Ever since its inception, Realme has been following its arch-nemesis Xiaomi’s lead in the India market. The Oppo spin-off company is looking to establish itself as a ‘tech lifestyle’ brand and its fledgling audio accessory segment is the first point of assault. Realme has gone from wired to neckband-style and now true wireless earbuds with the launch of the Realme Buds Air.
Realme Buds Air: Specs and Features
Realme may have gone ahead and cloned the most popular truly wireless earbuds – the Apple AirPods. Right from the design of the earbuds to the charging case, which has the same dental floss case vibes. But, the Chinese giant has added all the essential features that one demands from truly wireless earbuds – that too at a pretty affordable price.
Realme Buds Air comes baked by a custom low-latency R1 chip with Bluetooth 5.0 support, which enables a seamless connection with both Android and iOS phones. Realme states that earbuds support Google Fast Pair (which means you should see the pop-up notification when you open the case). Once you’ve paired the Buds Air, they’ll connect to your smartphone the moment you flip open the lid of the case.
The earbuds are quite light and weigh just 4.16 grams. You won’t really feel that you have the Realme Buds Air plugged in, but the plastic build can be an inconvenience like it is on the standard AirPods. Speaking about audio quality, Realme Buds Air come equipped with 12mm Dynamic Bass Boost drivers for enhanced performance and bass.
The company then boasts that the earbuds should offer crisp voice calling, thanks to the two microphones on board. They help achieve ENC (Environment Noise Cancellation) to filter out background noise and deliver a clear audio response to the caller.
Some of the more impressive features of Realme Buds Air are wear detection and touch controls. While the former will pause music when you take an earbud out of the ear and resume playback when you put them back in, the latter is baked right above the mic on these earbuds. The touch controls support double-tap to control playback, triple taps to skip tracks, and a two-second long press to access Google Assistant or Siri.
Realme Buds Air also pack a gaming mode to reduce audio latency when you’re taking down enemies in PUBG Mobile. “The delay in the normal mode of Realme Buds Air was 243.8ms and the delay in the gaming mode was 119.3ms,” reveals the company in an official press release.
There’s an LED light baked into the front of the case to show you real-time charging information. The charging case of the Realme Buds Air comes equipped with a 400mAh battery. The company promises 3 hours of music playback on a single charge and you’ll get up to 17 hours playback with the case.
Realme Buds Air supports charging via the USB Type-C port at the bottom and the phone maker boasts that it takes just around 2 hours to fully charge the case. However, a feature that makes the Realme earbuds stand out in its price segment has to be wireless charging support. It’s amazing to see the Chinese giant offer this feature under Rs. 5000.
Price and Availability
Realme Buds Air has been priced at Rs. 3,999 in India, which is super attractive and aggressive, and will go on sale from December 23 later this week. It will be available in three attractive colors — white (looks exactly like AirPods), black, and yellow (signature Realme color).
The company will also launch its own 10W Qi-compatible wireless charger in the coming months. You will also be able to replace a single earbud or the charging case if you ever lose it from the service center – of course for an added cost and not for free.
