Amazfit Powerbuds review
Huami wanted to get out of the shell of a manufacturer of wearables only by expanding its ecosystem dedicated to sportsmen, presenting not only professional clothing, but also a treadmill and a pair of true wireless headphones that wink at the sport as they are equipped with a player heart rate. Let's find out together in this full review.
It starts as usual from the sales package which is very accurate and robust, ensuring the following equipment inside:
- Amazfit PowerBuds;
- USB Type-C charging cable;
- Charging case;
- Sports bows;
- Silicone rubbers of different sizes (XS, S, M, L);
- Multilingual instruction manual including Italian.
Already starting from the charging case, we realize that we are dealing with a product that is decidedly at the top in quality, as it is covered with a practical soft rubber which facilitates the sensation of robustness, while avoiding annoying edges that could annoy a once we put it in a pants pocket.
And the comfort is guaranteed despite the Powerbuds being heavier than the competitors' proposals, in fact we are talking about a weight of about 70 grams relative to the case with headphones housed while for the earphones the weight is close to poco the 6 grams. The case offers us on the back a USB Type-C charging port and a small LED on the front, which is colored with white light to signal the recharge and residual charge status of the socket itself, or with red light if we need a full of energy. Once the lid is opened, which basically closes by means of a magnet, inside the compass we find in addition to the earphones, a small button that will only serve the first time we will pair the headphones to our smartphone by means of the Amazfit companion app, under the lid the arches have been inserted to be hooked to the Powerbuds by means of a magnet, allowing to make the grip to our ear even more firm during use in sports.
And although the appearance may be delicate, the bows and their magnet are really powerful and not even shaking the earphones with force will they fall out of the hook. Even without the aid of the bows, however, the socket is firm because once the earphones are inserted, they must be slightly rotated inwards to better adhere the sensors and drivers by means of the silicone plugs. Of these, however, in packs there are other 3 pairs, of different sizes in order to better adapt to each user.
The Amazfit Powerbuds earphones are in-ear type, which extend with a small protrusion that integrates, only on the right earphone, the heart rate monitor, while on both headphones we also find the proximity sensor that will allow us to play / pause the music track simply by removing or inserting the earphone into our ear canal.
We also find the magnetic pogo-pins for charging and two microphones that in addition to allowing the use of the Powerbuds in call, are used both for the reduction of ENC noise, filtering the environmental noise for clear and crisp calls, and for the mode Thru mode (corresponding to the Transparency mode of the Airpods Pro), where external sounds are amplified so as to always remain vigilant about what happens around us, useful for training on the street. The external surface of the earphones is touch sensitive and allows you to send the necessary inputs to interact with music playback, telephone calls and voice assistant, via double or triple touch.
But only two functions can be associated at the same time with the right and / or left earphones, which can be used independently of each other, but remembering that for heart rate monitoring you will necessarily have to resort to the right earphone only. Instead, there are no gestures to control the volume. Who knows that a future update will not implement this feature, considering that the company has released during my use an update that has fixed some micro bugs.
Speaking of autonomy, this really convinces, as by means of an integrated battery in the 450 mAh case, which allows up to 3 recharges of the earphones, which in turn integrate a 55 mAh battery, we can go up to about 8 hours of music listening with a volume level of about 65/70% while if you use at maximum volume the autonomy drops to 6 hours and 30 minutes. We point out that there is no wireless charging, not essential but someone I know who is looking for this feature even on gadgets of the kind.
We also find an IP55 resistance certification against dirt, rain and sweat, but only for headphones and not for the charging base. Before talking to you about the main function, i.e. monitoring of heart activity, I want to spend a few words on the sound performance of these Amazfit Powerbuds, which have proved extraordinary.
The sound offered is rich in nuances while the bass is really warm and full-bodied. Indeed these can be emphasized through the Rhythm Mode, which during the training phase will accentuate the bass to give us the right charge. In any case, the companion app allows you to equalize the sound based on presets or in a manual way, but I must say that even without making any basic changes I was able to enjoy a truly immersive and immersive sound and although the active noise reduction function, but the in-ear nature and the high volume offered by the earphones mean that you don't miss it.
The integrated microphones that isolate the voice a lot from the rest of the ambient noise are also very good, allowing our interlocutor to hear us clearly, crystalline and constant. However, I invite you to view the video review to better understand what I am telling you. The only thing to report about the application, a small bug, is that the double and triple touch voices are reversed, therefore to set a function dedicated to double tap you will have to select it with the triple touch voice and vice versa.
That said, the Amazfit Powerbuds offer that extra plus dedicated to sportsmen, as the heart rate reader allows monitoring of the heart rate during training, although this is limited to only 3 sports, such as walking, running and cycling. It would have been better to also implement indoor sports such as a treadmill and / or elliptical, perhaps for less daring sportsmen who do not dare to challenge the climate in winter. During the training phase, you receive some ad hoc notifications (in English) for example if a certain threshold of beats is exceeded, or if the activity pauses, etc.
However, the data collected by the sensor turned out to be quite realistic, at least in the long term, less on the instant. In fact, if we remove the earphone, the sensor will continue to monitor the beat for a few seconds, a symptom that there is no direct correlation between what is shown by the app and the actual data at the moment. Of course, to access the data of the heart we should start the Amazfit application, through which we could also act on the parameters of the touch commands as well as enable the Rhythm mode etc .. The pairing takes place by means of Bluetooth 5.0 BLE which guarantees a delay equal to zero, thus eliminating any sort of delay between the audio and video sync. For gaming, however, a small delay is present, but this is typical of all TWS headphones, so we recommend using wired headphones.
PROJECTED IMPACT
Amazfit Powerbuds are undoubtedly a product worthy of note so it is worth investing the 89,99 euros required on the official website of the brand, available in 3 colors, black with red, white or white shades with green shades. A not so high figure in comparison with other competing products that offer less quality in terms of sound and on call. They offer super autonomy, excellent audio quality and also allow you to monitor your heart rate during sports, a function practically unique in the TWS panorama. I have no problem declaring that they are the definitive earphones.
Hi Emanuele, is there a way to use the microphone to record audio on WhatsApp?