Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+ Review: Buds3 Pro with ANC and a couple of unforced errors

Pros:

• Loud and punchy sound output

• Decent ANC and transparency performance for the segment

• Compact design, comfortable in-ear fit

• IP55-rated dust and splash resistance

• Good battery backup, fast charging

• Dual-pairing support

• Good call quality

Cons:

• Limited sound tweaks, no 6-band equaliser

• Audio presets are incorrectly named

• Charging case has a lower capacity battery despite being bigger and heavier

• Should have launched an year earlier

Price: Rs 2,099

Rating: 3.5/5

We reviewed the Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro TWS earbuds a few months back, and the company recently released the Pro+ variant of the same. On the surface, it looks like the Pro with active noise cancellation (ANC) and a slightly different design, but we know better than to judge a book by its cover. Further investigation unearthed something unexpected. Read on to know more.

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Design and Comfort (8/10)

The design of the Plus model is different from the Enco Buds3 Pro but not unique. In fact it looks very much like the OnePlus Nord Buds 3 released last year and so are its specs and features. You get a new Sonic Blue colour variant with a matte finish and a glossy ring around the circumference of the case. It looks good, but if blue is not your colour, it also comes in matte black. The case is largely immune to fingerprints and smudge marks but not scratches. So avoid keeping it in the same pocket as your keys or coins.

The case is compact and lightweight weighing under 40 grams and can be slipped into your pocket without a noticeable bulge. It hosts a 440 mAh battery (120 mAh lower than the Buds3 Pro) and a tiny status LED, along with a USB-C charging port and a Bluetooth pairing/reset button located at the base. The earbuds too have a mix of matte and glossy finish and a small indentation at the back to denote the touch zones. The touch sensitivity is generally good.  

The buds are quite light at 4.2 grams each despite hosting 58 mAh batteries and ANC circuitry. The fit is snug and comfortable and can be worn for long. They don’t pop out of the ears during workouts or jogs, and as a result, can be your workout companion as the buds are IP55 rated dust and splash resistant. The right sized silicon tips from the three bundled pairs offer decent passive noise isolation and also helps in improving ANC performance.  

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Features and Specifications (7/10)

Each earbud is fitted with a 12.4 mm dynamic driver and a couple of microphones for calling and ANC. It supports a decent 32 dB noise reduction along with a Transparency mode. There are no wear detection sensors; you rarely get those in this price bracket but one can always hope. But the Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+ supports dual-pairing and can be paired with two devices simultaneously. These Bluetooth 5.4 compliant TWS buds support SBC and AAC codecs. You also get basic spatial audio that’s called Oppo Alive Audio here.  

One thing inexplicably missing is the 6-band equaliser that is available even on the non-Plus model; more on that in a bit. You do not need to install any app on Oppo or OnePlus phones to access the features of these earbuds or update its firmware. You can do so from the Bluetooth settings. You need the HeyMelody app on other phones to do the same. It lets you choose audio presets, configure the controls and more. You can assign play/pause, previous/next track, voice assistant etc to single, double and triple tap gestures. Touch-and-hold gesture lets you cycle through ANC or increase/decrease the volume.  

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Performance (7/10)

These Oppo buds are perfectly audible around 50% loudness when indoors and I didn’t need to push the volume beyond 70% even in noisy public transport. The wireless range is fine too with the buds maintaining a stable connection at 10 metres with no obstruction between them and the source device. We faced no latency issues either with no perceptible delay between the video and audio when watching videos.  

The Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+ produces a loud and punchy sound output on the default Original sound preset. While it is a little bass-heavy than usual for Oppo for my taste, not many may complain. You get three sound presets here - Original sound, Bass boost and Clear vocals. But other than the first, Oppo has goofed up on the nomenclature for the other two. Bass boost, instead of boosting the bass, reduces it and boosts vocal frequencies, while Clear vocals increases the bass. The names just need to be interchanged via a software update. And that’s not the only thing the update needs to fix.  

Inexplicably, Oppo has removed the 6-band equaliser that was present in its more affordable model, which means, the sound tweaks are largely limited to the three presets out of which only Original sound is usable in most cases. That translates to pretty much no sound tweaks here. We waited for a month for the company to release the update but it isn’t here yet at the time of writing. Mind you, the default sound on these earbuds is not bad at all for the segment but why remove something that important?

The Buds3 Pro+ produces ample bass, has decent vocal clarity and average high-end reproduction. The instrument sounds in the lower midrange spectrum suffer quite a bit of masking and the detail in sound is average at best. We cannot be overly critical as this is a near two thousand Rupees product. But some of these issues could have been fixed with an equaliser. Interestingly, older Oppo products did not have an equaliser either, but they introduced one in the Enco Buds3 Pro and strangely, revoked it in the Pro+.

Moving on to noise cancellation, the ANC performance here is decent if not great. You get what you expect from one rated at 32 dB and it’s perfectly functional. It does reduce low frequency sounds like the whirr of a fan or a hum of a car or plane engine. But it isn’t all that effective with midrange sounds like human voices in public transport.

Having said that, it does reduce quite a bit of background noise and is a good feature to have. The Transparency performance is also acceptable for the segment, and you can have a quick chat with someone in quieter areas without removing an earbud from your ear.  

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Call quality (7.5/10)

The call quality on these Oppo buds is quite good, with people on the line clearly audible to each other indoor as well as outdoors. In buzzing areas, it filters out a reasonable amount of ambient noise but also softens the voice a little. It is probably a small collateral damage of the environmental noise cancellation algorithm. A bit more sharpness in the voice would have been nicer, but despite that, these earbuds are quite good for calling.

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Battery life (8/10)

The battery backup on the Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+ is very good. The company claims a staggering 12 hours for the buds alone without ANC and 8 hours with ANC enabled. Along with the charging case, the numbers stand at 43 hours and 28 hours respectively. While these numbers are impressive, I would like to point out that the charging case here holds 120 mAh less charge than the Buds3 Pro despite being larger and slightly heavier. Another questionable decision.

With the average loudness around 60% during testing, the earbuds managed to go on for a shade under 11 hours on a full charge without ANC, and for about 38 hours with the case. With ANC enabled all the time, the corresponding numbers read 7 hours and 24 hours respectively, which is still respectable. Had Oppo used a 560 mAh battery for the case here as on the Buds3 Pro, the overall battery backup would have probably been 25% higher.

These buds also support fast charging, with a 10-minute charge promising close to 4 hours of playtime without ANC, which is more than handy. The product can be charged fully in less than 90 minutes, while the buds alone take about 60 minutes to go from empty to full. Oppo also claims that the battery health will remain around 80% even after 1000 charging cycles. The battery level of each earbud and the charging case is visible in the Bluetooth settings of the synced device or in the HeyMelody app.

Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+: Price and verdict

The Oppo Enco Buds3 Pro+ is priced at Rs 2,099 with a one year warranty. Given its performance and features, it is a perfectly fair price despite its shortcomings. Had the company released the fix for the aforementioned issues, we would have gladly recommended the product. So, if ANC is more important to you than a 6-band equaliser, you may consider the Buds3 Pro+, else opt for the Buds3 Pro which not just sounds better but also provides better overall battery backup.

If you want the best of both worlds, then simply opt for the year old OnePlus Nord Buds 3 that now sells for Rs 1,999. Not only does it have all the features of the Buds3 Pro+ but also has the said equaliser to finetune the sound to your liking, making it a straightforward choice. And that makes me wonder if Oppo was late to the party by a year with this product.