Sony LinkBuds Truly Wireless  Headphones Review

The Sony LinkBuds have a very unusual design. The buds are round, and instead of tips that go into your ears, there's a donut-shaped part that sits outside your ear canal. It has a hole in the middle, so it doesn't block your ear. The earbuds come in 'Gray' or 'White', and both variants have a subtle speckled design.

The Sony LinkBuds are adequately comfortable. They come with a lot of silicone sleeves that you can use to customize their fit, but it's still hard to find a good fit in both ears. The round buds also protrude slightly, and the rigid plastic rings can put pressure on the outside of your ear. If you can find a good fit, you don't feel them too much, but you may still have an issue getting them to fit properly. On the plus side, they have a 'Wide Area Tap' feature that lets you tap the front of your ear to register commands instead of the earbuds, so you can avoid pressing them into your ears when you want to change the track or turn up the volume.

The Sony LinkBuds have decent controls. The default control scheme is simple and easy to use, and you can remap the functions in the app. You can tap either the round part of the earbuds or the cartilage in front of your ear to register a command, and you can turn off this feature, which is called 'Wide Area Tap'. There are beeps each time a tap command is registered, but no voice prompts. You may need to tap several times to get to the volume you want, which is a bit inconvenient.

There's an auto-pause feature that pauses your audio when you remove the earbuds from your ears, a 'Speak-to-Chat' feature that activates the Talk-Through function when your voice is detected, and automatic volume adjustment, which turns up your audio when more ambient noise is detected. All of these features can be turned off in the app. Unfortunately, the earbuds lack call-related controls, and the app doesn't give you the option of adding any.

On the left earbud:

• Double tap: Raises the volume.
• Triple tap: Lowers the volume.

On the right earbud:

• Double tap: Plays and pauses audio.
• Triple tap: Skips the track forward.

Like most earbuds, the Sony LinkBuds are very portable. They're extremely small and easily fit into most bags and pants pockets, even inside their case.

The Sony LinkBuds have a good case. It's very compact and won't take up too much space in a bag or in pockets. There's a latch mechanism that keeps the lid closed and an LED light that displays the case's battery life when the case is open. It has a pairing button on the back and magnets inside to hold the earbuds in place. Unfortunately, it's made of plastic that feels thin and cheap.

The Sony LinkBuds have a good build quality. They're made of plastic that feels mostly sturdy and can survive a few accidental drops and bumps without damage. They're also rated IPX4 for resistance against splashes of water. Unfortunately, the wing tips you can use to adjust their fit feel easy to rip.

The Sony LinkBuds have mediocre stability. It isn't easy to find a good fit for both ears, and they can easily fall out if you bend over or move your head. If you can achieve a good fit with the included wing tips, they don't slip around at all and will be suitable for workouts. Overall, their stability greatly depends on the shape of your ears.

• Sony LinkBuds
• 5x wing tips
• Charging case
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Manuals

Because of their open-ear design, the Sony LinkBuds hardly reproduce any bass. Their treble is also underemphasized, which helps avoid harsh-sounding instruments and vocals but also means your audio lacks brightness and a bit of detail. They have a well-balanced mid-range, so vocal-centric content like audiobooks and podcasts sound clear and accurate. Their companion app also offers a graphic EQ and presets that you can use to customize the sound.

The Sony LinkBuds have decent frequency response consistency. Their treble can vary a bit depending on their fit and positioning. Fortunately, they come with a variety of stability fins to help you get a good fit.

The Sony LinkBuds have terrible bass accuracy, even compared to other open-ear headphones like the Shokz OpenFit True Wireless. The entire range is very underemphasized, so your audio lacks rumble, punch, and boom. Audio also lacks body compared to other open-ear options like the Bose Sport Open Earbuds Truly Wireless. Songs with a lot of low-bass, like Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas, sound hollow instead of thumpy.

The Sony LinkBuds have great mid accuracy. The low-mids are underemphasized, so the low harmonics of instruments sound a bit thinned out. The response is still very neutral otherwise, so elements like voices and lead instruments are present, clear, and intense.

The Sony LinkBuds have poor treble accuracy. The entire range is underemphasized, which veils the upper harmonics of vocals and lead instruments. Sibilants like S and T sounds are dull as well.

The Sony LinkBuds have alright peaks and dips performance. A deep dip in the low-bass reduces thump and rumble in your audio, followed by a peak from the mid to high-bass that can replicate the higher frequencies of bass instruments like kick drums and bass guitars. A peak across the mid-range is present more in the left driver, making instruments sound slightly boxy or harsh. The low-treble is uneven, hurting the comprehensibility of vocals and lead instruments or making them sound harsh. The mid treble is also uneven in the left driver, so sibilant sounds like cymbals can be dull or bright.

The Sony LinkBuds have a decent imaging performance. Although there appears to be some deviation in the lower frequencies, the weighted group delay still falls below the audibility threshold for the entire range as these headphones struggle to reproduce these low frequencies. This overall results in tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The L/R drivers are also well-matched in terms of amplitude. However, their phase response is mismatched in the mid range. There are also peaks in the low-bass and mid-treble. Some sounds in the mid-range seem louder in the right earbud, but it's hard to notice with regular content. Their frequency response is also slightly mismatched, which can create holes or inaccuracies in the stereo image. That said, imaging can vary between units and can indicate a manufacturer's quality control and ergonomics.

The Sony LinkBuds have a poor passive soundstage, like most earbuds. By design, their sound bypasses your outer ear, so audio seems to come from inside your head instead of from speakers in the room around you. That said, you'll perceive the soundstage as very wide due to the open-back design.

The Sony LinkBuds support 360 Reality Audio, creating a more immersive, 3D feel. However, you need to subscribe to a compatible streaming service (like TIDAL, 360 by Deezer, or nugs.net) and listen to music mixed with 360 Reality Audio to take advantage of it. You can also use the app to take pictures of your ears to be analyzed by Sony to optimize this feature to your ear shape.

The Sony LinkBuds have a decent weighted harmonic distortion performance. There is some distortion in the low-mids present in both earbuds when listening at high volumes. There's also a peak in the left earbud's mid-treble response at normal listening volumes. Most frequencies fall within good limits, so your audio is clean and pure at normal listening volumes.

These are the settings used to test the Sony LinkBuds. Our results are only valid with these settings.

The Sony LinkBuds block out virtually no noise, which is by design. They don't cover or block your ears, which allows you to hear ambient sound while you wear them. You can easily hear conversations around you at work and oncoming traffic when you're outside for a walk.

The Sony LinkBuds have an okay leakage performance. They leak a decent amount of audio, so if you're listening to audio at high volumes at the office, people can hear it. They also mostly leak sound in the treble range, so the audio that escapes sounds thin and tinny.

The mic has an adequate recording quality. Speech lacks body, and there's some distortion present. However, your voice still sounds clear and understandable to whoever you're speaking to.

The mic has a decent noise handling performance. It can separate your voice from moderate background noise and even reduces the sound of loud noises like a passing train. Your voice will be easily understandable if you take a call from somewhere like a busy office. Unfortunately, a crackling sound is present when using the mic, which will distract some people.

The Sony LinkBuds have a decent battery performance. They can last just over six hours off a single charge, slightly longer than the advertised 5.5 hours. While that won't get you through an entire 9-to-5 workday without recharging, they come with a case that holds about two extra charges. The manufacturer advertises them to provide 90 minutes of continuous use from 10 minutes of charging, and you can use one earbud while the other charges in the case. You can also use the app to set up an auto-off timer that switches off the earbuds when they're not in your ears for a certain amount of time.

The Sony LinkBuds have a great app. It has a graphic EQ and a few presets like 'Bass Boost' and 'Relaxed' that you can use to customize the sound profile. You can also set up head tracking for the 'Soundscape' feature, which the manufacturer advertises to help you navigate with audio cues that seem to "come from" a destination, based on the position of your head. It can also give you audio prompts to indicate points of interest, like an intersection or building name, as you walk by. You need to download the separate 'Microsoft Soundscape' app to use it, though.

It's possible to remap the controls on both earbuds, but you lose some functions if you do. You can add a command to skip the track backward but lose the play/pause function. You can add commands to activate your device's voice assistant, Amazon Alexa, or choose 'Quick Access', which lets you use Spotify Tap to play music from that app.

You can turn on or off some other features, including 'Automatic Power Off' (turns off the headphones when you're not wearing them), smart pause (pauses your audio when you're not wearing them), and 'Speak-to-Chat' (pauses your audio when the headphones detect your voice). You can also turn on automatic volume adjustment, which turns up the volume when there's ambient noise and lowers it again in a quieter environment. You can toggle 'Wide Area Tap' on or off, so you can decide if you want to tap your ear to register commands. You can also set up the 360 Reality Audio feature and perform a test to analyze your ear shape.

The Sony LinkBuds have great Bluetooth connectivity. With firmware update 2.2.0, they support multi-device pairing, allowing you to stay connected with up to two devices simultaneously. The headphones automatically switch connections when they detect that content plays off one device and not the other. You can also see a full list of paired devices in the companion app. Additionally, they support Google Fast Pair, so you can tap a prompt on your computer or tablet to pair them. Unfortunately, their latency with PCs is high, so you may notice audio syncing issues if you use them for a video call on your computer. They have lower latency with iOS and Android devices, making them more suitable for watching videos on your phone. Some devices and apps compensate for latency, so your experience can vary.

You can't use the Sony LinkBuds wired. They only come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the case.

The Sony LinkBuds can connect to PCs via Bluetooth but can't connect any other way.

The Sony LinkBuds come with a small portable case with a USB-C port for the charging cable. It doesn't have any other inputs and doesn't support wireless charging.