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Sony’s latest LinkBuds S fully wireless Bluetooth earbuds are said to be comfortable to wear all day long, as the new Sony earbuds wireless models are small and light while offering a natural-sounding transparency mode and quite a long battery life.
After the unusual Sony LinkBuds (REVIEW), the manufacturer presents the LinkBuds S, a slightly more expensive Sony earbuds wireless model that does without the “hole” in the driver. Instead, the new Sony wireless noise cancelling headphones are more traditional wireless earbuds that offer both Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Transparency modes.
A special feature is that the Sony ANC settings can be automatically adjusted depending on where the user is currently located. For example, if someone speaks to you, the music playback is automatically paused to reinforce the speech. Weighing 4.8 grams per earbud, the LinkBuds S is almost 13 percent lighter than the Apple AirPods Pro and even a third lighter than the Sony WF-1000XM4 (REVIEW).
The battery still lasts an impressive nine hours without ANC, or six hours with active noise cancellation. The case stores enough energy for just over two full charges. However, wireless charging is missing – surprising in this price range. The connection to the smartphone is via Bluetooth 5.2, whereby the LinkBuds S also supports LDAC in addition to SBC and AAC in order to transmit audio files 24-bit at 96 kHz with data rates of up to 990 kbit/s.
What’s exciting is that the Sony earbuds wireless already supports Bluetooth LE Audio to reduce latency, which is especially important when gaming. Sony offers support for Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair, as well as Multipoint Audio. Playback can be controlled either via Alexa, the Google Assistant, or via a touch-sensitive surface.
Sony LinkBuds S price and availability
The Sony LinkBuds S true wireless noise cancelling Bluetooth earbuds will ship on May 20th, they can already be pre-ordered from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for $198 / £180.
