When Beats launched its latest Solo 4 headphones in April (you can read our full Beats Solo 4 review for more), Apple’s audio brand also announced the Solo Buds. These new entry-level true wireless earbuds come with an attractive price of $79 / £79 / AU$129, challenging the best budget earbuds, but we didn’t have a launch date yet. That’s what we’re doing now: Beats Solo Buds will launch globally on June 20 after a short two-day pre-order period starting on June 18.
These first Beats Solo-branded earbuds will focus on portability and long runtime. Compared to the Beats Studio Buds Plus, the case is 40% smaller and fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. The Solo Buds are more compact, but still have a corkscrew-like design with a prominent “b” for the Beats logo on each bud.
Beats got the colors right, at least judging by the release photos. There is a beautiful transparent red shade in addition to matte black, storm gray and arctic purple.
Beats has removed any type of battery or wireless charging from the case, making it very compact. This means that while the Solo Buds are promised to offer a massive 18 hours of battery life, you’ll need to connect the case via USB-C to charge the left and right earbuds – you can’t just put them back in the battery. matter to charge them. We’ve never seen such long battery life from any of the best true wireless earbuds, so we’re eager to put them to the test.
Priced at $79 / £79 / AU$129, Solo Buds don’t offer support for spatial audio or active noise cancellation, a transparency mode or support for multi-point Bluetooth – but they promise a signature Beats sound experience, fast pairing and feature parity for both Android and iOS, including adjusting the EQ and the ability to find the earbuds via Find My on iPhone or the Beats app on Android.
Apple and authorized retailers will begin taking orders for Beats Solo Buds on June 18, ahead of the formal launch on June 20. At launch, Solo Buds will be available in a choice of Pick Arctic Purple, Matte Black, Storm Gray and Transparent Red.