- Twist to adjust design
- Replaceable battery
- Decent noise-cancelling on a budget
- Pricing isn’t particularly competitive
- Not many bells and whistles
- Sound quality didn’t blow me away
It’s been almost five years since Google introduced a budget-friendly version of its counterpart to Apple’s AirPods and, to their credit, the new Pixel Buds 2a does address the biggest shortcoming attached to its predecessor.
Unlike the original, the second-generation Pixel Buds 2a come with proper noise-cancelling. While welcome, this inclusion ends up feeling a little undercut by how overdue it is. Finding a set of noise-cancelling earbuds with a thrifty price tag was more difficult back in 2021, but it was far from impossible. Nowadays, it’s practically commonplace – even in earbuds that are cheaper than the $219 RRP attached to the Pixel Buds 2a.
Even if that wasn’t the case, though, the experience of listening to music or audiobooks using these earbuds is more fine than fantastic. All told, the fidelity here is forgettable enough that those who can live with it can probably get away with spending a lot less. As a result – and for as comfortable as they are to wear – my time messing around with the Pixel Buds 2a was frequently dogged by lingering questions about who these wireless earbuds are actually for.
If you’re sizing these up as your next set of true wireless earbuds, the army of alternatives out there is hard to overlook. It doesn’t help that, as opposed to something like Apple’s fourth-generation AirPods, the Pixel Buds 2a are admittedly light when it comes to ecosystem exclusives. These might come with the same twist-to-adjust design as the more premium Pixel Buds 2, but Google’s latest budget buds come with far fewer bells and whistles.
Sacrificing a few features to hit that more affordable price point is nothing new, but the list of features you’re missing out on here compared to the Pixel Buds 2 is surprisingly long, given that the two earbuds both run on the same Tensor A1 processor. Still, there is one side of the story told by the specs here that does end up in Google’s favour.
The Pixel Buds 2a are unique among budget earbuds when it comes to repairability. Taking the case apart and being able to replace the battery inside is a genuine perk that sets the hardware here up for longevity in a way that its competition isn’t necessarily able or looking to match. If there’s any reason to consider paying the modest premium associated with this particular set of budget buds, it’s this.
All the same, if you aren’t interested in taking advantage of that particular aspect of the design here, you can probably pass on the Pixel Buds 2a. There’s plenty to like about them, but not a lot that you can’t find elsewhere for less.
We've spent enough time with this product to piece together our thoughts, but not enough time to put it through our official testing process. We've got a good sense of what is good, what could be improved, and whether it is worth your money, but we're not assigning a score to this one.
Fergus Halliday
Digital Content Editor
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