REVIEW: Snapdragon Earbuds Bring the Power of Qualcomm to TWS Headphones

If it weren't enough to be the great reference in the world of chipsets, the Qualcomm adds another technology to its list, the TWS headphones (True Wireless Stereo, i.e. wireless). O Snapdragon Earbuds is produced by Master & Dynamic with technology snapdragon sound. What we have in our hands is an extremely powerful TWS headset, and the Qualcomm still signs inside the case with the phrase “How sound should sound”, in Portuguese, “how the sound should be”. Is he really worthy of an impactful sentence like that? Check out the review full of showmetech sobre or Snapdragon Earbuds MW08SI.

design and comfort

In hands, it is an extremely robust product and somewhat heavy. The gray case is made of brushed aluminum, with a beautiful matte appearance. On the right side, we have a USB-C connection port — for charging the TWS headphone case. On the front, the name snapdragon sound stands out beneath three tiny LEDs.

The side lights indicate the amount of battery in each of the earbuds individually and the central light indicates the battery remaining in the case. The LED lights up green if the battery is full, yellow if it's about half full, and red if it's low.

When opening, we can see on the inner side of the case cover the phrase “How sound should sound” (something like “how the sound should sound”), plus, of course, the two headphones. The format is extremely curious and interesting. The outside of them is a small plate with the Snapdragon logo. On the side of the left earphone, we have two tiny buttons at the top, used to adjust the volume, while on the right, we only have the button to give play/pause/answer, among the already conventional commands.

The size of the button is particularly small and a little difficult to press, but after some time using it you can get the hang of it. Furthermore, when you take out one of the headphones, it only takes 1 second for the music to stop, and 2 seconds for her to come back after putting it back in her ear.

The inside of the headphones draws attention as it appears to be a very large headphone, but comfort is one of the strongest points we have here. When I put it to my ear, the sensation I had was that the giant plaque with the Snapdragon it's there to better balance the weight of the headset in the way it sits on the ear.

This resulted in one of the most satisfying experiences with in-ear headphones I've ever had, as it's quite common to have an almost invasive sensation when using this type of headphone because of the way it seals and seems to go far into your ear. This is undoubtedly one of the formats whose construction provides the greatest comfort to the user, to the point that it is easy to spend hours with it and forget to take it off. It holds very firmly in your ears, even when running, doing physical activities or squatting a lot. However, it will fly away if you shake your head too much – it is forbidden to listen to heavy metal with Snapdragon Earbuds.

It even comes with four additional sets of erasers – for a total of five sets counting the one already on the phone – so it'll be easy to find one that's a good fit for you.

Sound and Microphone

Certainly the most important topic we have here, and the sound of Snapdragon Earbuds it's just excellent. It features 24-bit, 96kHz high-resolution audio quality and Qualcomm Aquastic™, which ensures optimal headphone performance, amplifying and protecting the speakers. It's hard not to marvel at the sound experience, as the sounds are very well defined and don't distort in the slightest even at full volume – which, frankly, you'll probably never need to use.

Os serious they are well defined and do not tangle even with the most high-pitched and shrill voices. I have tried different types of music in addition to podcasts and series episodes and the experience is very positive.

And speaking of very positive experience, the microphone is one of the big surprises here. It has 4 microphones spread over the headphones with HDR (for high quality sound) and is excellent for recording audio and answering calls even when on a busy street – wearing a mask, on top of that.

Even good TWS headphone models often have bad microphones, due to the technology Bluetooth, which has difficulty in sending and receiving information at the same time – so it is correct to say that the biggest fault in the bad microphones of this type of headphone is because of Bluetooth – but the ultra-low latency of the connection helps a lot to make the microphones deserve such prominence.

Noise Canceling and Battery

Unfortunately, the noise canceling of the Snapdragon Earbuds it is only possible to activate using the Snapdragon Phone with it, as Qualcomm built it to extract maximum quality using its own platform – there's no separate app that you could download to use.

Despite this issue, the noise cancellation was the missing touch for this product, and it works very well, being pleasant to stay for a long time with the cancellation on. The smartphone has custom settings that you can assign on the headset, such as improving the audio quality and the times when it will be active (games, movies, music, etc).

One aspect that could be better is the battery from Snapdragon Earbuds. It has a battery life of 12 hours or 10 hours with noise cancellation activated. It's not exactly a short time, but it's common to see TWS headphones from competitors with autonomy that sometimes exceeds 20 hours.

Conclusion

O Snapdragon Earbuds it has points that could be better, but considering it's the first audio experience we've had from Qualcomm, the result is impressive. The sound quality is great, the microphone is impressive and the design is extremely comfortable.

It is currently sold exclusively with the kit Snapdragon Phone, which is not for sale in Brazil. Let's hope the positive product feedback encourages Qualcomm to invest more heavily in this niche tech market.

Technical Specifications

Snapdragon Earbuds MW08SI

See also:

If you want to know more about the Snapdragon Phone, read our article about its launch.