Beats Flex Wireless Headphones Review

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 Beats Flex are comfortable in-ear headphones. They don't have a deep in-ear fit, and the cable is lightweight and shouldn't be tiring to wear. Unfortunately, the ear tips can fall out of your ears if they don't form a good seal, but on the plus side, there are a few different sizes of silicone tips included so you can find the best fit for you.

The in-line control scheme is okay. It includes a lot of functions, but isn't the most intuitive. There are audio cues for some commands, but the multi-purpose button on the left module used for most functions isn't very clicky.

Left module:

Rocker

• Press upper side: Raises volume.
• Press lower side: Lowers volume.

Multi-purpose button

• Press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends a call.
• Double press: Skips a track forward.
• Triple press: Skips a track backward.
• Press and hold: Activates voice assistant or rejects an incoming call.
• Double press and hold: Scans forward through a track.
• Triple press and hold: Scans backward through a track.

Right module:

Power button

• Press and hold: Turns earbuds on or off.

Like most in-ear headphones, the Beats Flex Wireless are very breathable. They don't trap very much heat against your ears and shouldn't make you sweat more than usual if you use them during workouts.

These are very portable headphones, like most in-ears. Thanks to their flexible design, you can easily fold them up to fit into most pockets or bags. Since they have a neck cable design, you can also wear them around your neck when you're on the move.

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 stability. Although they don't have ear hooks or stability fins, once you achieve a good seal, they should stay in place during workouts and casual listening sessions.

• Beats Flex Wireless earphones
• 4x ear tips
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• Manuals
• Beats sticker

The Beats Flex have a bass-heavy sound profile, which is well-suited for thumpy genres like EDM and hip-hop. Unfortunately, their treble is underemphasized, resulting in veiled vocals and lead instruments as well as dull sibilants like S and T sounds. Unfortunately, they lack an EQ to help tweak their sound to your liking.

These headphones have outstanding frequency response consistency. Once you achieve a proper fit and seal, you should get consistent bass and treble delivery each time you use them.

The Beats Flex have good bass accuracy. The entire range is overemphasized, so mixes have extra thump, punch, and boom, which fans of genres like EDM and hip-hop might appreciate. They may sound overly boomy or muddy to some, though.

The Beats Flex have excellent mid accuracy. The range is fairly flat, which keeps vocals and lead instruments present in your mixes. However, the bump in the high-mid can make vocals and lead instruments sound a little honky.

The treble accuracy is acceptable. It's underemphasized across the range, so vocals and lead instruments are veiled while sibilants like S and T sounds are dull and lispy.

The Beats Flex have very good peaks and dips performance. There aren't too many peaks and dips overall, but a peak in the high-mid adds harshness to vocals and lead instruments, and a bigger 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, which is to be expected for closed-back in-ears. To create a large and out-of-head soundstage, the outer ear needs to be activated by sound resonances. However, by design, in-ears bypass the outer ear altogether. As a result, the soundstage 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 seem as spacious as open-back headphones.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is good. There's a slight peak between the low to mid-treble, but it shouldn't be very noticeable. All ranges fall within acceptable limits, which should result in clean and pure audio reproduction.

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 a decent noise isolation performance. They reduce some bass-range sounds like bus and plane engines but still aren't ideal for cutting out noise during a trip or commute. Ηowever, they do a good job of reducing mid-range noise like ambient conversations, and they can also cut out a significant amount of higher-pitched noise like the hum of an A/C unit.

The Beats Flex's leakage performance is outstanding. If you're working at the office, people around you shouldn't be able to hear your audio, even if you're listening to it at a high volume.

The integrated microphone has a mediocre recording quality. Your voice sounds boxy, thin, and slightly muffled. However, you should still be understandable to whoever's on the other end of the line.

The integrated microphone's noise handling is disappointing. The mic struggles to separate your voice from background noise, even in a moderately loud environment like a busy street.

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 also advertise a 'Fast Fuel' feature, which gives you 1.5 hours of playback time on a 10-minute charge. Ηowever, battery performance can vary with real-life usage, so your experience may vary. These headphones also don't have any power-saving features and can't be used while charging.

These headphones have a disappointing 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, unlike the Beats Studio Buds True Wireless, they have a W1 chip so you can seamlessly pair them with Apple devices. While they have high audio latency on PC, their latency on iOS and Android is a lot lower, making them better suited for streaming video. That said, some apps and devices compensate for latency differently, so your results may vary.

You can't use the Beats Flex wired. They come with a USB-C to USB-C charging cable.

You can use these headphones wirelessly with Bluetooth-enabled PCs, but can't connect any other way.

They aren't compatible with PlayStation consoles.

These headphones aren't compatible with the Xbox consoles.