Since the launch of AirPods Pro in 2019, the field of real wireless earphones has started a popularity whirlwind of active noise reduction. Since last year, mobile phone manufacturers have launched their own real wireless noise reduction earphones, but more of them are concentrated in the price range of 500 to 1000 yuan, For users with insufficient budget, products with a price of 500 yuan or even less than 300 yuan may be a more appropriate threshold for entry.
Redmi, which takes the ultimate cost performance ratio as its brand attribute, naturally aims at this market. The Redmi AirDots 3 Pro to be discussed in this article is just such a targeted product: it supports 35dB active noise reduction, minimum 69ms delay, Bluetooth 5.2, dual device connection and other features, and its initial price is 299 yuan.
appearance
In terms of appearance, the AirDots 3 Pro in our hand matches the color of ice crystal grey. The charging box is nearly elliptical, and the opening and closing of the lid feel good; The surface is made of matte skin like material, which feels very smooth (like a bar of soap when held in the hand). The overall texture is much better than the white bright plastic used in the past at this price.
Different from several recent new products with handle structure, the AirDots 3 Pro body adopts bean design, and the touch panel at the end is said to use nano optical texture film combined with acrylic material.
As an earphone, in addition to the default pair of earplugs on the earphone, the package also provides three pairs of earplugs of different sizes for users to choose.
Functional experience
Let's make a statement that Redmi AirDots 3 Pro is the first time that the author uses Xiaomi's true wireless headset. This time, it is used with the Redmi Note 10 Pro released with the headset.
(The home page of Xiaoai's APP can't be found. You need to click on the top right personal page to find the headset control panel)
At the beginning, I have to complain about the software functions. The control center of all functions of the headset is only integrated into the Bluetooth settings of Xiaoai's APP rather than MIUI system. It is not easy to find compared with other competing products, which is not very friendly to new users.
Of course, the advantage is that you only need to update the APP instead of the system firmware to adapt the new headset, and other brands of mobile phones can also use it. When you find the control center, you will find that there are many functions, including noise reduction mode selection, gesture operation setting, fit detection, sound effect setting, and laboratory functions such as dual device connection.
Fit detection has become the standard configuration of most new products. When opened, a piece of music will be played to detect the fit of the left and right ears. This function is very practical, avoiding the trouble of OCD users who adjust their wearing posture back and forth without verification.
Dual device connection is a function recently introduced by some real wireless headsets. Xiaomi's flagship FlipBuds Pro is the first product to launch this function, and Redmi AirDots 3 Pro also supports this function. The actual measurement shows that after pairing, the headset can be connected to two devices seamlessly (one mobile phone and one Windows laptop are used in the test). When switching to one device to play, the content being played by the other device will be automatically paused. This function is quite practical for users who like to use Bluetooth headsets heavily at work.
In terms of gesture operation, by default, double clicking on both left and right ears controls play/pause, three clicks cut off a song, and long press to switch between noise reduction or transparency modes, which can be adjusted separately in settings. Due to the large area of the AirDots 3 Pro touch panel, the success rate of triggering gesture operation is higher than that of some handle type true wireless earphones.
noise reduction
In terms of noise reduction, the Redmi AirDots 3 Pro has a nominal maximum noise reduction depth of 35dB, which belongs to the mainstream level of this year's real wireless noise reduction earphones. Of course, these values can only be used as a reference. The specific performance can only be judged by the experience in the real scene.
The control center provides "mild", "balanced", "depth" and adaptive gears. The first three correspond to 15, 25 and 35dB noise reduction depths respectively. Adaptive gears are said to be adjusted according to environmental noise changes. Generally, it is recommended to use the default "depth" gear directly.
In common subway commuting scenes, AirDots 3 Pro can weaken some low-frequency background noise when only noise reduction is turned on without playing music, but for example, the large noise generated by high-speed train operation cannot be well covered up. Playing music helps to cover up some of the noise again, and the listening experience under noise reduction is obviously more comfortable than that of non noise reduction earphones, It's just that the overall noise reduction level is still far from the competitive products with higher prices, and it's not so immersive.
AirDots 3 Pro is also equipped with the transparent mode as standard, and provides the option of voice transparent. In terms of actual experience, it is more transparent and easy to use to open this option directly.
Auditory sense
The Redmi AirDots 3 Pro has a built-in 9mm composite diaphragm dynamic coil unit, which supports SBC and AAC coding, and provides four sound effect modes in the settings: equalization, bass enhancement, treble enhancement, and vocal enhancement.
In the default balanced mode, like most Bluetooth earphones at this price, the tuning tends to be medium low frequency. The low frequency has a certain downward trend, which belongs to the point to point type. Personally, the vocal and string performances are OK, and some songs that focus on high frequency can be heard to have a certain degree of burr. On the whole, as a Bluetooth headset with less than 300 yuan, its listening performance slightly exceeded expectations.
Delay/endurance
This time, Redmi AirDots 3 Pro also claimed that the game time delay can be as low as 69ms, but the firmware does not support it at present, so it needs to wait for the subsequent OTA.
(Phone speaker delay, headset AAC encoding delay, SBC encoding delay)
By default, the Latency Test is used. The delay of the phone speaker is 43ms, the delay measured under the AAC code of the connected headset is 318ms, and the delay measured under the SBC code is 267ms. The delay performance is not too prominent in the measured real wireless headset, which is normal.
In terms of endurance, the official nominal duration of the earphone body and the comprehensive endurance are 6 hours and 28 hours respectively when the noise reduction is turned off. Of course, this data is of little reference significance. After all, the noise reduction earphones must operate in the noise reduction mode most of the time. In addition to the conventional wired charging, the charging box of the AirDots 3 Pro also supports wireless charging, as most of the current competitors do.
summary
Different from our own FlipBuds Pro, vivo TWS 2 and OPPO FreeBuds 2, Redmi AirDots 3 Pro is positioned as an entry-level true wireless noise reduction headset, which determines that this headset will not give you the best noise reduction and sound quality performance.
But then again, the AirDots 3 Pro has indeed achieved above the qualification level in terms of basic noise reduction and sense of hearing, and has even surpassed the grade in terms of texture and functionality. Compared with some low-cost real wireless noise reduction products last year, it has made significant progress. In the past, when evaluating some cost-effective products, people often said what kind of bike is needed at this price, but this time AirDots 3 Pro might even give the bike.
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