OnePlus Buds Pro 3 test: Like a live concert in your ears

The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are high-end earphones launched by OnePlus at the end of 2024. The Chinese manufacturer renews its range with a new pair of earphones that still look neat and elegant, while bringing a case that’s just as neat aesthetically speaking, and original. In this case, there’s no screen – it’s not essential – but the leatherette finish is very welcome.

Design: the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 case impresses

What immediately surprised me when I unpacked the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 was the case. This is black in the version I received, and not content with offering a fairly classic plastic case in the end, the brand decided to cover it with imitation leather over a large part of its surface. This little layer, albeit very thin, is welcome and appreciated.

Indeed, it offers a truly original, premium look to headphones that include “Pro” in their name, and are therefore destined to be fairly high-end, the effect is more elegant than on the Nord Buds 3 Pro previously tested. It’s a first success, before we see any more! The case has an activity LED on the outside, below to be precise, indicating charge and battery level, as well as another on the inside, also indicating the battery level of the earphones when opened for a few seconds.

As for the earphones, they’re fairly classic, nothing exceptional, but that’s not what we’re asking for, so they’re just right. All we ask is that they offer good audio quality, a good microphone, and be comfortable. Here, the earphones are black, with a mix of matte and glossy dark-gray coating.

The earphones feature a light, haptic feedback touch control on the stem, allowing you to pause music, resume playback, skip to the next or previous track, as well as adjust the listening volume.

These are in-ear earphones, so they come with size M tips by default, but there are also other tips stored in a small box inside, in different sizes:

• XS
• S
• L

This means you can change the size of the earmolds to fit your ear canal perfectly. As far as I’m concerned, the size M tips fit perfectly. This is important, because in addition to active noise reduction, they also offer passive reduction of ambient noise, naturally, with these rubber tips.

OnePlus Buds Pro 3 specifications

Excellent sound quality

When I put the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 in my ears, I was immediately impressed by the audio quality of the earphones. In fact, the sound is really very good. In addition to the various settings that can be activated in the HeyMelody application to further personalize the audio experience, I already had the impression of having a concert in my ears.

Bass is present, deep and powerful, with a very good balance between bass, treble and midrange.

With active noise reduction, which works incredibly well by the way, there’s no need to turn the volume up very loud. At home, with just the PC running in the background and writing this test of the OnePlus Buds Pro 3, volume at 15% was quite sufficient.

Simple but effective features

Among the features that don’t require the HeyMelody app, which we’ll explore in a few lines, it’s possible to raise and lower the volume via the earphones. Indeed, they have a touch-sensitive zone, but this is not practical for volume adjustment in my opinion.

In fact, you have to hold the earphone and move up or down on the little area specifically provided for this purpose. This doesn’t work every time, and sometimes you have to do it several times to bring the volume down a notch. I achieved around 60% success rate, as it’s quicker to adjust the smartphone’s volume directly.

As for the other touch functions, i.e. starting playback, pausing, going to the next or previous music, they all work very well indeed. All you have to do is make one or more clicks, and it works in almost 100% of cases.

What would such high-end headphones be without the ability to recognize when they’re inserted and removed from the ear? Naturally, they can pause the music when you take them out, and restart it when you put them back in.

HeyMelody application

You can use the earphones with the HeyMelody app, which gives you total control over them. Indeed, with a OnePlus smartphone, it’s quick and convenient, but when you’re using an iPhone on a daily basis, then it’s not possible to configure these from the smartphone’s settings.

HeyMelody is free on the AppStore and PlayStore, and the app automatically recognizes the headphones when they’re connected via Bluetooth to your smartphone. We start by accessing the headphones, with a good old-fashioned update, which I recommend you do to get the best audio settings.

The home screen is clean and tidy, showing the charge level of each earphone and the case, as well as the quick settings for managing noise reduction.

It’s also possible to test fit the earphones, which works well and takes just a few seconds.

In the more comprehensive noise reduction settings, you can choose whether you want automatic, powerful, moderate or gentle intelligent noise reduction. In any case, it works very well, and I stayed in maximum mode every time I used it.

There’s also the “Golden Sound” feature, allowing you to perfectly adapt the sound of the headphones to your ears. The way it works is quite simple: you take a hearing test, a bit like going to the ENT, and the sound then adapts to your ears by creating a personalized equalizer.

Once you’ve done this, you can listen to the sound before the test, then the sound afterwards, and it’s true, the change is noticeable for me.

The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 also benefit from spatial audio, which can either be fixed or follow your head. Once activated, it’s clear that the sound is much more pleasant for my taste.

There are 5 pre-configured Dynaudio equalizers, although it is possible to add custom ones, but frankly, the default ones are already very decent.

Finally, the rest of the features include a game mode to reduce latency, dual connection to link the headphones to a smartphone and a PC, for example, and, of course, updates, which should be carried out regularly as soon as they become available.

Comfortable, but not perfect

Comfort isn’t bad, but these are in-ear monitors. Some will like them, others won’t. If you’re a fan of active noise reduction but don’t like in-ear headphones, then you’ll have to go for headphones like Huawei’s FreeBuds 5.

Here, however, the headphones fit well, but if you move around a lot, there may be a slight rubbing noise in your ears. Nothing disturbing and nothing to report if you remain stable overall, but I did notice this. That’s why it’s important to choose the right earpieces for your ears.

Autonomy is up to scratch

I confess to being a little disappointed by the fact that this box doesn’t feature wireless charging. The leatherette coating would allow this, but it’s not metal, so the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 case could be charged via induction. But this isn’t the case, so I charged it by wire using my Ugreen charger.

Claimed autonomy is 43 hours without ANC and with the AAC codec. With the LDHC codec and adaptive ANC activated, the battery life is around 21.5 hours. I tested the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 with AAC codec, adaptive ANC and volume at less than 50%, for a total autonomy of around 27 hours, which is better than the 25.5 hours advertised.

OnePlus Buds Pro 3: Reviews

The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are easy on the ears and deliver excellent performance. The audio quality is really very good, and what I appreciate most are the many settings you can adjust in the app, offering customization galore.