Review by jack : OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z

 

Bullets Wireless Z are fairly standard-looking neckband style wireless earphones. In fact, they look almost identical to the Bullets Wireless 2 with an all-black body, smooth matte finish and glossy earbuds. However, unlike the metal casing for the buds on its predecessors, you get a plastic shell here. The OnePlus branding is subtle and easy to miss. The only hint of colour here is on the inline control module that has red ‘+’ and ‘-‘ symbols on the buttons, and you get a bit more red behind the translucent silicone eartips. The rubberised neckband feels skin-friendly.

 It has volume control keys and a multifunctional button that can be used to play/pause tracks, answer/end calls, jump to the next track (double click) and go to the previous track (triple click). A Type-C USB port is placed on the left battery module along with a pairing/quick switch button that lets you pair these earphones with the source Bluetooth device, or switch between two devices it is paired with — quite a handy feature, that. The earbuds have magnetic tips at the back that act as a power On/Off switch for this device (Off when stuck together, and On when separated), something common to all OnePlus Bullets Wireless earphones. Just make sure they do not accidentally separate when you don’t wish to use them, else the battery will drain unnecessarily.

Unlike the multi-driver setup on the Bullets Wireless 2, you get a single 9.2 mm dynamic driver in each of the buds. That’s one way to keep the selling price down to a third. The Bullets Wireless Z aren’t compliant with Qualcomm’s AptX or AptX HD codecs either. You have to make do with AAC at best. Another thing missing here is the red OnePlus carry pouch (or any pouch to carry them in), such as the one that is bundled with its predecessors. But frankly, I was never too fond of it, and its absence wasn’t felt.

The OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z are quite light and weigh just 28 grams; you barely feel their presence around your neck. The in-ear monitors fit nicely into the ear without any discomfort with medium sized tips (in my case), and they do not pop out even during jogs. But the passive noise isolation wasn’t all that great with either of the three pairs of bundled eartips. A lot of ambient noise can be heard even in a not-so-noisy surrounding. The seal should have been better than this.

I already gave away a part of what you can expect from the performance of this device in the intro. To quickly recap, its audio output doesn’t match its predecessors, but nor does its price. The OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z are priced at half of what the first Bullets Wireless were at launch, and a third of what the Bullets Wireless 2 sell for. With that out of the way, we can now simply treat these as a pair of wireless earphones priced under Rs 2,000 in 2020, and judge them accordingly.

First things first, they are quite loud and produce ample bass that’s fairly tight. Though bassheads will be delighted with this pair, it is a bit more than ideal. Excess bass does impact the midrange frequencies, and that’s the case here too. The mids feel a bit recessed, and while the vocals are reproduced pretty well, the instrument separation is not. That’s not unusual in headphones available in this budget.

 . The voice doesn’t feel boomy or tinny, and is close to what you get when using the phone microphone. However, you need to bump up the loudness a fair bit to hear the person on the line clearly. Noise cancellation isn’t the best here and a bit of ambient noise can be heard when using these earphones outdoors. But it’s not a deal breaker.

The OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z claims a battery life of 20 hours, and it delivers on the promise. In fact it does a tad better under a standard usage scenario. After using the earphones for approximately three hours daily, they lasted just over a week, thus clocking in excess of 21 hours of total play time before I had to charge them again. The volume level was around 70 percent during the course of my testing.

Posted in: Earphones & Speakers