OnePlus Buds 3 Truly Wireless Headphones Review

These buds look fairly similar to their more premium sibling, the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 Truly Wireless, although their shiny metallic accents go all the way up the earbud instead of stopping at the top of the stem. Overall, they're pretty shiny, but this kind of coating is a fingerprint magnet, which can lessen their futuristic feel if you have especially oily hands. If you don't like the 'Metallic Grey' look, you can pick up these buds in a 'Splendid Blue' colorway.

These buds have a comfortable fit that's lightweight and secure. They come with three differently-sized ear tips to help give you the best fit. Once you get a good fit, they won't shift in positioning over time. The buds' contact surface is made from hard matte plastic, so the pressure applied to your outer ear canal can cause discomfort over time.

Their control scheme is decent. Each bud has a small touch-sensitive surface, which is responsive to commands. There's audible feedback depending on the action. However, basic play and pause are off by default, which is a little unusual and not intuitive.

On either bud:

• Single tap: Nothing by default.
• Double tap: Skips the track forward. Also answers and ends calls.
• Triple tap: Skips to the previous track.
• Tap and hold: Toggle between ANC on and off. There isn't a talk-through mode to allow you to hear your conversation without removing the buds from your ears.

If these default controls aren't to your liking, you can remap them via the companion app and even split up controls between the left and right bud. You can also add controls like play/pause, voice assistant, and Game Mode, which is supposed to help lower latency.

These buds are pretty portable, thanks to their small and lightweight design, which allows you to easily stash them in your pockets when on the go.

They've got a good carrying case. It's mostly made of matte plastic, but there's a shiny logo. A single LED indicates the case's status and magnets hold the buds in place. Inside the case is a pairing button, allowing you to connect the buds to your device easily.

The OnePlus Buds 3 have a good build quality. Like previous iterations of these buds, they're mostly made of plastic, which helps keep them lightweight. The buds are also certified IP55 for resistance against dust and direct water contact, so slight rain won't damage them. However, the case lacks an IP rating.

They have a very stable in-ear fit. Most of the weight is focused on the bud, which helps keep them from moving around in place. If you wear these during a high-impact workout, they won't shift in positioning or fall out.

• OnePlus Buds 3 earbuds
• 3x ear tips
• Charging case
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• Manuals

The OnePlus Buds 3 have an excited sound profile. They deliver extra thump, rumble, and boom, which is great if you prefer prominent basslines in your mixes. These headphones have extra treble to give vocals and instruments extra brightness and sparkle to cut through the bass, both of which help to counterbalance this. That said, these sounds are still a bit thin and recessed in tracks, especially so because of a dip in the mid-mid. You can use the EQ and presets in their app if you prefer a different sound.

These earbuds have good frequency response consistency. They can be a bit fiddly with their placement, especially affecting their treble delivery. However, once you get a good fit, you'll get more consistent bass and treble delivery with each use.

Their bass accuracy is decent. The response is overemphasized across the range, which results in extra thump, punch, and boom to mixes. This is especially great if you love a heavy-handed bass, but all this excess on its own can slightly muddy vocals and instruments.

The OnePlus Buds 3 have excellent mid accuracy. There's a bit of a dip in the mid-mid, which nudges vocals and instruments to the back of mixes, but otherwise, the response is fairly flat and even.

These buds have very good treble accuracy. The response is overemphasized in the low treble, which harshens vocals and instruments but also helps them cut through the extra bass. In songs like Nickelback's How You Remind Me, the lead singer's voice (specifically its harmonics) can stand out against the heavy riffs of the bass guitar in the chorus without losing definition. At the same time, sibilants like cymbals are adequately bright.

The OnePlus Buds 3's peaks and dips performance is great; however, it can be somewhat challenging to get a consistent sound since they're fiddly to place in your ear. They can follow their sound profile well, although the largest deviations are in the mid and treble ranges. The right driver has a peak in the low to mid-mid, while the left driver is mostly affected in the mid-mid. Vocals and instruments sound thin in the right driver but are also nudged to the back of the mix in both drivers. A couple of peaks in the low-treble harshen vocals and instruments while an uneven mid-treble makes sibilants like hi-hats alternatingly piercing and dull, depending on the frequency.

The OnePlus Buds 3's imaging performance is decent. We've previously tested four buds from this manufacturer, but they've performed generally better in this test. That said, imaging can be a marker for product ergonomics and a brand's quality control. It can also vary between units.

Our unit is well-matched in group delay, which ensures tight bass and transparent audio reproduction. Unfortunately, there's amplitude and frequency mismatch, which creates an imbalance in the stereo image. Peaks in the phase response cause a slight shifting left and right with midrange audio, with the left driver sounding a bit more forward than the right. This effect is only noticeable at high volumes.

The passive soundstage performance of these buds is bad, which is common for in-ear headphones. Their design purposefully bypasses your outer ear, which causes your audio to sound like it's coming from inside your head rather than from speakers in the room around you. Since your outer ear isn't activated by sound resonances, the soundstage doesn't feel very natural, immersive, or dimensional.

These headphones support OnePlus 3D Audio, which you can set in the Earbuds Function settings if you have a OnePlus phone on Android 11 or higher. If you don't have this device, you can use the HeyMelody app. Unfortunately, the manufacturer doesn't explain what this feature does other than specifying that it doesn't do head tracking and that it works with certain kinds of content and apps. It's basically a digital signal processor (DSP), which gives you the illusion of a larger, more dimensional soundstage, but this depends on your content.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is great. All frequencies fall within good levels, so you'll hear clean and pure audio reproduction at regular and high volumes.

These are the settings used to test the OnePlus Buds 3. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

These buds have a good noise isolation performance when it comes to full-range sound. They have a noise cancelling (ANC) system, complete with four different modes: Max, Moderate, Mild, and Smart, the last of which the manufacturer advertises to adjust automatically to your environment. However, the ANC is quite temperamental when it comes to positioning and seal, so you could experience deviations in noise isolation performance from use to use.

With the ANC on and set to Max, the buds can block out bassy sounds like car engine rumbling better than the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 Truly Wireless. They can reduce a lot of sound in the mid to treble ranges, including ambient chatter and the high-pitched whine of computer fans. They isolate you from more treble-range noise passively than with their ANC system on, though, and even amplify this sound a bit. The ANC system is likely designed with blocking out the bass and mid-range in mind, as sounds like the low rumbles of bus engines are much harder to passively block out than high-pitched noise.

The ANC system fares a little worse when it comes to common scenarios. This could be because the ANC system needs time to adapt to sound to cancel it out. Still, the buds can reduce sounds like airplane rumbles and busy offices and streets well. However, if you want a better overall noise isolation performance, check out the Anker Soundcore Space A40 Truly Wireless.

The OnePlus Buds 3 lack a wind reduction feature, so if you're using the ANC system outdoors, you'll hear a lot of unwanted noise when wind interacts with the ANC's mics. Additionally, due to the buds' small shape and size, the angle of wind impacts its volume, and you'll hear more noise at 0 and 180 degrees than at 90 degrees.

The leakage performance of these buds is good. Most of their leakage is concentrated in the treble range, so escaping audio sounds pretty thin. That said, if you crank the volume on your favorite tunes in a moderately noisy place like an office, others will hear a small portion of your audio.

The recording quality of the buds' mic is mediocre. Your voice sounds thin and a bit bright, but still understandable.

The integrated mic does a good job of noise handling. It can separate your voice from consistent sounds like ambient chatter at a coffee shop. When it comes to loud and more irregular noise like a train passing, your voice is still understandable, though there's still some noise present.

The OnePlus Buds 3's battery performance is decent. The manufacturer advertises them to last up to 6.5 hours continuously with volume at 50%, using AAC, and with ANC on. We measured under seven hours, which is consistent with their reports, but with ANC on and using the SBC codec. It's worth mentioning that battery life can vary depending on volume, activated features, and the kind of codec you use. Luckily, charging the case for 10 minutes generates up to seven hours of playback time, while 10 minutes for the buds gives you up to two hours of continuous battery life.

These buds are compatible with the HeyMelody app. By default, you get control mapping, a graphic EQ, presets, and access to features like 3D Audio, a virtual soundstage to help create a more immersive sound, and Ear Scan, which automatically creates an EQ based on your unique ear shape. Game Mode is also available, which is intended to lower latency. There are ANC controls; dedicated modes and presets are also available if you're looking to adjust its strength. You can use the Verify Ear Fitment to see if your buds are well placed in your ear. You can see a video of the app in action here.

These headphones come with a USB-A to USB-C cable so that you can recharge their carrying case. You can't use these buds wired, though.

The OnePlus Buds 3 have excellent Bluetooth connectivity. Like the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 Truly Wireless, they support multi-device pairing, so you can stay connected to your PC and smartphone simultaneously. While they support basic codecs like SBC and AAC, they also support LHDC (Low Latency High-Definition), which supports up to 900 kbit/s and has a sample rate of up to 96 kHz. This codec is also Hi-Res Audio certified. This means it can be good for streaming higher-quality audio. Hi-Res isn't supported on iOS, which may be a dealbreaker if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem.

If you like to stream video, you'll find SBC's latency far too high, which causes your audio and visuals to fall out of sync. While they offer a Game Mode, this feature didn't seem to affect latency during testing. However, the manufacturer advertises latency can go as low as 94 ms when connected to a OnePlus device. Unfortunately, we don't have a device like this, so we can't test its performance.

These headphones can only connect to PCs via Bluetooth. On the upside, this connection gives you full audio and mic compatibility.

The OnePlus Buds 3 have a carrying case that holds four additional charges. There's a USB-C port for recharging the case. However, unlike the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 Truly Wireless, the case doesn't support wireless charging.