OnePlus Nord Buds 3r Review: The top no-nonsense budget TWS option

Even as other brands try to pack in fancy features into budget TWS, OnePlus has decided to take this road less travelled and launched a pair of TWS that are all about the basics. The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r bank on exceptional battery life, bass-y audio output, low latency in gaming, and a basic but solid design, all at a very affordable price tag. On paper, these are a pair of absolute no-nonsense earbuds, but can they make themselves heard (pun intended) in a zone packed with feature-rich earbuds?

OnePlus Nord Buds 3r Design and looks: Basic, but solid

The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r are nothing to write home about when it comes to looks. The buds and case are both plastic. The case comes in a squoval shape with flat contouring around the edges on both front and back. There is a type-C port on the base of the case and the OnePlus logo in the front. While the whole case is in matte finish, the logo is glossy, offering a slight relief from the otherwise relatively routine feel of the case – it is not VERY visible, only enough to come into notice if someone really pays attention. There is a very tiny LED indicator on the front as well.

The case flips open easily with a single thumb stroke and shuts with a satisfying snap. The buds are placed vertically inside and come with an overall matte finish. The slots for the buds in the case are glossy, again a good contrast, but something that is not very noticeable. The buds come with pretty standard looks – the top is bulbous with an eartip attached, with a stem attached to the head. The buds come pre-attached with medium-sized tips, and there are small and large options in the box. There is a slight indentation on the top of the stem for controls.

Both the buds and the case are quite lightweight and compact – the buds weigh 4.5 grams each, while the case weighs 38.6 grams. The case can easily fit in the palm of your hand and even the smallest of pockets, but might feel a bit bulgy in tight ones. The matte finish of the buds and the case keeps scratches and smudges at bay, but the build does not give a premium feel – this is a budget TWS and makes no attempt to hide that fact. The earbuds come with an IP55 rating, giving them some immunity against splashes, sweat, and dust, although the case comes with no such protection. The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r are available in two different color variants– Aura Blue and Ash Black. We got the Ash Black variant, which blends very easily into our everyday gadget life. If you are looking for a pair of TWS that stand out a bit, then you can opt for the Aura Blue shade.

OnePlus Nord Buds 3r Pairing, connectivity, and app: Keeping it smooth and simple

The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r are easy to set up and use. They come with Bluetooth 5.4, with an effective distance of 10m, and also bring features like dual connect, which allows you to connect the device with two devices at once (impressive at this price), and switch between them, as well as Google Fast Pair. Pairing the buds is a pretty simple process – you just have to keep the case open near the device of your choice, select the buds from the list of Bluetooth devices, and then hit ‘connect.’ Once paired, the buds automatically connect with your device when taken out of the case near your device. The buds work with OnePlus’ Hey Melody app, which offers comprehensive settings and control options.

The app is pretty clean and easy to use, and comes with three different equalizer presets in the app– Balanced, Serenade, and Bass, and you have the option to customize equalizer settings as well. There is a gaming mode to minimize latency, a Dual Connection feature, and Find My Earbuds options, too.

In terms of controls, there are four commands that can: a single tap for play/pause, a double tap for next track, a triple tap for the previous track, and, in a very interesting touch, tap and hold to control volume (volume controls on buds are rare at this price). The controls can be a bit tricky to get used to (counting the taps is not exactly intuitive), but they work smoothly once you get the hang of them, although the odd case of hit and miss will persist. There is no in-ear detection feature on the buds, which means the audio does not play/pause automatically when you take the buds out of your ear. It is a feature we missed the most on the buds.

OnePlus Nord Buds 3r performance: Bassy audio and decent call quality

The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r come with 12.4 mm dynamic drivers with titanized vibrating diaphragm, and support the SBC and AAC codecs. These are the same specs that OnePlus bundled with the Nord Buds 2r, so it is hardly surprising that the audio output of these buds is pretty similar to their predecessors. While the audio leans towards more bass than balanced, the different presets in the app do make a noticeable difference in the audio performance.

The buds are set on Balanced by default, which is slightly bass-heavy but still delivers decent vocals (mids). The vocals shine the most in the Serenade mode, while the Bass preset makes the audio quite rumbly, which is where the vocals get a bit muddy. Those who enjoy bass-heavy output can stick with the Bass preset, but the Default mode for us offered the right balance between decent vocals with a hint of bass accent. Our favorite mode was Serenade as it highlights vocals the best. The volume levels are pretty impressive on the buds, but as you push the volume up, clarity sometimes suffers.

The OnePlus Nord Buds 3r do not come with ANC, but then ANC in the budget TWS segment, anyway, is yet to leave us impressed, so we did not really miss it. Yes, it does affect one’s audio experience in a noisy environment, but the passive noise cancellation can keep some of the noise out if one picks the right-sized eartip. There are a few features on the buds that are exclusive to OnePlus devices, like AI Translate, which can translate conversations for you in real time, and Tap 2 Take, which can take a picture with a tap on your earbud with your OnePlus device. More significantly, 3D audio, which is somewhat similar to spatial audio, is also limited to OnePlus devices. The gaming mode works very well, though, cutting out lags in most games.

The Nord Buds 3r have 2-mic AI noise cancellation and deliver decent call quality, although we sometimes did get complaints about our voice not being clear. But we never faced any such issue on the receiving end. However, the connection dropped abruptly many times when we switched from one call to another, which was rather strange.

OnePlus Nord Buds 3r Battery: Goes on and on and on…

This is one of the biggest highlights of the OnePlus Nord Buds 3r. The case packs a 580 mAh battery, while each earbud brings a 58 mAh battery. OnePlus promises 12 hours of battery life from the earbuds on a single charge (with 50 percent volume while playing AAC), while the case and buds put together can last up to 54 hours. Those are impressive numbers, and they hold true in real-life scenarios. We charged the case once, and they went on for more than a week with heavy usage.

The Nord Buds 3r also come with fast charging support, where just 10 minutes of charging offers 4 hours of audio time on the earbuds and adds up to 8 hours when the case is charged for 10 minutes with the buds inside. The Nord Buds 3r take a long time to charge from zero to 100 percent (about two hours or more), but once they are charged, you can be sure that you will not run out of audio juice for a week at least!

OnePlus Nord Buds 3r Review Verdict: No fancy feature fluff, just performance

Although their actual price is Rs. 1,999, the OnePlus Nord Buds 3r are available for a price of Rs. 1,599. And at both those prices, these are a very good value for money for anyone looking for a basic pair of slightly bass-y buds. They might not come with a lot of fancy features and may seem to have the same specs as last year’s Buds 2r, but the Nord Buds 3r are still a terrific proposition for those who want to dip their audio toes in TWS waters for the first time and value simplicity and good sound and great battery rather than a truckload of features that sound better than they work. Yes, they do face competition from the likes of the JBL Wave Beam, priced at Rs 1999, and the very good Soundcore R50I NC, which even brings some very basic ANC at Rs 1500, but their overall audio quality and battery life make them one of the best TWS options you can get for not too much money.

Buy OnePlus Nord Buds 3r

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