Amazon Echo Buds Review

As someone who has PTSD music is very important to me as without it I can not even leave the house. I have always had a few sets of headphones to make sure I always have some available. After seeing the Echo Buds on sale (£60 instead of £120) I thought I would treat myself to some and see what the fuss was about. Oh boy I am so glad I did.

Sound Quality

The most important feature of any headphones is well, the sound quality. While these are no Audiophile quality they are very good for what most people will use them for. The base is good, the mid rage and high range also come out very good as well. Overall the listening experience with these buds are very good. Better than my old Powerbeats 3.

Features

Pairing the Echo Buds is as simple as opening the Alexa app on your phone then opening the case. It then asks are you sure, and that’s it. They also support Bluetooth pairing as well.

One very nice feature is if you take one of the buds out of your ears, the music stops until you put it back in your ear. I have grown so used to this over the past few months I wonder how I managed to go without this feature in my old buds.

The killer feature for me though is ANR or Active Noise Reduction. This is from Bose, so you know it will be good, though not as good as full ANC or Active Noise Cancellation. ANR blocks the external noise that your buds pick up, it basically feels like you are walking around with ear plugs in your ears that also happen to play music. For someone who can not be in busy places for long, this helps me stay in those places longer than I would without this feature, as I can block everything going on around me. This is a real-life changing piece of technology for anyone who has similar issues.

The buds, obviously being an Amazon product, also has Alexa built in. While this is not useful in my opinion she does seem to work well with the buds, always picking up her wake work and never activating my mistake.

Both buds also have a touch sensitive side on them, where to can configure them to 2 different actions, with a short touch or long touch. This works well also.

Battery life

Battery life is about 5 hours before they need recharging, and the included charging case can recharge them enough to give you 24 hours of listening time before the case itself needs a recharge. You can extend this if you only use 1 bud at a time, however. One miss opportunity Amazon missed I think is having the case wireless chargeable. You must charge it up via Micro USB cable. Would have preferred a USB C socket instead.

Conclusion

Overall, the buds are comfortable in the ears, have very good sound quality, the ANR is a lifesaver and when on sale they are a steal. They have been replaced by the Echo Buds 2, so if you can get your hands on the original buds, I would strongly recommend you get them before they are gone.