Nokia Power Earbuds Lite review – missed opportunity

• The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite are the latest truly wireless earbuds in the affordable segment.
  
• These Nokia earbuds compete with the likes of the Realme Buds Air 2 and OnePlus Buds Z, among others.
  
• Sporting a simple design, they are aimed at those who want a pair of no-fuss and good quality truly wireless earbuds (TWS).
  
• But are they good enough? Let us find out in this review.

The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite is the latest entrant in the affordable truly wireless (TWS) earbuds market, promising to offer a good quality experience as it relies on the goodwill of the Nokia brand name.

HMD Global has kept things simple with these Nokia earbuds. There is no headline feature that screams at you (figure of speech), which might make it a little difficult for the company – more so in a crowded market with options that offer a lot of features.

I have been using the Nokia Power Earbuds Lite for over a week now and here’s my detailed review.

Nokia Power Earbuds Lite price and availability

The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite is priced at ₹3,599 and comes in two colours – charcoal and snow. They can be purchased from Amazon.in.

At this price, these Nokia earbuds compete with these alternatives:



Design – simple and boxy

These Nokia earbuds sport a simple and utilitarian design. Instead of standing out in terms of design, they blend in – which might be exactly what many of us might prefer.

The case is boxy and comes with a matte finish – going against the approach that some of its competitors like the Realme Buds Air 2 have taken, where the case is curved and glossy. This does help distinguish the Nokia earbuds, but there is more to this experience than just the design of the case.

The earbuds sport an in-canal design – this helps in offering improved passive noise cancellation, as the design helps in physically blocking out external noise. This is especially useful since the Nokia earbuds do not offer active noise cancellation, unlike the Realme Buds Air 2.

Build quality and comfort

The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite is lightweight despite the boxy case and the relatively bigger size of the earbuds when compared to some other options like the Galaxy Buds Pro.

The Nokia earbuds feel comfortable and light enough, so using them for extended periods of time is not an issue. The earbuds also support basic functionality like play/pause media with a single tap, receiving and ending calls with a double tap, and bringing up Google Assistant with a long press.

The case is sturdy and the matte black finish gives it an understated look. I do worry though that it could get spoiled easily, especially if you have sweaty hands or oily skin. Apart from that, though, the case feels well-built and has a satisfying click to it when you open and close it.

Performance and call quality

Coming to the most important part of the review, the Nokia Power Earbuds Lite gets the job done without any fuss. HMD has not included support for fast pairing, so you have to manually go into the Bluetooth settings on your phone when you pair the earbuds for the first time. But once that is done, the experience is seamless.

The Nokia earbuds come with a 6mm graphene driver, which is fairly small in comparison to the Realme Buds Air 2 and the OnePlus Buds Z, both of which have a 10mm driver. A driver converts electrical signals into sound. Simply put, it creates the sound that you hear.

The difference is noticeable while listening to music – while the bass and treble are decent, the experience is still inferior when compared to the Realme and OnePlus earbuds.

The call quality was decent, although in noisy environments, there was a fair amount of disturbance on the other side of the call.

Overall, HMD could have done a better job with these earbuds, especially when there is a lot of competition in this price segment.

Battery life

The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite promises up to 35 hours of battery life in total – including the charging case. In my experience, I found that these earbuds easily last around 32 hours, with plenty of calls and music throughout.

The charging case comes with a USB Type-C port, which is the same port that is used by almost all new smartphones these days. However, even if you don’t have a USB Type-C cable, you don’t have to worry as HMD has bundled one in the box.

Verdict

The Nokia Power Earbuds Lite has its task cut out. At this price point, the competition offers more features in more compact form factors.

While HMD has done a good job with the build quality, these Nokia earbuds miss out on some features like active noise cancellation (ANC), noise cancellation for calls, and fast pairing. The driver is small too, which has a noticeable effect on audio quality.

SEE ALSO:

Realme Buds Air 2 review – sleek design, feature-packed experience

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro review – the best wireless earbuds from the South Korean smartphone maker so far

OnePlus Buds review – affordable and high on quality