Sony LinkBuds S Review - 6 Months Later

Vemuda Techno - The Sony Linkbuds S are a set of earbuds that initially I wasn’t very impressed with, but the more I used them over the past 6 months, the more I came to really like them, and I think they’re actually a bit better than the Sony WF-1000XM4s, which have been my earbuds of choice over the past year.

Source: Digital Trends

The Linkbuds S really hit a sweet spot in terms of features, quality, and of course, price, making them a pretty easy pair of earbuds to recommend.

1. Noise Cancellation

The first thing I like about them is their noise cancellation. Now while it's not as good as the more expensive WF-1000XM4s that we've reviewed, the Linkbuds S noise cancellation is still one of the best noise cancelation experiences I've had on a set of earbuds in this price range.

I recently took them with me on a plane and when I had these in, I couldn't tell the difference with their noise cancellation between the higher price Sony XM4s.

Now in other situations, yeah, I can tell a difference between the two earbuds like if music is playing in my room, then i do think the XM4s noise cancellation is still a bit better than the LinkBuds S.

The LinkBuds S come with multiple silicon tips that are very similar to the ones found on other earbuds ike the Pixel Buds Pro and Bose Quiet Comfort IIs, compared to the foam tips with the XM4s, which may be part of why the XM4s perform a bit better with noise cancellation.

2. Comfort

The rubber tips help the LinkBuds S stay in your ear and they also help the noise cancellation work better.

The Sony Linkbuds S also seem to have a spatial vent or some other design feature that eliminates the plugged ear feeling you’d get with a lot of the early in-ear wireless earbuds a few years ago like the Sony WF-1000XM3s.

Another thing I've come to love about the Linkbuds S is their comfort. They are extremely comfortable, which is a phrase I'm not exactly used to saying about a pair of in-ear earbuds. It may just be their best feature.

Their design is much smaller than the XM4s, 40% smaller to be precise, and I’ve found I can wear them for hours with their 4.8g of weight.

I’ve tried other earbuds like the AirPods Pro or Beats Fit Pro and they hurt my ears just after 20 min of wearing them, and even the XM4s, after wearing them for about an hour and a half or so, my ears will start to feel sore.

With the LinkBuds S I have no ear soreness, they don't fall out of my ears, and overall, they're the most comfortable set of in-ear earbuds I've ever worn.

3. Bluetooth Connection and Multipoint

Another thing that's great about the Linkbuds S is their connection. It’s been consistently stable for me when listening on my Mac, Pixel, iPhone etc.

And via an over-the-air software update, they support multi-point audio, which allows you to play audio and sounds from more than one connected device at a time, and best of all, on Android, you can enable multi-point audio while still keeping LDAC enabled, which is a higher quality codec the Linkbuds S support for listening to higher quality music, which is awesome.

4. Mic Quality and Transparency Mode

Another thing I've enjoyed with the LinkBuds S is their mic quality and transparency mode. Here's how their mics sound. And these are how the Sony LinkBuds S mics sound, let me know in the comments…how do you think they sound?

For their transparency mode, while nothing compares to the transparency mode on my AirPods Max, Overall I think the LinkBuds S has one of the best transparency modes i've experienced on a set of earbuds and compared to the WF-1000XM4s, I think the LinkBuds S transparency mode is actually a little bit better, thanks to their better onboard mics.

5. Battery Life & Charging

Their battery life is pretty decent for their size and weight, 6 hours battery life and 14 hours remaining in the case and you’ll get a notification from the Sony headphones app when the headphones case battery level dips below 30%.

To charge the Linkbuds S case, you’ll need a USB-C chord as they don’t come with wireless charging and speaking of the case, when I first bought the Linkbuds S, their case felt very rough, almost rugged and not very smooth, which felt a bit weird, but over the past 6 months, the case material has smoothed out a bit and feels a lot better.

Also, kudos to Sony for being one of those companies embracing plastic-free packaging. I wish more companies would get on board and do this.

6. Sony Headphones App

The last thing I like about these buds is actually the Sony Headphones app. This app, while it has some odd quirks and features, is overall a highlight to these buds and Sony has made some welcome improvements to it.

It has useful features like being able to set the ambient sound allowed in for transparency mode. If you want to tweak the sound profile of your buds, Sony included an EQ feature, though for these buds.

I actually think they sound pretty good out of the box, so I haven’t toyed with the EQ feature all that much, and if you want to improve sound quality, the app is of course where you can prioritize sound quality for their bluetooth connection and turn on DSEE, which is Sony’s proprietary technology for upscaling low-quality music so you’ll hear more clarity and detail, though if you’re already listening to most modern music through an iPhone or Android and a music-streaming app, I haven’t noticed a huge difference with this feature turned on.

The other thing Sony added in the app I really like is on the status page you can monitor the decibel level you’re listening at with your headphones, which is really useful if you don’t want to listen to your music at unsafe levels that can permanently damage your hearing.

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The app also includes some features that work well. I've just preferred to leave off while testing these buds like adaptive sound control, where the app will detect your actions like walking or sitting and adjust the noise cancellation automatically, I found this feature with this product and past Sony products to be just more annoying than helpful.

The same thing with speak to chat, which is my limited testing, works well by pausing you music and turning on transparency mode when the earbuds detect your talking to someone, but I prefer just to have manual control over when music stops and then resumes again.

The app does have some odd quirks though like a badge system to reward you for using the product, which is just dumb, and an entire services tab for extra stuff you can do with the LinkBuds S and apps they’ll work with, but other than Spotify, I’m not sure how useful the rest are.

7. Sound Quality

The last thing I like about the LinkBuds S is their sound quality. For a pair of your buds in this price range, their sound quality is pretty good.

Now, if you're buying these, expecting them to sound just as good as the WF-1000XM4s, unfortunately, you're going to be a bit disappointed.

Sony used different drivers for these buds than the XM4s, and as a result, I’ve found the Linkbuds S sound doesn’t quite match the XM4s.

The XM4s sound a bit more full, where the LinkBuds S, they still sound very clean, but you'll notice less separation in certain tracks. So that's everything I've liked about the LinkBuds S for the past six months of using them.

8. Wireless Charging and Volume Controls

Now, let's talk downsides and some things I think Sony could improve with these buds. The first thing I think Sony could improve with these buds is wireless charging support. They'd be almost perfect if their case included wireless charging.

Another downside is unlike some competing buds, the Sony Linkbuds S don’t give you any way to control the volume of the earbuds with tap or swipe controls, though this won’t be as bothersome to those who use a smartwatch with media controls like on my Apple Watch Series 8 or Pixel Watch, Both of which will have reviews out on soon. So make sure you follow my blog in order to see our long-term reviews of these two watches.

Sony could use their Triple and Double tap functions on the left earbud for volume control. Right now these actions are reserved for a Quick Access feature that only works right now, with Spotify Tap and Endel. Why Sony doesn't like you customize these actions more is beyond me.

9. Multipoint and Trigger Phone Assistant Issues

Another downside I’ve encountered with the earbuds is actually with their multipoint connectivity. Let's say I have the LinkBuds S connected to both my iPad and my Android phone.

I just simply hold down the right earbud here thinking that I'm going to trigger the Google Assistant on my phone when in fact I just triggered Siri on the iPad.

Unlike features like Apple’s iCloud switching feature for AirPods where Apple most of the time knows which product you’re currently using and switches audio from that device to your AirPods, Sony doesn't know which product you're actively using at the current moment.

So it's very easy to trigger the wrong assistant on the wrong device. Also it takes just a second or two longer than I’d like to actually trigger the Assistant on the devices from the buds.

You can also load the Google Assistant and Amazon Assistant onto the earbuds as well, though I typically just stick with whatever assistant is on the device I want to play music from.

10. Phone Calls Noise Cancellation

The last downside I've encountered with these buds is with phone calls. When calls start on the Link Buds, transparency/ambient sound mode will turn on, which is okay.

But let's say there's a lot of background noise and I want to be able to block that out and concentrate on the call that I've picked up on my phone. On my XM4s, I can tap the left bud to trigger more noise cancellation to kick in but on the LinkBuds S, I can’t seem to do this and still can hear background noise which is slightly annoying.

11. Conclusion

So that's everything I've liked and disliked about these Sony LinkBuds S, and overall, I think these are actually a pretty fantastic set of earbuds.

The more I’ve used them, the more I’ve liked them, especially their fantastic comfort, water resistance, mic quality, and sound, at a retail price of $199 US dollars but you can often find them on sale for between $120 and $150 dollars.

I think these are a great set of in-ear buds for both iPhone and Android users and they'll easily pair to devices like Windows PCs and Macs. Thanks for reading.

We have also posted 5 Best Gaming Headsets of 2023.