The Beats Flex Wireless are colorful budget-friendly in-ears with a neck cable. They have a simple, comfortable, and lightweight design. Their bass-heavy sound profile also makes them well-suited for genres with lots of thump and rumble like EDM. However, their companion app lacks a lot of functionality and doesn't have an EQ. That said, thanks to their W1 chip, it's easy to pair them with different Apple devices.
The Beats Flex are decent for mixed use. They have a comfortable, lightweight fit and are stable enough for moderate exercise. They also have a bass-heavy sound profile to keep you pumped up at the gym or office. While they have a simple design and lack extra features like an EQ, their 11-hour continuous battery life should be more than enough to get you through your workday or commute. However, they struggle to cut down bass-range noise like bus engines. They also have high audio latency on PC.
The Beats Flex are okay for neutral sound. They have an overall bass-heavy sound profile with an underemphasized treble range, resulting in veiled vocals and dull sibilants. Unfortunately, their companion app doesn't offer an EQ to help tweak their sound and they have a closed-off soundstage.
The Beats Flex are good for commute and travel. They're comfortable, lightweight, and can be worn around your neck when you're on-the-go. Since they're fairly small in size and have a flexible plastic and silicone design, you can easily stash them in most pockets or bags without an issue. On the downside, they struggle to isolate bass-range against noise like bus or plane engines, and their 11-hour continuous battery life may not be enough for long plane rides.
The Beats Flex are great for sports and fitness. These in-ears have a comfortable and stable fit, although they don't have ear-hooks or stability fins. They're also lightweight, which makes them very portable, and they have a good build quality. However, they don't have an IP rating for water or dust resistance.
The Beats Flex are alright for office use. They're comfortable, lightweight, and offer 11 hours of continuous playback time, which should be more than enough for your daily 9-5. They're also able to cut down a fair bit of ambient chatter around you and barely leak audio.
The Beats Flex are Bluetooth-only headphones. While they can be used via Bluetooth on PCs, their latency is likely too high to be recommended for gaming.
The Beats Flex are Bluetooth-only headphones and can't be used wired.
The Beats Flex are mediocre for phone calls. Their integrated microphone does a mediocre job capturing speech and your voice sounds thin and slightly muffled. It also struggles to separate ambient noise from speech, even in moderately noisy environments. While these headphones can help cut down office chatter around you, they struggle to reduce deep, low noise like bus engines, which can make it harder to focus on your call.
The Beats Flex have a sleek and simple design that looks very similar to the Beats BeatsX Wireless. They have a neckband cable that gives them a slightly more sporty look. However, unlike the Beats Powerbeats 4 Wireless, they don't have ear-hooks. They come in four color variants to better suit your style: 'Black', 'Yuzu Yellow', 'Smoke Grey', and 'Blue'.
The control scheme is alright. There's a button rocker on the left side of the neck cable that allows you to adjust the volume. Next to it is a multi-purpose button. Pressing once lets you play or pause your audio. You can also activate these commands by magnetically clipping the earbuds together. Two presses skip the track forward while three presses skip the track backward. You can also scan through your audio forward by pressing once and then holding the button or scan backward by triple tapping. If you want to activate voice assistant, hold the button until you hear a chime. While they have some audio cues, the multi-purpose button isn't the most clicky.
These headphones don't come with a pouch or case.
These headphones have a good build quality. They're mostly made of silicone and plastic, which makes them very flexible. They also feel durable enough to survive a couple of accidental drops. However, the ear tips seem like they could easily rip, and they don't have an IP rating for dust and water resistance.
The Beats Flex have good bass accuracy. It's overemphasized across the range, which some users may prefer, especially for more thumpy genres like EDM. While this can sound warm and full, mixes also become muddy and boomy.
The Beats Flex have excellent mid accuracy. There's some overemphasis continuing from the bass-range into the low-mid, which makes mixes sound a bit muddy and cluttered. The mid-mid is pretty well-balanced, though. There's also a bump in the high-mid, so vocals and lead instruments can sound a little honky.
The Beats Flex have very good peaks and dips performance. The range is well-balanced up to the mid-mids. There's a peak in the high-mids that makes vocals and lead instruments sound honky and harsh. However, a dip in the low-treble veils the upper harmonics of these sounds.
The Beats Flex have outstanding imaging. The group delay is below the audibility threshold for the entire range, ensuring a tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The L/R drivers of our unit are also very well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, which is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects such as instruments or footprints in the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.
The Beats Flex's passive soundstage is bad. The outer ear needs to be activated with sound resonances to create a large and spacious soundstage. However, in-ears like these by-pass the outer ear altogether and don't interact with it. As a result, they produce a soundstage that is perceived as small and as if it's coming from inside your head. Since they also have a closed-back design, they won't feel as spacious as open-back headphones.
These headphones don't have any virtual soundstage features.
These are the settings used to test these headphones, and our results are only valid when using them with this configuration.
The Beats Flex have decent noise isolation performance. They only reduce a bit of bass-range noise like bus or train engines, which may not be suitable if you commute every day. They do a much better job with mid-range noise such as ambient chatter and can cut down a significant amount of high-pitched noise like the hum of an AC unit.
The Beats Flex have an integrated microphone.
The Beats Flex's battery performance is passable. They have a continuous battery life of 11 hours and fully charge up in just over an hour. Beats advertises a 'Fast Fuel' feature, which gives you 1.5 hours of playback time on a 10-minute charge. However, we don't currently test this feature. These headphones also don't have any power-saving features and can't be used while charging.
These headphones have a very limited companion app. You can turn on and off the auto-pause that activates when you remove them from your ears. You can also turn on and off auto-call answering, but that's about it.
The Beats Flex have decent Bluetooth compatibility. They don't have multi-device or NFC pairing. However, they do have a W1 chip so you can easily pair them with Apple devices. While they have high audio latency on PC, their latency on iOS and Android is a lot lower, which is better suited for streaming video. That said, some apps and devices compensate for latency differently, so your results may vary.
These headphones don't support non-Bluetooth wireless connectivity.
These headphones aren't compatible with the PS4. Although they can be used on Bluetooth-enabled PCs, they have high audio latency, which makes them less suitable for watching videos or gaming.
The Beats Flex come in four color variants: 'Black', 'Yuzu Yellow', 'Blue', and 'Smoke Gray'. We tested the Yuzu Yellow variant and you can see its label here. We expect each of these variants to perform similarly to our test unit.
If you come across another variant, please let us know in the discussions and we'll update our review.
The Beats Flex are simple, colorful in-ears with a neck cable design. They have 11 hours of continuous playback time and can be seamlessly paired with any Apple product thanks to their W1 chip. While they're stable enough for light exercise, they don't have ear tips or stability fins to help keep them in place, unlike the Jaybird Tarah Pro Wireless or the Beats Powerbeats 4 Wireless. Their companion app also doesn't offer a lot of extra features either. Check out our recommendations for the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the best wireless earbuds for iPhone, and the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds under $50.
The Beats Flex Wireless are better in-ears for most uses than the Beats BeatsX Wireless. The Flex are more comfortable, feel better-built, and have longer-lasting continuous battery life. They also have lower audio latency on iOS and Android. However, the BeatsX have a more stable in-ear fit and come with a case. They also have a better-balanced sound profile.
The Beats Flex Wireless and the Sony WI-XB400 EXTRA BASS Wireless are similarly performing headphones and depending on your usage, you may prefer one pair over the other. The Beats are more comfortable, stable, and have a better build quality. They also isolate more noise and have a W1 chip so that you can seamlessly pair them with Apple devices. However, the Sony have a better-balanced sound profile and longer continuous battery life.
The Beats Powerbeats Pro Truly Wireless are better wireless headphones for sports and fitness than the Beats Flex Wireless. The Powerbeats Pro have a more stable fit and a better-balanced sound profile. Their carrying case also offers an additional charge, giving them over 22 hours of continuous battery life, and they have a standby mode to help conserve battery life when not in use. However, the Flex can isolate more noise and leak less sound.
The Beats Flex Wireless and the Sony WI-C310 Wireless are similarly performing headphones and depending on your usage, you may prefer one pair over the other. The Beats are more comfortable, better-built, and have a more stable fit. They also have a W1 chip so that you can seamlessly pair them with Apple devices. However, the Sony have a better-balanced sound profile, and longer continuous battery life.
The Jaybird Tarah Pro Wireless are better headphones than the Beats Flex Wireless. The Jaybird are better built and have a more neutral sound profile. They also have longer-lasting battery life, and their companion app offers a parametric EQ and presets to help tweak their sound. However, the Beats are more comfortable.
The Anker SoundBuds Curve Upgraded 2019 and the Beats Flex Wireless offer similar performances and depending on your usage, you may prefer one over the other. The Anker come with a hard case and are more stable. They also have a better-balanced sound profile and a longer-lasting continuous battery life. However, the Beats feel better-built and have a W1 chip so that you can seamlessly pair with Apple devices.
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Black |
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Yuzu Yellow |
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Blue |
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Smoke Grey |
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