Bang & Olufsen's New Beoplay EX Earbuds Could Be Great

Bang & Olufsen describes its new noise-canceling Beoplay EX earbuds as having a new "shape." And yes, their shape is new for B & O earbuds, but not so new for the rest of us who've seen lots of stems like those on the AirPods and AirPods Pro, just to name a couple. Nevertheless, Bang & Olufsen Beoplay says its "new shape in earphone design" creates space for larger 9.2mm speaker drivers that help deliver "unrivaled sound quality." The Beoplay EX will be available on May 5 for $399 (£349, AU$650) in Anthracite Oxygen (a graphite color with bluish accents on the earpieces), followed by Gold Tone and then Black Anthracite color palettes in late May and June, respectively.

I haven't tried the Beoplay EX yet, but if the performance of the earlier Beoplay EQ buds is any indication, these buds should sound quite impressive (for $399, they'd better, right?). They also should work better for making voice calls, with three microphones in each earbud and "upgraded call quality," according to Bang & Olufsen. No word on if the noise-canceling is improved, but the noise canceling on the Beoplay EQ buds is good. 

Battery life is rated at 6 hours at moderate volume levels with noise canceling on and there's an extra 14 hours of juice in the brushed aluminum charging case. The buds have an IP57 water-resistance rating, which makes them waterproof and dust-resistant. They also feature Bluetooth 5.2 and multipoint Bluetooth pairing so you can connect to two devices at the same time, such as a computer and smartphone.

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I dug into the specs a bit and they do feature wireless charging and support the AAC and AptX Adaptive audio codecs (mostly Android devices support AptX Adaptive). As soon as I get my hands on a review sample, I'll let you know how they compare to the AirPods Pro and other premium buds like Bowers & Wilkins' PI7, which also retail for $399, and Sony's WF-1000XM4 ($279). 

Read more: Best Wireless Earbuds for 2022