Help with earbuds selection.

[Vasoli]

Can anyone can suggest good pair of buds. I know what I am searching for, but I cannot find something I like.

 

My main use case for them is listening audiobooks while I am waking/being in public transport or even at home. So most important feature for me first is batery life and second how convinient controls for earbuds are. Third feature which I find important is shape of earbuds. I can say that I hate shape of Earpods USB c (they are wired, but they are just good example of shape I hate). And I like the shape for example from earbuds I have now which is Huawei Freebuds 4i.

Actually I like Freebuds 4i completly, but I cannot buy them again (not sell in my location anymore) and I manage to put them in washing machine (suprisingly they still work, but case is now draining battery from them and not charging them).

So what I like about them, first 10h in ear buttery life (it is 2 extra hours in case that I do not care much, I need battery life in earbuds not in case). I like their controls. They are not too sensitive and I can customize them to my liking (this is exatly that most other earbuds I tried failed). I can set 2 taps of one ear to start/stop a book, and I can set 2 taps on other ear to go back 30s. And I can turn all other things off. And, as I said, I like their shape. One more thing I like, as soon as I connect with different device (like between phone and PC), connection with previous device is broken and I do not need to turn off BT on other device). Their drawback, although for my main use case not so significant, they sound is just ok, ANC is nah, and their mic is terrible (having good mic would be a good thing so I can used them for work).

I can explain what other buds I had and why I did not like them (to better explain what I am searching and not searching for).

First I had some Marchall one, I do not remmember the model. I hated the commands on them. They were way to sensitive. As soon as I touch them, they would register the command (start/stop or go next/prev song or even end the call). I gifted them few days later to a friend.

After them I tried Huawei Freebuds Pro 2. They had a good commands, they had a good sound, but they had terrible battery life. They had officially 5.5 hours battery life, but in the practice that was like 3h. That day I tried to watch LotR with them and I could not finish the movie with one charge. I returned them next they and replaced them with Freebuds 4i (2 pairs). I still have one pair and other pair I gifted. But I cannot get a new pair.

So since I washed my earbuds I tried to buy 2 different pairs of earbuds. JBL 230NC and Redmi buds Pro 4. I did not like JBL because they cannot customize controlls, go back/next (needs to be on 2/3 taps) and start stop needs to be on 1 tap. Also they were dropping from PC for some reason and I needed to connect them over and over again. Redmi was kinda ok, but it was little worse then Freebuds 4i. Also I asked my roomate if she wants any those 2 pairs I bought and she selected those one. So although they are ok-ish, I would like litle bit better.

I saw Freebuds 5i, but they have just 7h of battery life.

So what suggestions do you have and what are your expirences?

[Cocococo]

The first (and tbh last) question with BT earbuds is what phone you use? Airpods Pro 2 and Galaxy buds 2 Pro are the best sounding TWS earbuds out there. If you're on an iPhone then Airpods Pro 2 nice and easy, if you're on android then Galaxy buds 2 pro (or get the regular Galaxy buds 2, they make the rest of the TWS market look mediocre in comparison) the big thing is avoid sony, idk what's wrong with their audio division but the sound gets worse with every new WF generation buds (plus the reliability problems people have been having) Those Huawei buds just look like knock off Airpods Pro, so maybe try to find a gen 1 if possible? There's nothing wrong with using apple TWS on android, but you miss out on a bunch of the fancy features and not many android phones have up to date AAC (apples main Bluetooth signal)  

[Vasoli]

@Cocococo thank you for commenting, but this is not quite solving problem form me. I checked both suggestion. Airpods Pro 2 have very small buttery life (6h) and they are out of question.

For Samsung Galaxy buds 2. They batery life is ok-ish (8h) (8h is bare minimum for me), but I do not like their shape much. I might try them, but at the moment I am not much in favor of them. Their shape looks inpractical.

Quality of sound is not big concern for me, as long as their bass is not too loud and their mids are fine. Quality of sound is just nice to have. My main concern is batery life (in ear, I do not care for in case battery life) and controls.

Did you  have experience with Galaxy buds 2 controlls? How much sensitve they are? How much castamizible they are? How easy it is for them to switch between 2 devices?

[Cocococo]

3 minutes ago, Vasoli said:

@Cocococo thank you for commenting, but this is not quite solving problem form me. I checked both suggestion. Airpods Pro 2 have very small buttery life (6h) and they are out of question.

For Samsung Galaxy buds 2. They batery life is ok-ish (8h) (8h is bare minimum for me), but I do not like their shape much. I might try them, but at the moment I am not much in favor of them. Their shape looks inpractical.

Quality of sound is not big concern for me, as long as their bass is not too loud and their mids are fine. Quality of sound is just nice to have. My main concern is batery life (in ear, I do not care for in case battery life) and controls.

Did you  have experience with Galaxy buds 2 controlls? How much sensitve they are? How much castamizible they are? How easy it is for them to switch between 2 devices?

They're not very sensitive, pretty customisable and i just keep mine off. As for switching between devices they do a good enough job, but honestly i'd try and find some huawei buds in the shape you want

[Vasoli]

2 hours ago, Cocococo said:

They're not very sensitive, pretty customisable and i just keep mine off. As for switching between devices they do a good enough job, but honestly i'd try and find some huawei buds in the shape you want

I have huawei already (4i) and I like them. Problem is they are not sold (where I live) anymore, so I need to buy some differen one. 5i battery is just 7h, so they are out of the picture.

There are other buds with similar shape (shape I am looking for is that they have longer handle and to have that exchangable rabber cap (Airpods Pro 2 that you suggested looks ok-ish). Color or shape of handle is not that important, as long it is litle bit longer.

About galaxy ones, what posible controls do day have (1, 2, 3 taps or long pressses)? Can you select for each of them separate action? What actions are avaiable in selection menu? Are those controls anoying when you keep them off? For anyone else that have these and if you use controls, what is your expeirence?