The Realme Buds Air 2 Neo launch about a month and a half after the original Buds Air 2. The Neo buds and their case have a different design, though all the good features are still on board. Even better, these are some of the most affordable TWS buds with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).
The Neo buds match their pricier siblings
with 25 dB noise reduction (enabled by the same custom Relame R2 chip). There’s
a Transparent mode if you need to chat with someone in person and dual mics for
in-call noise cancellation if you need to talk to someone remote.
Battery life isn’t quite as good when you
have ANC enabled – these last 20 hours total (vs. 22.5 hours), though they do
last a bit longer with ANC off (28 vs. 25 hours). The buds themselves last the
same (5 hours) before they need to get back in their case. On the plus side,
charging is faster (10 minutes of charging get you 3 hours of play back, up
from 2 hours).
The Realme Buds Air 2 Neo have 10 mm
drivers with a Liquid Crystal Polymer coating. Each bud is connects to your
phone with an individual Bluetooth 5.2 link, which ensures a stable and low
latency connection. In gaming mode these can get down to 88 ms latency.
Codec support is fairly limited, you only
get AAC HD on top of the basic SBC. That is the case with the other Buds Air 2
as well. Anyway, you can use the Realme Link app (Android only) to set the
noise cancellation level, adjust the equalizer, turn on Gaming mode and so on.
Some of those you can trigger with the touch controls.
Like the other Air 2 buds, these have an
IPX5 rating, giving them resistance against sweat and rain. The Realme Buds Air
2 Neo will be available in Pakistan first at a price of PKR 8,000, which works
out to US$ 53/€ 44. For comparison, the Buds Air 2 cost PKR 10,000 in the country.
You can have them in two colors – Active Black and Calm Grey. They will be
available soon at Saamaan, but there’s no stock yet.
