OnePlus Nord Buds 2 Review: Does the active noise cancellation upgrade make them the best budget TWS buds?

• OnePlus Nord Buds 2 are budget TWS options from OnePlus
• The earbuds follow a revised design but have the similar 12.4mm drivers
• The buds sport Hello Melody app support for various equaliser settings

OnePlus launched the Nord CE 3 Lite smartphone and the Nord Buds 2. Our review for the CE 3 Lite is now live, which you can read here. But we’re here for the latest TWS buds from the brand. I was more interested in reviewing the buds as Nord Buds have been my recommendation to everyone in this price range since last year. So, I was looking forward to seeing what they had on offer this time, especially with the Active Noise Cancellation upgrade. So, will the Nord Buds remain my number one budget TWS recommendation, and are they a worthy upgrade? Find out in my review.

Price and availability
OnePlus Nord Buds 2 are priced at ₹2999. You can buy the TWS buds from Amazon India and OnePlus’ D2C website.

Design & Build

The previous Nord buds followed a very traditional design language for both the case and the buds. This was a healthy balance between size, portability, and practicality. No wonder, OnePlus has not tinkered a lot with it this time. The case is still portable enough not to eat a lot of space but big enough to store the claimed 30+ hours of battery backup.

When I unboxed the buds, I couldn’t make the difference until I held the case. The case is curvier throughout and does not follow a traditionally boxy design. This is neater than what we had last time.

Other elements of the case remain intact. We have an upfront LED denoting the battery life and a USB Type-C charging port right next to the pairing button.

The variant with me is in the thunder gray color, which is more metallic black. It looks basic, although OnePlus has tried to use an aesthetic texture on the case. Looking like a brush sprinkle; it’s pretty basic and doesn’t stand out. I like the white variant more this time since it has a dual-tone color. A silver lid and a white case.

Opening up the case, you are introduced to the buds identical to the original Nord Buds. I kept the original buds next to Buds 2, and it was cemented. We don't have any design changes here. Yes, the earpiece is now a bit wider since additions have been made for ANC hardware. But that’s where the bucks stop. I don’t have any complaints about it since it retains everything I liked about the original buds.

Starting with how easy it is to interact with the buds thanks to the cut-out for gestures we have here. The silver cut-out on the buds is where you can place your finger and command the buds. I will talk about the gestures and performance in the next section.

The fit and finish of the buds are satisfactory. Following the stick design, which I prefer over the dots. In my experience, sticks can better maintain balance once you place them in your ears.

The buds come with an IP55 water-resistant rating, which I tested at my gym. This time on the tips, the silicone felt better in terms of quality since the buds were not slipping away during my workouts.

Performance

Pairing & connectivityLike last time, we have two ways to connect the buds with our devices. There is a regular way of powering up the buds and looking them up in your Bluetooth menu. Once identified, the buds are ready to rock in a single tap. This is a 3-step process.

Then there is another way if you are a OnePlus user. Opening up the lids gives a pop-up on your device, which you can simply tap on, and you are set. However, this is a bit wobbly, especially once you have paired the buds with another device.

I experienced it when I tried to pair the buds with the Nord CE 3 Lite after I had already paired them with my iPhone 12. After trying several times, I went into the Bluetooth menu and paired them up.

Another annoying factor in this process is how the buds don’t have voice prompts denoting the connection status. When we hear a voice speaking - pairing or paired, all we get are sounds, which tend to be confusing. I hope OnePlus does something about this in the next iteration.

Once connected, the buds maintain solid connectivity thanks to Bluetooth 5.3. This, of course, is the latest iteration of Bluetooth technology, enhancing the product's longevity.

Fortunately, you have both individual bud pairing and multi-device pairing on the buds, which is a convenient add-on.

Gestures

As I mentioned in the design section, reaching out to the buds to interact with them is convenient. So I won’t focus on that aspect here. Let me straight up get to the responsiveness and gestures on offer.

Like last time, a single tap plays or pauses your media, and the double tap is used to answer phone calls. At the same time, a triple tap will switch forward or backward in your playlist or wake the voice assistant.

These gestures are working perfectly fine, and the buds rarely miss out. This was when I had wet hands, too, so that’s good news.

Then there are some additional gestures this time like a long press on the right bud to active ANC. On doing so, the buds chime into your ears, denoting the activation. So far, the buds have been responsive.

OnePlus has also made the buds compatible with the hey melody app. Using this, you can customize the gestures on the buds. This is very finicky and needs to be worked on, considering it needs to be supported on iPhone.On Android, it took a single attempt, and we were set.

Hey, Melody app elevates the performance of the buds prominently, which I talk about in the performance section.

Like last time, OnePlus has not provided gestures for volume controls here. The Nord Buds 2 have the perfect placement for gesture hardware to pull this off. I hope they take this recommendation seriously.

Audio performance
On paper, the buds feature the same 12.4mm drivers we had last time, but OnePlus has added ANC this time. This is combined with the options for equalizer settings and presets for audio outputs. I have talked about each preset in detail below.

I want to start with my favorite - Bass.
This is preset, which rattled me. I love hip-hop and pop music, and my latest muse is Madonna. Yes, I was late to join the party, but that’s not the point. Playing 4 minutes, the duet with Justin Timberlake, I played the music with the Bass preset. The performance was top-notch. Of Course, the bass is channeled and isn’t a surround sound experience. Yet, given the price of the buds, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bold
The preset is featured on the app, and I am unsure if I agree with the name. The music output here is best suited for audio-video content. I like watching shows, especially the ones that support Dolby Atmos. I feel the better-suited name for this could have been movies.

Balanced
Perhaps a preset that doesn’t require many changes on a user's end. I found this to be perfect, especially with ANC turned on. The audio output is perfectly in sync with the ambient noise being canceled. You can enjoy the details in the music, although the bass is mild.

Serenade
Serenade lowers the volume output substantially, and I found it most useful for listening to podcasts. Considering the bass wave is fairly low on this music, it is not a strong content format for this one.You can also make custom presets if you wish to. I liked to stick to the ones provided.

Now talking about the ANC performance here, the buds have outperformed my expectations. My device is the LG ToneFree. A device that has the best ANC on offer when it comes to the TWS form factor. Of course, ToneFree buds are ten times the price of Nord Buds 2, but I have a point of reference to judge.

The ANC on Nord Buds 2 doesn’t create a vacuum in your ears as almost all buds do. And yet the microphones successfully cancel out 80% of the noise around, especially in a pre-existing room. For example, I am writing this review sitting in a closed room with my ceiling fan turned on. The only sound besides that is the keys I am pressing on the laptop.

I can’t hear the fan, and even in close proximity, I can’t hear the keys clicking.
But when I step out, the ANC takes a hit, where the noise is reduced to 60% success. Sitting in my office on an open floor, I couldn’t avoid the ambient sound then. In both situations, you can’t hear people talking to you directly. That is only possible with transparency mode. So, I suggest using that in a public setting and not using ANC if you walk outdoors. It’s a matter of safety.

Calling
This is where the Nord Buds 2 are solid. I have taken all my phone calls in the last 2 days with the Nord Buds 2, with zero lags. This, however, goes down if I talk on applications like Google meets, where you might have a latency issue.

Battery
OnePlus claims the buds offer 36 hours of battery life in the case with ANC off, where the buds have a backup of 7 hours.With ANC turned on, the battery backup reduces to 25 hours on the case and 5 hours on the buds.
The real-time number sits somewhere in the middle. I can’t decipher battery life individually for buds and the case. But, I will share my observations based on the battery backup delivered by the entire package.
With ANC turned on, I got a backup of upto 25 hours, while the battery life increased to 27 hours with ANC turned off. Given the real-time difference is just 2 hours, I would suggest keeping the ANC turned on.
One thing observed was how the individual battery life of the buds would differ by 10% on average. As visible on the Hello Melody app, the right bud generally was 10% lower on battery when compared to the left bud. This is a bug to my knowledge, since the buds generally ran out of battery almost simultaneously.

Verdict
OnePlus Nord Buds 2 has cemented itself again for providing value at an aggressive price point. Keeping the boring design aside, the audio performance is top-notch combined with the ANC. If you are looking for a pair of budget TWS Buds and want precise noise cancellation, then you should pay attention here.

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