The segment of true wireless earphones is getting more and more complicated. There are tons of companies in garlic and they want their share of the pie. And every once in a while, a ‘lifetime tech’ company gets into the fray and may come out ahead or their product may not be talked about much.
It is the feeling that I have with the latest Lenovo true wireless headphones, basically because as a person who likes these devices, the presentation of a few months ago caught my attention, but it is extremely difficult to see a text analysis or YouTube, even buy them by Amazon or PC Components, go.
But well, we have a unit and, after spending a couple of weeks glued to them, We tell you our opinion of the Lenovo Smart Wireless Earbuds in this analysis.
Lenovo Smart Earbuds | |
---|---|
Type | in ear |
Case dimensions | 47 x 55 x 28mm |
Weight | 50 grams total | 4.5 grams per earphone |
Microphone | Three microphones per earpiece |
drivers | 11mm dynamic driver |
Waterproof | IPX4 |
connections | Bluetooth 5.2 |
Autonomy | Up to 7 hours without ANC on headphones | Up to 28 hours total |
Accessories included | USB-A to USB-C charging cable | Four pairs of silicone tips |
Price | €99 |
Sections of the Lenovo Smart Wireless Earbuds analysis:
Sober style and a case that has gone on a diet
I believe that what I like most about these Lenovo Smart Wireless Earbuds is the box. In recent months we have seen many headphones with small and pocket-friendly cases, but also other cases that were excessively large or with frills in the opening design.
Here they have not gone around with ‘inventions’ and we have a black or white plastic box (black in our case, and it catches a lot of grease from the fingers) that has a very traditional ‘chest’ type opening design.
It is quite light and very, very comfortable due to its size, but it shows that they have cut back on the quality of the plastic so that it is precisely lighter.
But hey, we have the Lenovo logo at the top, a system of three white LEDs on the front that indicates charging or when we are trying to sync to a device, and a USB-C charging port on the back.
Something that has surprised me due to its 99 euros is that it has wireless charging. The truth is that it is something super useful in headphones of this type because if we have a charging base, we carry it, we place it and we will always have a battery ready for action without having to remove the cable, which, by the way, is extremely short in this model.
When we open the lid we have the magnetic holes for the headphones, which are easy to remove from the box (something important) and have a fairly simple design.
Again, and just like the box, no frills. They are plastic and stick with three microphones each, two charging pins each and a proximity sensor so that the music stops when we take them off.
Also, we have four pairs of ear tips in the box and I know this is very personal, but I liked the ones that came already on the earphones.
This is also very personal, but they have seemed comfortable to me due to their format and weight and, in addition, they do not fall off when I play sports.
I don’t have to worry about sweat either because they have IPX4 resistance and, as I say, in the design of both the headphones and the box, this device fulfills perfectly considering the price.
The app is quite complete, but the noise cancellation does strange things
Before we continue with the headphones, let’s move on to the phone. We can start using these headphones as soon as we take them out of the box and we will be able to pair them to a PC, a tablet or a mobile phone without problems.
However, if we download Lenovo’s Smart Wearable application, we will be able to have greater control, especially when it comes to equalization.
It is an application that has seemed stable to me and I like that it allows us to choose between several preset sound profiles, but we are also going to have a mode that we can customize to our liking to have greater control over the different frequencies.
If you know about audio or see a tutorial with the best settings for each genre, it is the most recommended. If not, I have been using the ‘Natural’ mode and it seems very correct.
Although on the mobile we will be able to see the remaining autonomy of the headphones, it is also a data that is shown to us in the app and, in addition, we have options like activating the automatic pause when we take them off, voice assistant control, we will be able to see the touch controls and set an automatic shutdown.
The controls are performed by tapping on the sides of the headphones and I think they are quite complete, but when there are actions that require three taps (lower volume or go back in a song), sometimes it doesn’t get it right and we have to repeat the action .
And, on the other hand, there is the cancellation of external noise. We have a deactivated mode, only with passive cancellation, the ambient mode that allows us to hear what is around us, and the active cancellation mode.
Supposedly, the app adjusts this based on external noise, but we will also be able to manually adjust it so that we are always in normal mode or in ANC mode.
The problem is that, at least in my tests, I always put it in ANC activated, but every time I put the headphones on, it comes out as disabled. When I go to the app in the background I force the ANC mode, but I don’t notice anything at all.
I have to go back and select the headphones and turn the ANC back on for it to actually work.
And about this active cancellation, you can tell that it’s there and on a day-to-day basis it takes away a lot of background noise, but on the street, for example, cars don’t ‘work’ them as well as other headphones in its price range like the Nothing Ear 1 –from 99 euros– or the Freebuds Pro –from 129 euros-.
Oh well, I think that for the price the relationship between sound quality and active cancellation is good.And well, something no less important is that they are independent headphones from one another, so we can use the right one with the left one in the box or vice versa.
And something that I liked is that they can be connected to several devices and they switch between them quite intelligently.
For example, I was listening to music on my Mac with my headphones, and when I received a call on my mobile and picked it up, I was automatically talking through them without having to do anything.
More than 20 hours of autonomy with ANC, wireless charging and sound to match
Something that I liked a lot is the autonomy. I have already told you that I love the format of the box because it is small and does not give up something as juicy as wireless charging, but it also gives us, according to Lenovo, up to 28 hours of total autonomy with the cancellation disabled and up to 22 hours with active cancellation.
It is always difficult to talk about the autonomy of headphones because it depends a lot on the volume at which we have them and the style of music, but I can tell you that with a volume at 60% with an environment with background noise and with alternative rock music, They have lasted me a little more than five hours with the cancellation activated.
It is an autonomy that has not left me lying in these weeks and, in addition, the load is quite fast. If the headphones run out of battery, in 10 minutes of charging in the box we have 60%.
But… how about the sound? The truth is that here the Lenovo Smart Wireless Earbuds they comply very well with both the sound they offer from the factory as with the aforementioned equalization options and predefined profiles.
I think it’s a punchy sound with treble, perhaps, less clear than somewhat more expensive headphones, but if I have to compare them with wireless noise-canceling headphones for less than 100 euros, they are at a very good level.
They offer a sound experience very similar to that of the Nothing Ear 1 -review- or the new OnePlus headphones -review of the Buds Z2- and in all the genres of music I have listened to, they convince. They are also ideal for videos and the truth is that latency has not seemed to be a problem.
Now the mics ain’t up to scratch. Each of the headphones has three microphones both to capture external sound in order to perform active noise cancellation and to allow us to talk on the phone or in a video conference on the PC.
With active noise cancellation I can already see that there are some sounds that escape it and that, therefore, with the internal system they are not mitigated so that we hear it as little as possible, but in the voice it is something that is much more noticeable.
These days I have talked a lot on the phone with them on and, when the person is trustworthy, he tells me that I sound ‘strange’. That strange sound is nothing more than a few fluctuations in the voice due to a change in volume.
I think this happens when the headphones believe that there is a silence that they must mitigate as much as possible and, therefore, they lower the capture sensitivity a lot or try to mitigate the sound by software when, really, it should not be like that.
In the more stressed syllables there is no problem, despite the fact that the voice sounds a bit canned, but in the less strong ones I notice that extremely low volume.
It could be the fault of the phone app for calls, but it also happens to me when recording the example you have above or when sending audios via Whatsapp and Telegram.
Headphones with almost everything that can be ‘put’ in 99 euros
At the end, The Lenovo Smart Wireless Earbuds are a good product from a reputable company like Lenovo and, after trying it these last two weeks, I don’t really understand why they haven’t been talked about more.
There are alternatives that seem better to me for a slightly higher price, such as the Huawei Freebuds Pro -analysis-, but for those 99 euros, they seem to me to be a very good option.
They offer more than good sound quality for the price, I loved the box due to a very, very compact size and that, in addition, it has wireless charging and that function of connection to several devices at the same time, it seems to me a very comfortable functionality for those of us who work with several devices.
And yes, it has active noise cancellation, but although it helps to get more into the content, I think it should be polished a bit, not at the level of cancellation, but also because of the problems I’ve had with the application.
Oh well, I think that if Lenovo continues down this path, it can become, at least in the West, an important competitor in this complicated segment of true wireless earphones.