Sony LinkBuds Open Review – Shouldn’t Be “Open” For Sale

Hey everyone, welcome to the review of the Sony LinkBuds Open truly wireless earbuds.

Before we go further, let’s be clear: these earbuds do not support ANC (active noise cancelling). They are open earbuds, meaning you can hear your surroundings while listening to music. If this isn’t for you and it sounds annoying, considering following my social media links (like YouTube) before you leave as I just saved you some time!

But if you’re still here, wondering why these might be useful, think about this: maybe you’re part of a local soccer league, playing games for fun while listening to music. Or perhaps you do chores around the house and want to keep an ear open. Maybe you have kids and need to hear if they’re fighting or throwing bagels at each other. Or you want to know if your spouse is lurking around the corner, ready to throw a hot dog at your head. I assume that’s normal family behaviour unless my family is bizarre.

Design & Comfort

The earbuds have a compact, discreet design that fits nicely within your ears without sticking out. However, the body has some questionable design choices. The ear tips are hard plastic, not soft like gel or rubber, which can cause discomfort after about an hour of use. Additionally, the ear tips can’t be replaced or resized, and they tend to slip out slightly during workout activities like deadlift or stationary biking.

My situation might not apply to everyone since people have different ear sizes and shapes. However, I experienced discomfort (others could certainly experience the same), and these earbuds are not cheap at $300 Canadian. This is unfortunate.

Another annoying thing about the earbuds’ design is that they attract dust like crazy. The material on the earbud body causes this. Throughout this review, if you notice dust accumulation on the earbuds (pictures or YouTube video above), it’s after I tried cleaning them. You can’t just flick the dust away; you must wet it slightly to remove it. Imagine the dust accumulation for someone who doesn’t clean them regularly.

The earbuds come in various colors: black, white, and violet.

Despite the disappointing earbud body, I’m a fan of the case for two reasons. It’s minimalistic with just a Sony logo on top, and it’s compact, fitting nicely in your pocket without bulging out.

If you’re still interested in these for working out, they are IPX4 rated, meaning they’re sweat and splash resistant. However, Sony only mentions this for only the earbuds, so try not to get the case wet.

Controls

As for controls, it’s a mixed bag. They are 100% touch-based and responsive to commands. There’s a feature in the app to expand the touch surface around your ear, but it’s a gimmick and doesn’t work well.

The controls are a mixed bag because you can’t single tap to do anything. Sony skipped it, so you must double tap or triple tap, but triple tap is limited in customization depending on what you assign for double tap in the app. You then must quadruple tap to increase or decrease volume depending on which earbud you’re using. It would have been better if Sony had made single tap, double tap, and triple tap more customizable, reducing the number of touch commands to memorize.

One control functionality not usually included in mid-tier priced earbuds is auto play/pause. When you take the earbuds out, content pauses, and when you put them back in, it automatically resumes. This function works well.

Noise Cancelling

Let’s talk about ANC (active noise canceling) really quick. These earbuds do not support ANC whatsoever. They don’t have transparency mode either, which takes surrounding noise from the microphones and projects it into your ears. These are open earbuds, so you can hear your surroundings on purpose. There’s an opening in the middle of the earbuds.

I explained some situational environments where you can use these earbuds near the beginning of this article for those who skipped that part.

You are meant to hear your surroundings no matter what, even if you’re listening to music. So, if you’re in a noisy environment and want peace and quiet except for your music or podcasts, these aren’t it. They are poor for traveling, especially. Again, mentioning this for people that might have skipped the beginning of this article.

Battery

Sony claims the earbuds last about eight hours on a full charge. In my testing, I got 7.7 hours, likely because I tested at 60% volume, while Sony might have tested at 50%. So, the battery claim is rather accurate. Sony doesn’t document how long it takes to charge them but in my testing, it takes about an hour to recharge the earbuds in the case, which is not too bad. To recharge the earbuds, you put them into the case, and they magnetically seal in just fine.

However, at this price point, you can get earbuds with ANC technology, which consumes more battery but lasts longer. So, the battery on these earbuds is rather disappointing.

Charging the case takes about 1.5 hours, as Sony claims, and I got the same result in my testing. With the case and earbuds fully charged, the earbuds and case last about 25.8 hours.

Microphone Quality

In a quiet environment, the microphone performs reasonably well considering the price and the fact that these are truly wireless earbuds. The call quality is almost on par with that of a laptop microphone, making it easy for the other person to understand what is being said.

However, in a noisy environment, some background noise does seep through while speaking. The microphone seems to struggle to differentiate between the speaker’s voice and the surrounding noise. Although it isn’t overly distracting, it might be noticeable to the person on the other end of a work call, indicating that you are in a public setting. Additionally, my voice sounded slightly more digital compared to a quiet setting.

When using the earbuds with a fan blowing (to test a windy situation) and turning my head in various directions, the quality dropped significantly. More wind noise was picked up than expected, especially at this price point, making it difficult and annoying to hear what is being said.

Audio Quality

If you’ve stuck around this long, you’re interested in audio. So, how do the LinkBuds Open perform? They support SBC, AC, and LC3 codecs. Surprisingly, at this price point, you would expect them to support LDAC, but they don’t. However, codecs don’t matter as much as audio performance. Out of the box, they sound muddy, especially the vocals, which seem drowned out.

You can adjust the equalizer, but it’s odd because budget-friendly earbuds sound significantly better. Adjusting the bass, whether using the equalizer or Sony’s Clear Bass notch, doesn’t help. If you increase the bass too high, it starts to muffle and distort the sound. The bass does not sound good, and the overall sound signature suffers.

Usually, I talk about vocals and highs separately, but the performance is almost the same. Adjusting the vocals or highs independently makes them sound better but only meeting the bar minimum as they should at this price at a flat profile. There’s nothing that stands out compared to the competition, which is unfortunate. Overall, the sound signature in any area is disappointing.

All testing was done in a quiet environment to hear the full capabilities of the earbuds and prioritize sound quality in the Bluetooth connection.

The sound signature without glasses is poorer, but it doesn’t get worse when wearing glasses. The earbuds are so tiny that it makes no difference.

Software

Now, let’s talk about the app experience. Unfortunately, it’s another poor experience. The home section has some key functions like connected devices and what’s playing, but a lot of functionality is missing. The “Discover” section is filled with irrelevant information. To find deeper settings, you have to navigate through the submenus (which are not easy to find), which should be on the home screen. For example, the equaliser and the “Speak to Chat” feature, which pauses your content when it hears your voice and resumes it after a set time, are buried in submenus.

Many of the menus are gimmicky and not very useful. Anything worth mentioning has already been covered earlier.

Conclusion

My score is rather critical. I’m mindful that these are open earbuds, and the score has nothing to do with the fact that you can hear your surroundings constantly. The main issue is that they are very uncomfortable. What good are earbuds if they’re not comfortable to wear in the long run? At this price point, the sound signature is just not good. I expected way better from Sony.

I would recommend the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2024 model, which are slightly cheaper, they have transparency mode, allowing you to hear your surroundings clearly while listening to music, they also have excellent ANC capabilities for a peaceful, quiet environment, and great audio performance.