Google Pixel Buds Pro Review

These Google earbuds offer a richer, more developed sound than other versions we've tried. Their big, energetic, and accurate soundscape is a blast to listen to, and their extra-long battery life keeps the party rolling. We especially appreciate the healthy ear feature, which lets you know if you're exposing yourself to dangerous volume levels.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

We recruited a panel of audio experts to evaluate the sound quality of these earbuds. We curated an extensive, genre-spanning playlist, listening to country music while commuting, classical while working, and pop, hip hop, and R&B while working out. Here's what we discovered.

These earbuds deliver a delightful listening experience, with a warm, rich signature and a pleasing mix. While the frequency balance is pleasing, it doesn't dazzle like the top earbuds in our testing. Our favorite songs sound accurate and enjoyable but don't truly sparkle. That said, we have no trouble recommending these earbuds to any Android user looking for quality sound.

The bass is warm and punchy with some rumble and thump, ensuring that these earbuds shine in booming genres like hip-hop, modern pop, and alternative. The energetic mix of bass and electronic elements in songs like “This Could Be Us” by Rae Sremmurd are a blast with these buds.

Though the strong bass enhances electronic tracks with their bouncy sound, it is a touch overemphasized in most tracks. The mid and treble tones are full, with reasonable articulation, but they can sound less present in the mix. We prefer a more refined sound in these frequencies.

The treble can hover low in the mix, lacking emphasis. For example, Robert Plant's vocals in “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin sound clear and present, but we're left wanting a bit more definition from the percussive hi-hat.

The details these earbuds reveal can make an old favorite sound like a brand new song. When relistening to Taylor Swift's Midnights, we were delighted by details we'd never heard through lesser earbuds or car speakers. We were also able to catch new details in old favorites like “Work It” by Missy Elliott and “Fallin'” by Alicia Keys. Clear separations between frequency ranges and a balanced mix help such accuracy shine.

On the downside, the accurate translation and emphasis on details can make the transition between new and older music jarring at times. For example, in “Could You Be Loved” by Bob Marley, the drums sound extremely forward and present, competing with slightly muddled vocals. In contrast, “False God” by Taylor Swift sounds punchy, sharp, and clean. The saxophone at 2:21 doesn't descend into muddy tones even as the song layers.

We do have to turn the volume up on these earbuds. At higher levels, they are extra punchy, providing plenty of power for those of us who like it loud. The solid sound quality is reliable across all volume levels, but we would like a wider dynamic range within each volume setting.

Soundstage

At live concerts, the sound is emitted from speakers positioned in front of you, with some sound reflecting off nearby surfaces. In a quality movie theater, surround sound brings you into the action. Similarly, an earbud's soundstage dictates where the music seems to be originating in the space around you.

Earbuds tend to deliver a more confined listening experience due to their small size and in-ear design. Achieving an expansive sound is a rare feat among earbuds. Google's Pixel Buds Pro earbuds buck the trend, creating a sense of space and placing instruments precisely within it.

The Buds Pro have a richer, more resonant sound than the previous version, thanks in part to the larger and more expansive soundstage. From 1:40 to 1:55 of Hozier's “Too Sweet”, the percussion, electric guitar, layered vocals, and haunting harmonica swirl around you, yet you can place the harmonica clearly in the right earbud while the electric guitar accents come in from the left.

The driving bass line and Hozier's honey-thick, smooth baritone are the central forces of this song. These earbuds are able to maintain clarity amid the textural complexity. The sound is clean and crisp despite the rapid-fire action.

Google advertises this surround sound effect as “spatial audio,” claiming that it's an ideal feature for watching TV shows and movies. While we don't tend to use earbuds for those, it seems promising based on our experience.

After listening to our playlists for weeks, we turned to our Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator and SoundCheck program to double-check our results. We charted the frequency response curve for the Pixel Buds Pro, and compared it to our GearLab House Curve.

As you can see in the chart above, the curves are similar. The middle frequencies are slightly more emphasized in the Pixel Buds Pro, yet they sounded a little low in the mix around 560 Herz. Although there were slight inconsistencies, they still sounded great. The treble range is a little lower in general, with a big dip in the higher reaches. That supports our experience. Our expert listeners also felt that the Google Pixel Buds Pro have a “fuller sound” than the Google Pixel Buds A-Series.

User Experience

If you're in the Google ecosystem, the Pixel Buds Pro are pleasant to use, ranking well in this metric. Their biggest downside is that their app doesn't work with Apple products. We recruited over 12 testers to try them on to try out their comfort and fit. We also wore them for a range of activities and tried out every feature they have to offer. Here's what we found out.

Comfort

Despite their bulky appearance, these earbuds offer a deceptively light and airy fit. They come with three silicone ear tip sizes that mold to your ear's shape, offering a fit so comfortable that they're barely noticeable during extended use. We had no trouble wearing these earbuds for an hour at a time without needing a break. There are a few options that are more comfortable, but not by much.

Stability

The cozy fit also provides quite a bit of stability. We wore these earbuds around town, at the office, and during our commute and rarely worried about losing one. They passed our headstand test, but the left earbud blew out when we started headbanging. As long as you can control your compulsion to rock out, you should be fine. They're rated IPX4, which means that they can withstand splashes of water from any direction. They worked well for us through a few sweaty workouts.

Customization

These earbuds are very easy to pair, use, and adjust if you have an Android phone and are integrated into the Google ecosystem. They do work with Apple devices via Bluetooth, but you can't access the app's features using them.

With an Android device, you can shift the frequency response curve using the 5-band manual equalization (EQ), an ear fit test, and a low latency mode that reduces the lag time between your screen and your ears when you're gaming. We really appreciate that there is a “Hearing Wellness” feature to track how often you're exposing yourself to potentially dangerous noise levels and for how long.

You can control basic functions with the buds themselves. A tap will start or stop music or calls. An extended hold switches to noise cancelling mode, and swiping adjusts the volume levels. You can also get help hands-free from Google Chat, which can complete tasks like sending texts or giving you live language translations.

Multipoint connectivity lets you switch between multiple devices. A conversation detection function stops your music and shifts to transparency mode whenever you speak so you can hear a response.

Connectivity

Our experience with the Google Pixel Buds Pro was notably absent of any connection problems, which we appreciate. In addition to spending time with these buds and noting down any issues we encountered, we also collected data to supplement our findings by conducting a survey of 1-star Amazon user reviews and determining the ratio of reviews with negative feedback on connectivity relative to the total number of reviews. These earbuds had a reported issue rate of 0.56%, which is relatively low for the group. That figure, combined with our personal usage experience, gives us a fair amount of confidence in the reliability of the Pixel Buds Pro.

Noise Cancellation

While not quite breaking into the top tier of active noise cancelling (ANC) earbuds in the test, the Pixel Buds Pro are the best of the rest. They help us ignore distractions in the office and allow us to focus on the music, but they don't create the zone of concentration that the top options in the test provide.

Noise cancellation in these earbuds is achieved through two methods: passive noise isolation, which physically blocks sound by fitting snugly in your ears, and active noise cancellation, which counters sound waves. Passive isolation is more effective against high-frequency sounds, while ANC better silences low, consistent noises like engine hums.

We used our sound measuring equipment to test both aspects. You can hear the result in the video above. The passive noise isolation blocks between 20 and 40 decibels of sound in the higher frequency ranges, 10 or more among mid-levels, and up to 10 decibels in bass frequencies, as shown in the chart below. The result is impressive, lowering our blood pressure immediately.

You can also see the results of the ANC test in the chart above. It blocks between 15 and 25 decibels in the low and mid-tones. Above that, the passive isolation is doing more of the work. If you like the noise-dampening feature but worry that you might need to be more aware of your surroundings in a busy environment, you can switch to transparency mode, which pipes ambient sounds past the physical barrier of the earbuds and into your ear.

Battery Life

One of our favorite features of the Pixel Buds Pro is how long their batteries last. They played music at 75% of their max volume for 11 hours and 15 minutes straight. That's one of the better results in the test and is 15 minutes longer than the 11 hours that Google advertises.

What we don't love as much is that the case only holds two more full charges. Many of the competing earbuds hold three, four, or even five. Still, that's 33 hours and 45 minutes of listening time, which is good enough for most uses. If you need a quick turnaround, five minutes on the charger will buy you an extra hour of listening time.

Call Quality

In quiet, calm environments, making a phone call with these earbuds works well. It translates your voice clearly, making it easy to carry on a conversation. As background noise levels rise, even to modest levels, these earbuds struggle to isolate your voice from the surrounding frequencies.

We tested call quality with subway noise playing in the background, and the voices dropped out almost completely. These earbuds were among the poorest performers in this test.

To test this feature, we made two recordings, one with a male voice and one with a female, and played them through the speaker in our high-tech sound recording head simulator (the Bruel and Kjaer 5128-B). We repeated this test three times — in a silent room, with office sounds playing in the background, and with an obnoxious recording from a subway platform.

With even a light recording of chatter and typing, both the man's and woman's voices begin to cut out, making them much harder to understand.

In the quiet room, it's easy to hear the speakers' voices clearly.

Should You Buy the Google Pixel Buds Pro?

If you use Android devices and are plugged into Google, these earbuds are our top recommendation. Their seamless integration, uber-comfortable fit, wildly long battery life, and standout audio quality make the argument for us. But they aren't perfect. Their active noise cancellation isn't top-tier, and they struggle to isolate your voice for clear phone calls. If you need to prioritize those offerings, you should probably look elsewhere.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

If you're an Apple user, the Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds are a compelling option. Their overall score, sound quality, price, and battery life are similar to the Pixel Buds Pro. The Jabra Elite 10 sounds better but doesn't have the same epic battery life. Both the Google and Jabra earbuds are wildly comfortable. Our test team is a 50/50 split for which we prefer fit-wise, but we all agree they both feel great in your ear. The Jabra options offer an excellent app that's a bit more user-friendly than the Google version, and it works with Apple or Android devices.