SoundPEATS has released Air5, the new version of their semi-open earbuds, which provides high-quality sound, great noise canceling, and very good battery life, all at a very competitive price. All in all, you can think of Air5 as an alternative to AirPods 4 that works well with Android devices and costs less than half the price.
Design
SoundPEATS Air5 has a semi-open design, which means it doesn’t have ear tips and sits at the edge of your ear canal. It comes in three colors: black, white, beige, and purple. Each earbud weighs 4.5 grams, which makes it very light. The design is nice and slim and comes with a well-rounded case made of sturdy plastic.
The earbuds fit snugly. I used them for normal use and brisk walks but not for intense workouts, though I’ve seen other people do it. Air5 is IPX5 waterproof, which means you can’t drop them in water, but they provide good protection against rain, splash, and workout sweat, which is good enough for most uses.
Features
The Air5 has Bluetooth 5.4 with multi-point connectivity, which means you can connect it to more than one device at a time. It has an advanced Snapdragon chip with Snapdragon Sound and Hi-Res Audio support. So if you have a device that has Snapdragon Sound compatibility, you can take advantage of its full functionality with Air5 and get high-quality audio.
The sound quality is very good, especially when used for calls, listening to podcasts, and streaming. If you’re a sound buff and want to have to hear every detail when listening to music, semi-open earbuds are just not very suitable. For those uses, I usually recommend over-ear headphones, and SoundPEATS happens to have a good one, the Space (see my review here).
Each bud contains a 13mm dynamic driver. It has an adaptive noise canceling feature that adapts to changes in your audio environment such as moving from indoors to busy streets. Since it is a semi-open design, you can’t expect it to provide perfect noise canceling, but it does a decent job of removing distracting noise. There are three mics on each bud with AI noise reduction that tries to focus on your voice and cancel out wind and surrounding noise. I tried it for calls in different environments and got pretty good results.
The battery life of Air5 is 6 hours from the buds alone and 30 hours via the charging case, which is competitive with other advanced earbuds.
SoundPEATS App
Air5 is designed to be customizable via the firm’s PeatsAudio app, which enables you to customize the touch controls, adjust the EQ, manage noise canceling levels, and more. The app also has presets that you can use out of the box and several ear canal settings that can adjust the earbuds’ sound and noise canceling with your ear. I strongly recommend trying the different settings and figuring out which one is best for you, because it can make a big difference.
Price
One of the key strengths of Air5 is its competitive price. You get AirPods-quality earbuds, a nice design, and Android compatibility at $89.99. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a solid, all-round pair of earbuds.