Microsoft may be late to the wireless earbuds party, but it looks like it will be worth the wait when they release their Surface Earbuds this holiday season. We listened to the Surface Earbuds briefly at Microsoft’s Surface event in New York City yesterday and we were blown away with just how good they sound.
Unlike most wireless earbuds, the Surface Earbuds offer a real soundstage. To that effect, they sound so much more dynamic than most wireless earbuds on the market, and they certainly wipe the floor with the AirPods 2 in terms of both sound and comfort. From our initial testing, they also usurped our previous favorite pair of wireless earbuds, the Earin M-2’s.
In terms of comfort, Microsoft has developed three different size tips for them which sport a unique and pretty unusual shape that you won’t find anywhere else. The result is a fit that doesn’t put pressure on your ear canal the way most wireless earbuds too. Surface Earbuds are also quite lightweight. Aesthetically, we prefer their minimalistic flat round design to having sticks (AirPods) dangling out of your ears.
Then there are their gesture controls – you can swipe to control volume, and playback, etc, but that isn’t quite a new concept at all. What is cool however is how the gestures on the Surface Earbuds can be used to do things like navigating through PowerPoint slides. The Surface earbuds can also be used for dictation on Microsoft Word. Microsoft plans on adding more and more “abilities” like these to the Surface Earbuds over time, so the Surface Earbuds are ultimately going to be as useful in an office setting as they are on your commute.
The Microsoft Surface Earbuds will retail for $249.
