It goes without saying, but at this price the Beats Flex also doesn’t offer noise cancellation, either. The right eartips can help provide some passive noise isolation by sealing off your ear canal, but there’s no fancy noise-cancellation tech inside beats solo pro wireless of them to block out unwanted noise on your next plane flight. Besides hands-free Siri, the more expensive H1 Chip supports Bluetooth 5 versus the W1’s Bluetooth 4.2, which means you’ll get a slightly longer battery life with the H1 Chip, too.
Apple’s easy-pairing feature gets you instantly connected to any iPhone or iPad linked to your iCloud account. It’s a shame, because while the Beats Flex in-ears still offer a foot-tapping sound and an agile, taut bassline, beats flex review there’s an extra ounce rolling off through the top end. They’ve been tuned as earbuds you can wear around your neck throughout the day and pop in your ears as needed, and they’re perfectly good for casual listening.
They’re mostly made of silicone and plastic, which makes them very flexible. They also feel durable enough to survive a couple of accidental drops. However, the ear tips seem like they could easily rip, and they don’t have an IP rating for dust and water resistance. Thanks to their flexible design, you can easily fold them up to fit into most pockets or bags. Since they have a neck cable design, you can also wear them around your neck when you’re on the move. They have a very comfortable fit and should stay in place during workouts, although, unlike some sports-oriented headphones, they don’t have stability fins or ear hooks.
There’s no noise-cancelling either, but with the correct seal you’ll still enjoy good levels of passive noise isolation. Check out our recommendations for the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the best wireless earbuds for iPhone, and the best wireless Bluetooth earbuds under $50. You can turn on and off the auto-pause that activates when you remove them from your ears. You can also turn on and off auto-call answering, but that’s about it. The Beats Flex’s passive soundstage is bad, which is to be expected for closed-back in-ears. To create a large and out-of-head soundstage, the outer ear needs to be activated by sound resonances.
Elsewhere, the earphones come with Apple’s W1 chip to ensure quick, seamless pairing with iPhones and iPads; just bring the headphones near your device and you’ll instantly see a popup offering to pair them. I say everyday headphones, because their lack of waterproofing means they’re sadly no replacement for the Beats Powerbeats when it comes to exercise, despite the neckband design. Flex wireless earbuds have no fancy noise-cancellation tech inside of them to block out unwanted noise. However, they can provide passive noise isolation, which is above average. This sound reduction is achieved from the tips and earpieces physically blocking your ear canal.
Battery life is important for wireless headphones, and doubly so for banded headphones like these that don’t come with a charging case. Apple claims on its website that you get up to 12 hours of listening beats flex review time, and our own testing mostly matches up with those claims. We got a little less than that on average, but we’re also usually listening to music at full volume because we hate our eardrums.
Without the H1 chip, you also won’t get hands-free “Hey Siri” support, so you’ll have to press the voice assistant button on the left-side neckband housing in order to access Siri. With nearly identical neckband housings on each side, it takes a little bit of practice to remember which functions are located where, but once you learn that it’s easy to control things by feel. Unlike AirPods Pro, Beats Flex don’t have active noise cancellation, but I still found they did a pretty good job shutting out background noise and letting me focus on what I was listening to. There’s some added thump to the drum loop, and the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with power and depth—these earphones will not disappoint lovers of boosted bass. The vocals are delivered cleanly and clearly, though some sibilance is added to the mix.
Here’s our thoughts on whether the Beats Flex are worth your money. The Apple W1 headphone chip seamlessly integrates Beats Flex into your world of Apple products. If you have an Android phone or tablet, you can do it in two different ways. First, you can simply turn on your Bluetooth and then press and hold the power button on the Flex for 1 second.
For some people it is more comfortable than in-ear form. The first number of the IP rating refers to protection against dust, while the second number refers to protection against liquid. E.g. a first number of 6 denotes that it is completely dustproof, and a second number of 7 denotes that the device can withstand full immersion in water. Would it be nice to get a more secure fit using in-ear fins for running? But that’s the only real complaint we have with the Beats Flex. And it’s a minor one considering you could spend a little more elsewhere in the range for such a fit.