Beats Flex: Better sound than AirPods for less (but that damn wire!)

These are the beats flex and at a fraction of the price they definitely sound better than their predecessor, the beats x as well as the standard air pods. Technically, they're Apple's cheapest wireless headphones because after all beats is owned by Apple Cost only 50 bucks. So a third of what the beat sex costs when it first came out in 2017. In this video I'm gonna show you what's new about them and what's not and let you know if they're worth buying, particularly now that Apple isn't including any earbuds with his iPhone 12 models [MUSIC] Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room. The beats flex are wired wireless headphones with a cable connecting the left and right ear buds. And that's at a time when budget true us earbuds are widely available for $50 or less And some of them are surprisingly good for that price. So for a lot of people, the whole wire thing is a deal breaker. And I personally haven't used a neck band style headphone for a couple of years. So it's a little bit of adjustment for me to go back to it. But there are some people who like the concept. You leave the ear buds hanging down from your neck, like I have them here. And you don't have to worry about dropping an air pod and losing it. You can easily go from listening to the ear buds to not listening to them. You don't have to worry about pulling them in and out of a charging case. While the beats flex looks similar to the beats x there are a couple of notable design changes, For starters, the inline microphone and control module has been removed and incorporated into a module lower on the cord on the left side. As a result, the earphones feel a little bit better balanced and you don't have that impulse to pull the microphone closer to your mouth. Secondly, the buds which are lightweight and comfortable to wear now adhere magnetically and your audio pauses when you clasp them together and unpause when you pull them apart. That's a pretty standard feature on today's neck band sell earbuds, but the beats x didn't have it. Some of the other key upgrades include new acoustic drivers for improved sound Upgraded microphone for improved voice calling and 12 hour battery life that's up from eight hours and get this the flex is also the first Apple headphone to have USBC charging with a 10 minute. Mycharge giving you 1.5 hours of playback. [MUSIC] They come with four different sized ear tips to help you get a tight seal which is crucial for optimizing sound quality. I do wish they included a fin you know, as little sports spins so you could really lock them into your ears. Aside from the fact they don't come with any sort of carrying pouch like the beats x did, just kinda have to roll them up and put them in your pocket or bag. That's my only real complaint. Just think beats has gone with the same ear tips for years and could get a little bit more creative there. And one other thing like the standard air pods These aren't sweat or water resistant. They have no IPX rating. Plenty of people run and work out with the air pods of course without any ill effect. And these you could probably use these for light workouts, but beats would steer you towards its Powerbeats pro if you want true sports ear buds. [MUSIC] The flex has Apple's older w one chip not the h1 chip found in the second generation air pods and AirPods pro and also in the Beats Solo pro The web [UNKNOWN] gives you Apple's easy pairing feature with any of your Apple devices that are synced to iCloud and allows you to switch between Apple devices check the battery status or use audio sharing with a friend using beats or Apple headphones with also a W one chip Android users can download the beats app from the Google Play store to get additional features like quick pairing, battery levels, and firmware upgrades. I like the beats X's sound, but it did have a little trouble push sometimes referred to as presence boost. And that could lead to some listening fatigue. The flex are more balanced earphones and while they don't produce as much bass as the Powerbeats pro or sound as dynamic, they're smoother sounding and they do seem pretty open with a fairly wide soundstage. I also thought they were very good for making calls. The people I talked to said I sounded very clear and the noise reduction outdoors in noisy environments was good. You can answer and end calls with the button on the left module, that's a kind of a universal control button. Where there's also a rocker switch for volume control, while playing music tapping the universal control button twice gifts tracks forward. I don't have to flex quite measures up to the air pods for making calls but it's pretty close. The Flex initially ships in two color options, the yellow I've been showing here, as well as a black color, and then grey, and light blue are coming in early 2021, and if you are interested in it, we do have a link in description for where to buy it. Well, I can't say I'm personally ready to go back to wires, I do think that Flex are very solid neck band cell earbuds that I mostly enjoyed using They'd come out at $100 or even $75. I'd probably told you to take a pass on them. But at $50 they're worth considering especially if you want Apple friendly ear buds and don't want to shell out bigger bucks for the air pods. I'm David Carr for CNET. Thanks for watching and let me know what you think in the comment section.