OnePlus Buds 3 review: Right down the middle

The new OnePlus Buds 3 sit between the company’s super affordable Nord-branded earbuds and its higher-end Pro buds, like last year’s OnePlus Buds Pro 2. With good-not-great audio quality, average battery life, and middling ANC, the Buds 3 aren’t terribly remarkable — but for $100, they don’t really have to be. OnePlus’s latest earbuds are a good, affordable option with more features than you’ll get on many cheaper sets, including multipoint connectivity and Fast Pair. If you’re looking for new earbuds in this price range, the OnePlus Buds 3 are a solid pick.

What’s good about the OnePlus Buds 3?

Solid for the price

The OnePlus Buds 3 are competent midrange earbuds. There’s nothing surprising or cutting-edge here. Still, OnePlus has managed to fit everything an average listener might want into a pair of buds for a little over half the price of the company’s last pair of earbuds, 2023’s OnePlus Buds Pro 2. For $100, the Buds 3 deliver good audio quality and most of the features I want to see in earbuds.

You won’t get the same sound quality here that you’ll find in the very best earbuds on the market, but the OnePlus Buds 3 push audio that is more than good enough for their price range. Out of the box, the Buds 3’s low-end response is a little underwhelming, but a quick tweak of the HeyMelody companion app’s equalizer fixed that right up. As I have the OnePlus Buds 3 set up now, at most volumes, the sub-bass is deep, and the treble is nice and sharp.

Everything I’ve listened to on the earbuds, from Metallica to Megan Thee Stallion, has sounded fine. I’ve got some quibbles — treble can get a little grating at high volumes — but by and large, I think audio from the OnePlus Buds 3 is going to satisfy most people. There’s support for SBC and AAC codecs, plus LHDC 5.0, a less common codec you’ll find on phones from OnePlus and Nothing, but not Samsung or Google. Testing the OnePlus Buds 3 primarily with a Samsung Galaxy S24+ over SBC, I haven’t had any compression or audio-video sync issues. Audiophile types could pick the sound apart further, but that’s not the target demographic for $100 wireless earbuds.

Battery life is perfectly decent. OnePlus says the Buds 3 can last six and a half hours on a charge with ANC on, and that feels accurate based on my experience so far. Eight hours is typically my benchmark for great battery life in earbuds, and these don’t quite hit that mark, but you could still get through a full workday with the buds if you can find a few minutes to charge partway through. Their charging case holds three additional charges.

I also want to shout out this blue colorway OnePlus sent for review — I find it oddly soothing. Last year’s OnePlus Buds Pro 2 came in a slick forest green, which I also really liked, so here’s hoping OnePlus is making fun colorways a standard feature in its earbuds. The Buds 3 also come in black, if you prefer your electronics more subtle.

The Buds 3 come with plenty of nice features. They’ve got multipoint connectivity for connecting to two devices at a time and support Fast Pair for easy pairing on Android. There’s ANC, too, but it’s just okay.

What’s bad about the OnePlus Buds 3?

Midrange shortcomings

I think OnePlus has done an admirable job balancing quality and affordability in the Buds 3, but earbuds in this price range still come with some compromises. Noise canceling isn’t especially strong; you’ll hear some noise in your environment over your music unless you really crank the volume.

And if you do crank the volume, your music might start to sound a little harsh. Even with the high end turned down a bit in the HeyMelody app’s six-band EQ, treble sometimes sounds exaggerated at higher volumes, and sibilance — a sort of hissing on certain s-like sounds — starts to creep in. It’s not severe, though; depending on your listening habits, you might not have the same problems.

The Buds 3 have perfectly functional capacitive touch controls on each earbud. Still, after using several pairs of similarly shaped buds with pressure-sensitive controls, I miss that more tactile option here. That’s totally a personal preference, though, and I assume most people won’t mind as much as I do.

I think more people will be annoyed that the OnePlus Buds 3’s case doesn’t support wireless charging — it’s just USB-C. Hardly the end of the world, but I’ve used cheaper earbuds than those with wireless charging.

Should you buy the OnePlus Buds 3?

A fine option in this segment

It’s hard not to like affordable earbuds with decent sound, and the OnePlus Buds 3 are just that. Their sound isn’t flawless, but these earbuds aren’t competing with Sony’s WF-1000XM5 or the AirPods Pro. For most listening, the OnePlus Buds 3 deliver good audio quality, and their battery lasts just long enough on a charge for a US cross-country flight.

ANC here is only okay, and the buds’ case doesn’t have wireless charging, but overall, OnePlus struck a good features-to-value balance. If you’re in the market for earbuds that cost about a hundred bucks, you could do a lot worse than the OnePlus Buds 3.