Sony INZONE Buds Wireless Gaming Earbuds, Perfect for PlayStation® 5, for PC/PS5/Switch/Mobile, 48Hr Battery with Case, Noise Canceling, 360 Spatial Sound, 2.4GHz USB-C Dongle, WF-G700N Black

Great set of wireless earbuds, as long as they'll work for your personal devices. I picked these up along with some Soundcore VR P10's and the JBL Quantum TWS's to have an easy solution for on-the-go gaming and conference calls while I travel. The Inzone Buds sound amazing, using the same top-end driver that are in the Sony MX5's, but at a much lower cost. So yes, they sound incredibly good for bluetooth earbuds. Definitely better than the Soundcore P10's (which is fair since those are like a quarter of the price).Battery life is insane- 12 hours on the dongle, and I think twice that for bluetooth. The Soundcore P10's get something like 4.5-6 hours on the dongle. I found out that the JBL Quantums only get 3 hours on the dongle so I ended up returning them without opening them up since that's just way too short for me.Caveats-First to address using these via dongle (and at least on a Windows laptop)- the dongle actually makes TWO different audio outputs on your machine. There's the "Chat" output that is designed to drop off high and low frequencies to make speech clearer, and this is unaffected by any EQ and makes any music, movies, or games sound very thin and anemic, and overall terrible. It's only meant for things like Discord, Zoom, etc., so you can set an output in those apps that are primarily for voice chat. For some reason this is the default output when you first plug them in on a Windows laptop. You have to go to your audio output and change it from "Inzone Buds - Chat" to the real output, "Inzone Buds - Game". The "Game" output is the full-quality sound that you can tweak with the feature-rich Sony software. This threw me off until I noticed it, and I thought I'd dropped a bunch of money on disappointment. But then after setting it up correctly, these are fantastic for media AND gaming. They're full and clear at all frequencies and have solid directional sound so you can tell where footsteps and shots are coming from in game.Caveat #2 is that these might not work on your devices when using them as regular bluetooth. They use Bluetooth LE Audio, which is a low-power audio codec that isn't supported by every device quite yet. Bluetooth LE has been around for a long time, and is great for things like smartwatches that just need to get notifications pushed without draining the battery quickly. But LE Audio came out a few years ago, and with years of R&D and testing that go into mobile devices, a lot of phones and tablets don't support it yet. My Galaxy S23 Ultra works just fine as well as my Tab S9 ultra, and the past couple generations of Xperia phones have it as well. But if you're an Apple user, even the iPhone 15 doesn't have it yet since Apple is very careful about incorporating new tech. Maybe next year. So that's something to be very aware of before buying- make sure Bluetooth LE Audio is listed in your device's compatible Bluetooth connections, or else it won't even see the earbuds without using the dongle.And the only thing I consider as the real Con - the mic. Sony has never made a set of earbuds with a good mic for some reason, and these are no exception. Absolute garbage mic, people had a hard time understanding me calling from a dead quiet room. I bought a set of Lark M2's as a mobile mic for conference calls while traveling and talking to friends on Discord because of this. No idea why Sony can't get their act together and realize that people use bluetooth earbuds for more than just listening to music and videos.But other than the microphone disappointment, these are definitely worth the price. Top-quality sound, lag-free audio, and the best battery life I've seen on any true wireless earbuds out there. Recommended!

WHY DID I BUY THESE EARBUDS?I'm primarily a PS5 player, looking for an alternative to the [oversized] over-the-ear headsets (Astro A50 to be exact), and I needed decent mic quality that no one complains about in the party chat. After 2+ weeks of testing and tinkering to my liking, in one sentence.. I can say these earbuds have met all my primary needs.Feel free to read on to see what else it does and does not do for me, and my thoughts on how it may compare to the PlayStation branded Pulse Explore earbuds.BLUETOOTH! Major compatibility problem for most. I was well aware of it's limited connectivity when I got it, and I have a Galaxy S23 so it is one of the few phones with BT LE. It works, granted my first attempt at connection did not go well.. I was only hearing from one earbud and mic was not picking up. I was going to write it off and deduct a star from my score but.. My S23 got a system update this week, I retried connecting, and it worked just as well any other earbuds should.PC/PS5/PHONE APPLICATIONS. Nocompanion app for the phone, none on the PS5, but I did my configurations on PC and the app is very easy to use and customize the earbud functions, add or remove functions etc. for example there are 3 noise cancelling/ambient modes to swap between, I reduced it to 2 for simplicity. There are probably more in-depth youtube videos on the app.ACTIVE NOISE CANCELLING. Great.AUDIO & MIC. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but they do sound great. I've been playing Warzone, Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4 and Gran Turismo 7 since I got them, I want to say I'm hearing just as well as I do with the Astro A50 and maybe better since I believe it's employing spatial/3D audio whereas I've stuck with the old 5.1 audio on my headset.Mic quality I've been told is good, it was too loud initially but I turned the sensitivity down on the PS5 to around level 3 and other than the first person I tested it with no one since has said anything like "put the Astros back on your mic is trash" cause they haven't noticed a massive drop off in quality. Win in my books cause these are earbuds.PS5 FUNCTIONALITY. All controls you could do on a PS Pulse headset are here, volume+/-, chat/game balance, and mute. Unfortunately that also means the Mute button on the Dualsense controller will no longer mute the mic, you'll have to initiate it from the buds. It will also display the volume balances, battery life and mic status on screen.So I've customized the taps on the earbuds like this: (L) one tap = mute, two taps = Vol-, 3 = ANC on/off, long hold for game audio balance | (R) one tap = mute, two taps = Vol+, 3 = blank, long hold for chat audio balance. I've gotten used to these settings and making quick adjustments I need feels natural for me. In the PC app you can tailor the potential 4 function buttons each to your liking.COMFORT. You may have heard these are among the most comfortable earbuds you can get. I won't be the person to say otherwise. It comes with 4 sets of tips in addition to the ones placed on them. I felt discomfort in the original tips after about 2 hours with the default tips, I sized it down one and these fit perfectly. I've had it in my ears for as long as 6 hours in one sitting and its almost unnoticeable.BATTERY LIFE. As I just mentioned, I had it on for an entire 6 hour session before, from what I remember they were still above 50%. These will last as long as you should need them to.WHAT DON'T I LIKE? Well the bluetooth compatibility is very very limited, only a few Android phones released this year will connect to it. So it won't connect to my iPhone, it wont connect to a smart TV, smart watches, nothing else that your other earbuds could. But, it may be connecting to your future purchases as BT LE becomes more common.And while on the subject of bluetooth, no simultaneous audio from the transceiver and the BT device. It will automatically swap if you receive a call, or you can manually fully switch over by holding both buds at the same time for a few seconds, but you cannot get audio from both at the same time.You may be able to hear that white noise if nothing else is being played and you're sensitive to that.No wireless charging case.THOUGHTS ON THE PULSE EXPLORE BUDS. The Pulse Explore may be functionally the same as the Inzone Buds, but compatible with almost all your bluetooth devices and I believe it will do simultaneous audio. That is probably where the advantages stop though, I've read there is no ANC, no button customizability, and the volume buttons may not work over bluetooth. For these reasons, I can't see how they can be better than the Inzone Buds, but simultaneous audio and compatibility may be more important to someone else. I ordered a pair for science, I may update this section when it releases next month.*** UPDATE *** I tried the pulse earbuds for a week, didn't like them as much. It's just as I suspected above, but the simultaneous bt audio isn't enough for me to give up the comfort and the customizability of the taps on these Inzone Buds.So these are all my thoughts on the Inzone Buds. Anything I left out may just not have been that important to me personally. $200 is steep, but I think they're worth it overall.