Beats Flex comprehensive review by 12pcMcNuggets

There aren't many detailed reviews that look over all the aspects of living with the Beats Flex, just ones that go overly technical in sound analysis and don't go into enough depth or answer the questions I wanted to be answered before buying them. I'm writing this review with the hopes of reaching a nice middle-ground for both of these.

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#Introduction

The Beats Flex.

Apple's $50 attempt to get you to give them even more money with your brand new iPhone 12, and a shockingly good one at that. Unlike many Beats products I've seen in the past (including their predecessor, the Beats^X ), the box is tiny. Inside the box, you find the earphones themselves, three different sized sets of two ear tips (including a double bud one, which I used for this review), a USB-C to USB-C cable, a Beats troll sticker and a crapload of paperwork you can largely ignore. Surprisingly no post-purchase marketing (I'm looking at you, Raycon, but Beats isn't innocent of this either), which is always nice.

Most companies that make wireless earphones like this don't understand that this category of neckband wireless earphones aren't just music devices; they're an extension of your phone. They're your phone's companion. They're a bit of your phone that you're probably going to have around your neck all day if you're like me. If you're the type to make loads of phone calls, these should be there to not only make sure you sound crystal clear while yelling at someone but to always be at the ready in such a situation. They should reduce the effort of you listening to a quick voice message on a chat app. And obviously, they should be good at playing music. Well then, what's living with the Beats like?

#Living with the Beats

In a few words, pretty great. I'm upgrading from a set of LG Tone Ultra HBS810 headphones, so I expected a similar experience. With my iPhone 12 mini, the Beats have the unfair Apple ecosystem advantage over the LG set. Let me explain. The LGs were a great phone companion - they vibrated whenever my phone rang, they had a great sounding microphone (usually), and they sounded pretty good too. The Beats blow these away because of that unfair Apple advantage. The Beats have automatic audio routing, so whenever the Beats aren't attached with the magnets behind the buds, the sound is going through them. They also pause your music if you attach them, and they also automatically answer calls when you detach them. This is a huge one up over the LGs, as I'd have to manually route audio to them based on if I was wearing them, and I had just used my phone speaker for something.

On top of this, the usual Apple ecosystem niceties are present and accounted for. The W1 chip pairs them fast and every device on your iCloud account - even my iPhone 5s running iOS 12.4.something paired to them automatically. Find My support is there - even if it becomes completely useless once the Beats are switched off, as it only shows when and where last someone else's iDevice saw them. You can’t mark them as lost, unfortunately. iOS 15’s “you left this device behind” feature doesn’t work on them either.

The 12-hour battery life is also very nice to have but falls short of the LGs. The Beats have precise battery reporting, which is very, very nice. I charge these roughly every four days, with maybe an hour of usage daily. I was travelling for about 5 hours yesterday, and they were connected to my phone pretty much throughout at near max volume (I know this is bad for my ears, but I literally couldn't hear shit below 80% inside an aeroplane), and got through that with 55% remaining from a full charge. That's pretty good. According to what they reported, my LGs got me through a 17-hour bus ride at 70% volume with 60% remaining. I continued to use those for an hour daily and kept them connected to my phone 24/7 for the next week before they complained about the low battery. That's outstanding battery life.

Of course, this isn't to say that the Beats have poor battery life. That's not it at all. Although standby drain could be much better, the Beats legitimately have great battery life. I'm just saying that competitors at lower price range absolutely smash these in that respect. Also, they turn off after like an hour and a half of no activity, which I found slightly annoying.

Call quality is also pretty good on these. I live in South Africa, and my carrier is Vodacom. The person on the other side sounds pretty good, and they say I sound pretty good too. VOIP calls on apps like FaceTime, Google Duo and Discord also sound incredibly crisp, and I apparently sound good too on the other end. (edited to add because i forgot: they also play some microphone feedback through the buds whenever the microphone is active, so when you’re talking to someone on the phone, or recording a voice message, or yelling at Siri. this makes talking with them on feel less weird)

#Performance on non-Apple devices

If you have a BlackBerry or a Windows Phone, you too can use Beats Flex. Just hold the power button for a few seconds, and they'll show right up on the Bluetooth menu. Windows Phones and BlackBerries don't support anything other than the SBC codec, so you're stuck with that. My untrained ear doesn't think SBC sounds particularly bad or anything, but you can feel the lack of depth from the low bit rate.

If you have an Android, there's a Beats app you can use, and in that case, the pairing process is identical to that on iOS. You lose out on the automatic audio routing (unless your Samsung supports SmartThings, but even in that case you have to route the audio manually), and the magnets in the buds become another play/pause/answer calls button, as long as the app stays open. f you don't want to use the app, that's okay because you really aren't missing out on much, and you can pair by holding the power button for 5 seconds. If your Android supports AAC, which many don't, it should use that codec by default. My 2016 Galaxy Tab A did this. Otherwise, they work the same as they do on iOS.

If you have a Windows PC... yeah. Bluetooth audio is a mess on Windows 10, with there being basically no codec support other than SBC (and aptX if you have an Intel Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module which I luckily do). Windows 10 is extremely connect-happy with Bluetooth audio devices. It will connect to any Bluetooth audio devices you have nearby without asking you, without warning or notification of any sort except for you not hearing anything from your previous audio devices. This is a problem with the Beats because they don't have multipoint Bluetooth; any active connection is replaced completely when another device tries to connect. And guess what happened to me a bunch. That's more of a gripe I have with Windows 10, though. They sound fine on my laptop, but they're very soft. The volume is very, very low even if Windows' volume is 100%, and the volume buttons on the headset don't do anything. They also frequently disconnect randomly, but I blame that on Windows 10 because they don't do this to anything else. I can't get the microphone to work at all on Windows, but that's probably because Windows doesn't switch to HFP whenever it tries to use the microphone; it remains connected to A2DP. Overall, it's a nightmare on Windows. Don't use these on Windows.

I don't own a Mac, so I can't share my experiences there.

#Sound quality

You're probably wondering why I left the actual audio bit to this far down the review. It's because these aren't first and foremost just audio devices; these are an extension to your phone. Listening to things is just one of the things you use these for. That being said, how do they sound?

To put it graphically: [here's a graph, courtesy of RTINGS.com.](https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/ySbx2y4v/beats-flex-wireless/frequency-response-14-graph-small.jpg)

To put it briefly: a lot of bass and absolutely no sparkle whatsoever.

These have a lot of bass. It's not too much bass, like with Ray's Con, but you can definitely tell that these are bass-first earphones, which Beats are typically known for. I don't find it particularly boomy, but it adds a nice level of extra warmth in trap music, like Lesbian by Metro Boomin, Young Thug and Gunna, which has a nice, deep, long 808. It's very consistent, too. Like, in positions by Ariana Grande, her voice isn't overpowered by the 808 accompanying the beat. The crickets, which you now can't unhear, by the way, sound like they're under a towel, but the guitar in the hook absolutely sings and stands out with her. It sounds awesome.

I mostly listen to hip-hop and pop, but they work pretty well for other genres too. Lying From You by Linkin Park sounds beautiful, but the cymbals in the "This isn't how I want it to be" bit where Chester screams "you" feels a lot less impactful than it should. Usually, that part has me aggressively bopping my head. Orchestral songs also sound pretty great, and you can usually pick out every instrument if you're looking for them. Really Doe's second chorus after Tony Williams' first "Feelin' better than I ever felt before today" in Kanye West's We Major sounds beautiful. The "If love is the answer, hold on" bit in Daft Punk's Touch feels very powerful from the strings singing with the choir accompanied by the impact of that kick drum. Wild For The Night by A$AP Rocky has a hi hat in Birdy Nam Nam’s verses and the chorus, but it is not there at all through these buds unless you’re actively listening for it.

These are closed-back earbuds, so they have absolutely no soundstage whatsoever. I usually test soundstage with September by Earth, Wind and Fire, where there's a dude in the right ear who's playing the bongos (you can't unhear this either) and, instead of sounding far away, it sounds like the engineer turned down the volume for his track in post. The live version of Gone by Kanye West (in Late Orchestration) sounds like it's inside your head and left/right ear instead of feeling like it's in front of you.

All this being said, these are fun earphones. If you are a child like me, you'll enjoy going onto YouTube and listening to bass boosted versions of your favourite songs on these, and it sounds so much better. If they had a little bit more sparkle, I would love these so much more. But as it is, these are insane value for money with the sound they provide.

**Testing setup:**

-	Audio source: Apple iPhone 12 mini
-	Music source: Spotify @ very high
-	Codec: AAC @ 256kbps
-	Tips: the double bud ones

#Questions nobody exactly asked, but I answered out of curiosity:

-	**Do these pause the music when you take them out of your ears?**

No. They only pause when you clack their magnets together.

-	**So you can take one out of your ear and clack it against the other while it's in your ear, and the music will pause?**

That's correct.

-	**If I'm walking and I walk past a powerful magnet, will these get ripped out of my ears?**

This depends solely on how good your seal is. If it's a weak seal, they might get pulled out a little.

-	**If the magnets clack to something that isn't the buds, will the music pause?**

No. It seems they detect specifically each other's magnets.

-	**What if I clack them to the buds of another Beats Flex?**

I'm... I'm not too sure about this one. If I ever find another pair out in the wild, I'll come back and edit this.

-	**So, you mentioned that the music stops when you take them out and clack them together. When you put them back into your ear, does the music unpause?**

It's supposed to. Sometimes it does. A lot of the time, it doesn't.

-	**Does it rewind the music a bit to account for you taking time to clack them together once they're out of your ears so that you don't miss any music while they were out of your ears?**

It does not do this.

-	**Wouldn't it be cool if they did?**

It'd be a tiny thing I doubt that nobody but me would notice. But yes, it would be cool.

-	**Does it at least account for you taking time to put them back in your ears to resume the music after you separate the magnets?**

Yes, it does. It waits about a second and a half for you to do this.

-	**How long did it take for you to figure out which side is left and right when putting them on?**

The little... pills? The pills in the cable are the same size and shape, so if you're looking from this alone, you're going to mess it up almost every time you put them around your neck. The only thing that's helped me mess it up less when putting them on is to look for the power button: that's supposed to be facing behind you on your right side. You can also look for the USB-C port: that's supposed to be facing behind you on your left side.

#Conclusion

The Beats Flex are incredible earphones for the money. They're a great extension to your phone because when you're not using them, they pretty much disappear and become a very low Beats necklace, something people used to do with the Beats Pro - only this time, they're actually useful. If you listen to EDM, hip-hop and pop, they're great for that, but also shine in rock, orchestral and even country music. You're not going to be doing critical listening with these, not a chance. But they're still amazing for the money.

#Competitors you may want to consider

##Apple AirPods

Ah yes, the earphones that started this gigantic wave of Bluetooth earphones. These have absolutely no seal whatsoever, the bass isn't great (partly thanks to the seal [or lack thereof] and because of how they are), and contiguous battery life is way shorter than that of the Beats. On top of that, my ears don't like the shape of the AirPods, and they get extremely painful after about an hour of wearing them, but this seems like an issue that very few other people have. Only my girlfriend can relate to this feeling. And, they cost a lot more.

##Beats^X

These have a shorter battery life, are older, have three pills in the cable instead of two, but have wingtips if you're the type who likes that rigid, secure fit, and have a more balanced sound. Otherwise, the experience is pretty much identical. These also cost a lot more, depending on where you shop. I live in South Africa, so these still go for MSRP in a lot of places.

##LG Tone Ultra

These have much longer battery life, a more balanced sound allegedly tuned by JBL (owned by Samsung, so take that with a huge grain of salt) but lose out on the Apple ecosystem integration. They're also a lot bigger and way less discreet than the Beats, but they have more buttons and features and vibrate when your phone is ringing. They also have much better passive noise-cancelling because the insides of the tips have a dense foam which helps with this.

#Final verdict

If you want a basic pair of Bluetooth earphones to go with your brand new iPhone, get these. They're super worth it.

Edit 28/07/2021: updated the Android section and added iOS 15 references