AirPods Killer or Total Flop? - Google Pixel Buds Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,152 words · ~5 min read
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the pixel buds come with a charging case features exclusive to pixel phones and
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they're priced at 159 making them pretty much the Android
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equivalent to apple's airpods but are these even close to as good and
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can they deliver on their promise of offering magical
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real-time translation just like they did
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in the scripted onstage demo i think kinda blue would suit you
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all right we will see
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mass drops best-selling sennheiser hd 6xx headphones are available again for
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only 200 us dollars so check them out at
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the link in the video description first things first the pixel buds are
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not truly wireless but unlike some other
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neck buds like the jaybird freedoms there's no battery bump or inline
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control everything is contained within the earbuds themselves
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so why then does this cable exist at all
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well it's actually integral to the buds design starting with the fit the loop
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formed at the cable's end actually goes inside-ish
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your ear and then can be adjusted for a nice snug fit and to keep them in
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in practice it causes a little bit more faffing about to put them in if the
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cable slips but it works surprisingly well to hold them in place and being
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able to hang them around your neck it could be argued is a convenient way
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to keep track of them and besides if you prefer
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truly wireless pixel buds you can just diy it anyway by cutting the
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ah just kidding not only would cutting off the cable
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void your warranty you'd also be totally screwed because the cable does conduct
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audio signals not to mention power
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the buds hour 120 milliamp hour battery is
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completely contained within the left bud
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and is not split between the two earphones like with apple's air pods
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to charge the battery you will need the included charging case it is not as
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small or convenient
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or premium feeling as the airpods case i have some doubts about its long-term
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durability and the lip around the edge is
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pretty stupid okay i actually you know what i don't
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like it very much but the process of putting the buds in is about as good as
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it could be considering that there's a cable to deal with and it includes a
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magic pairing mechanism similar to apples provided that you're
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running Android nougat and that you have a little bit of luck
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but let's just take them back out and use them compared to the airpods which
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only have one gesture which can be remapped depending on your preference
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per bud to pause skip track or some in siri
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google's offers less flexibility at this time but it does support more gestures
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thanks to a capacitive surface that is built into the right bud
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so you can actually tap to play and pause you can double tap to have
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notifications read to you you can swipe to adjust volume and you can hold it to
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summon the google assistant which by the way is
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awesome on the pixel buds the instant you touch
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the bud no latency or even an acknowledgement tone you can just start
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talking what's the price of bitcoin ordering it to play songs get directions
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or even send text messages something that isn't supported on the google home
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yet sorry i can't send texts yet oh and one
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more thing how about that real-time translation
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now two months ago dennis and i tried out a different product with that same
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promise and the results were how do we put this
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tactfully totally broke dick okay so now i'm actually not very
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certain if it's working properly
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so let's see if google can do any better today you're not dennis
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can you get dennis yeah okay so you ready to try again
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yes
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oh my god you kill me hello it is very nice to meet you
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wow it went through a lot of different iterations there
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how anna woman is
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why is it that whenever we try to do one of these scenarios we end up dating
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foreign
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okay so
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all right thanks dennis
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there are some good things here um i don't speak english yeah okay
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this is based on google translate rather than whatever that broken thing we were
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using before was so the translations are actually pretty good
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but a couple of issues first of all this
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functionality with the pixel buds only works with the pixel or pixel 2 series
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of phones and
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what was the point of that
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what was the difference between using pixel buds and just
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using google translate
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so okay let's move on to the one more
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fairly important thing that we have to discuss here how do the pixel buds sound
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actually not bad compared to the airpods they have a wider sound stage and are
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more full-bodied definitely less tinny
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meaning i would say they sound better than the airpods overall
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with that said despite all of our comparisons between
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the two here the buds aren't
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really competing with the airpods anyway even though they can totally work with
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an iphone including siri integration
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what they're competing with is all the other bluetooth headphones that an
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Android user might buy in the post headphone jack era
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and as long as your device supports the features that you want to use with them
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and you don't mind the relatively cumbersome
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in our experience pairing and
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in-ear insertion process i think they are a pretty good choice
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you know what else is a good choice crunchyroll the site created by anime
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fans for anime fans offering the most current episodes of new shows straight
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from japan like nights and magic and my hero academia season 2. all the content
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on their site is professionally subtitled and our link gives you a free
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trial of their premium service completely ad free and if you enjoy the
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many benefits of premium like 1080p streaming getting new episodes of shows
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straight from japan within an hour of their premiere and being able to stream
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anywhere anytime from a variety of devices like your phone tablet or game
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console you can continue your premium membership to crunchyroll for just 6.95
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a month so go to crunchyroll.com Linus and sign up today
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also link down
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there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one as well as our
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community forum which you should totally join