The charging case is also much more pocketable. I’m hopeful these will avoid the occasional only-one-earbud-actually-charged failures of the Powerbeats Pro. There’s also something reassuring about how strongly the Studio Buds are magnetically pulled into their slots. The oval charging case is mercifully way smaller than the giant one that holds the Powerbeats Pro, and the red color of my review unit is quite eye-catching. You can customize the long-press to activate a voice assistant instead, but that’s as far as Beats lets you switch things up. Controls work identically on both sides: press once to play / pause, twice to skip tracks, three to go back, and long-press to toggle between ANC on / transparency / off. The button only requires a light press, so you’re not constantly jamming the buds deeper into your ears. I greatly prefer this approach since you won’t have to deal with accidental presses as often when adjusting the earbuds. It’s tactile and actually presses in instead of relying on capacitive touch sensors. The outward-facing side is contoured around a diagonal pill-shaped “b” button. The Beats Studio Buds are much smaller than the previous Powerbeats Pro.īeats leaned on learnings from its prior earbuds (and those from Apple) as it worked on this design it also went through some prototyping with consumers to land on the final form factor.
