for the price. The earbuds are also IP55 rated for dust and water resistance and feature an additional nano-coating to prevent corrosion.
Software
Nord Buds are natively supported on OnePlus phones. Phones will automatically open a pairing dialog when you open the case near them, similar to AirPods. The Bluetooth settings house additional customization options for the earbuds, although this menu is buried too deep and not intuitive to locate, again, just like the AirPods.
On non-OnePlus Android and iOS phones, users need to download the Oppo HeyMelody app, which will then feature the same options built into OnePlus phones. However, at the time of publication, the iOS app has not been updated to support the Nord Buds.
Nord Buds software on OnePlus phones
The options you get with Nord Buds are limited. You can change the single / double / triple tap behavior of the touch sensors on the earbuds to play / pause, previous or next song and voice assistant. You can also disable the gesture if you don’t want accidental touches. You can also enable a long tap and hold to switch between the current and previously paired device. Unfortunately, there is no way to assign the volume control to any of the gestures and you are forced to adjust it from your phone every time.
Gesture controls
There is also a Find My Earphones feature and an option to update the firmware. My review unit was 107.107.100 at the time of publication.
A new option with the Nord Buds is the Sound Master EQ. This includes four presets: Balanced (default), Bold, Serenade, and Bass, plus an option to create additional custom presets using a 6-band equalizer. Any changes you make here, including creating and naming new custom presets, are saved to the earbuds and carried over to any new device you pair with.
Sound master equalizer
Nord Buds only include SBC and AAC codecs. They support Bluetooth 5.2 but there is no multi-device pairing. Instead, you can pair two devices separately and use the aforementioned option to quickly switch back and forth.
A significant omission from the Northern Buds is the lack of detection in the ear. This means there is no automatic play / pause for when you insert or remove the earphones from your ears.
Performance
Audio quality
The OnePlus Nord Buds have a powerfully boosted sound with muted bass mids and highs.
The bass is dominated by an emphasized low-mid and high-low region, which tends to obscure the entire sound spectrum. The bass quality here is insignificant; you get a lot of it and it’s mostly sloppy and muddy.
The low-mid range has a soft and pleasant tonality but is often overwhelmed by the bass response. The upper mids are also truncated by the earphones’ high-end matte response. Treble performance is reduced and mellow, which creates a cloudy presentation for both vocals and instruments.
The overall tonality is very forward towards the bass, resulting in a dark and one-dimensional sound. We’ve seen this exaggerated bass response on other recent OnePlus audio products, but the Nord Buds are also hit by the double whammy of underrated highs.
Fortunately, the Sound Master EQ presets help. The “Bold” preset in the foreground corrects the tuning enormously. It has a slightly spicy high end and slightly sunken midrange, but overall it sounds significantly better because it does the all-important job of getting the lows down to nominal levels. For most users, choosing this preset is an easy way to correct the overall tonality of these earbuds.
The Serenade preset lowers the treble slightly compared to the Bold preset and boosts the upper mids instead, which makes the sound a little nasal and honking. The Nord Buds drivers tend to sound a little nasal and metallic in the upper midrange, which is most noticeable in this preset. The Bass preset further boosts the bass and lowers the mids slightly, making it even less pleasant to listen to than the default Balanced preset.
The good thing is that you don’t have to use any of these and you can make your own. With a little bit of tweaking, I was able to get a preset that I was mostly happy with. You can do so much with just a six-band equalizer and you can’t do anything about the timbre or resolution of the drivers, which remain poor. But I was able to get a tuning that I could listen to for over five minutes, which isn’t something I can say about the default profile.
Microphone
The OnePlus Nord Buds have surprisingly good microphone performance. When recording in a quiet environment, voices sound full-bodied and natural. There is some confusion in the ambient noise reduction algorithm, but it’s not too annoying.
In noisier environments, the voice quality is good to some extent. In extremely noisy environments, the earphones struggle to keep the voice intelligible. The background noise itself is always kept low.
Latency
Nord Buds have good latency performance for video watching. There is some initial lag when the video first starts, but it syncs quickly and stays that way. Latency is fine for casual gaming, but you should still get wired headsets for competitive multiplayer gaming.
Connectivity
The Nord Buds had reliable connectivity performance. At no time were there unexpected disconnections or interruptions in the sound.
Noise cancellation
Nord Buds don’t have active noise cancellation. However, the rubber pads passively block out quite a lot of ambient noise, making it easy to focus on the audio being played except in very noisy environments.
Battery life
The OnePlus Nord Buds have a claimed battery life of 7 hours for the earbuds on a full charge. In my tests, I was able to get 6 hours and 52 minutes, which is very close to the stated figure.
OnePlus also claims 5 hours of playback after 10 minutes of charging from 0%. In my tests, I was only able to get 2 hours and 57 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time but nowhere near the stated figure.
Conclusion
The OnePlus Nord Buds are an above average pair of earphones for those on a budget. They have a fairly unique design that is comfortable along with good microphone performance and decent battery life. The default audio tuning is tragic but fortunately easy to fix with the provided presets. The sound quality is therefore quite acceptable for a product in this price range.
Overall, there isn’t much to complain about aside from the lack of in-ear detection, so if you’re after a budget pair of earbuds, the Nord Buds are a solid option.
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