Beats Flex Wireless  Headphones Review

The Beats Flex Wireless have a similar design to the Beats BeatsX Wireless. While they don't have ear hooks, they feature an integrated neckband cable that lets you wear them comfortably around your neck when not in use. They come in four color variants to better suit your style: 'Black', 'Yuzu Yellow', 'Smoke Grey', and 'Flame Blue'. Beats also re-release their products with limited edition colors like 'Fragment Black', which look nearly identical to their 'Black' model but have a special logo on the modules and an all-black color scheme.

These buds are comfortable. They don't have a deep in-ear fit, and the cable is lightweight, meaning they're not tiring to wear. A few sizes of silicone tips are included so you can find the best fit for you.

These headphones have okay controls. All the controls are on the neck band's left and right modules, but they aren't very intuitive as they can require a combination of presses to register the right commands. The multi-purpose button on the left module doesn't have a strong click, making it difficult to know if you've pushed or held it properly. There are audio cues for some commands, which help overcome the controls' shortcomings. They also have an auto-play/pause function, which will play audio when they're in your ears and will pause it when they're around your neck.

Left module:

Rocker

• Single press upper side: Raises volume.
• Single press lower side: Lowers volume.

Multi-purpose button

• Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends a call.
• Double press: Skips a track forward.
• Triple press: Skips a track backward.
• Single 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

• Single press and hold: Turns earbuds on or off.

Like most in-ear headphones, these wireless buds are very breathable. While they trap some heat in the ear canal, it isn't noticeable, especially during exercise.

These are very portable headphones. Thanks to their flexible design, they can easily fit into most pockets or bags, and the earbuds have magnets on the back of their housing, which allows them to stay together and reduce tangling. You can also wear them around your neck when you're on the move.

These buds have a good build quality. They're mostly made of silicone and plastic, making them very flexible and durable enough to survive a couple of accidental drops. However, the ear tips feel like they could easily rip, and they don't have an IP rating for dust and water resistance.

These headphones have good stability. Once you get a good seal, the angled bud design rests firmly in your ear and stays in place during light or intense exercise. However, the buds can fall out of your ears if the neckband gets caught on something.

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

These headphones 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 thin vocals and lead instruments as well as dull sibilants like cymbals. These headphones don't come with an EQ or presets, meaning you can't adjust the sound to your liking.

They have outstanding frequency response consistency. It's easy to achieve consistent bass and treble delivery thanks to the assortment of ear tips to help you get a proper fit and seal.

These in-ears have good bass accuracy. The range is overemphasized, which gives extra thump and boom to mixes and is especially good for genres like EDM. In bass-heavy tracks like Genesis by Justice, this bass makes the drop around the 0:40 second mark sound full and intense. However, the extra bass can also muddy vocals and instruments.

The Beats Flex have excellent mid accuracy. There's some overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mids, which can slightly clutter your mix. However, the rest of the range is fairly flat, so vocals and instruments still sound present. The bump in the high-mid also helps add clarity and intensity to these sounds.

These headphones have passable treble accuracy. It's underemphasized across the range, so the higher ends of vocals and instruments don't come through as clearly, while sibilants like S and T sounds are dull and lispy. In vocal-centric songs like Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero, the upper harmonics of her voice, including S and T sounds, are veiled throughout the track.

They have very good peaks and dips performance. There aren't too many deviations in response overall, meaning these headphones follow their own sound profile well, but a peak in the high-mid adds harshness to vocals and lead instruments. A dip in the low-treble veils the upper harmonics.

Like many Beats headphones we've tested, these have outstanding imaging, which is a good indicator of quality control and ergonomics. Their weighted group delay falls below the audibility threshold, and the L/R drivers are well-matched, which is important for the accurate reproduction of sound objects like voices in the stereo image. However, keep in mind that imaging can vary across units.

The Beats Flex Wireless' passive soundstage is bad, which is normal for closed-back in-ears. Headphones need to bounce sound off the outside of your ear to produce an immersive, out-of-head soundstage. These headphones don't interact with your outer ear by design, so their soundstage feels small, closed-off, and unnatural.

These in-ears have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. There's a slight peak between the low to mid-treble at normal and high volumes. However, it isn't very noticeable with real-life content. All ranges fall within acceptable limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when using them with this configuration.

These in-ears have a decent noise isolation performance. They aren't an ideal choice for commuting as they don't reduce much sound in the bass range, meaning sounds like bus and plane engines are still quite audible. However, they can cut out a significant amount of office chatter and the hum of AC units.

The leakage performance is outstanding. If you're working at the office, people won't hear your audio, even at a high volume. Leakage stays in the low-treble range, meaning escaping audio sounds thin and isn't noticeable to others unless you're somewhere quiet, like at home.

These headphones have an integrated microphone.

The integrated microphone's recording quality is mediocre. Your voice sounds boxy, thin, and slightly muffled. However, you'll still sound understandable on the other end of the line.

The integrated microphone's noise handling is disappointing. If you're somewhere with a lot of loud sounds, like a subway, background noise will drown out your voice. However, it won't be as much of a problem if you're taking a call from a quiet space like your home.

The battery performance is passable. The manufacturer advertises them to last 12 hours continuously, and we measured just under that, at 11 hours. Beats also advertise a 'Fast Fuel' feature, which gives you 1.5 hours of playback time on a 10-minute charge. However, battery performance can vary with real-life usage. These headphones also don't have any power-saving features, and you can't use them while charging.

The Beats Flex Wireless have a disappointing companion app. You can toggle auto-call answering and an auto-pause feature that activates when you remove them from your ears. That's about it.

These buds 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. They also have an audio sharing feature via Remote Play that allows another person to listen on a different pair of Beats headphones or Apple AirPods. While they have high audio latency on PC, their iOS and Android latency is much lower, making them better suited for streaming on mobile devices. However, latency can vary as devices and apps compensate for latency differently.

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

The Beats Flex Wireless have full audio and mic compatibility with Bluetooth-enabled PCs. However, you can't connect these buds to your PC in any other way.