The OnePlus Buds 3 are some of the best earbuds under $100

OnePlus hasn’t just made waves in the smartphone industry; it’s also caused quite a stir in the world of wireless earbuds. Dating back to the company’s first OnePlus Buds Pro, the brand has regularly been recognized as one of the best to shop from for your next earbuds if you’re on a budget. Now we have a spiritual successor to last year’s excellent Buds Pro 2 called the OnePlus Buds 3, and they fit right in with this trend.

Priced at $100, the OnePlus Buds 3 aim to check all the fundamental boxes of a good pair of earbuds while still offering a unique experience. These aren’t quite as good as the highest-end earbuds out there like Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 or Sony’s WF-1000XM5, but compared to rivals like the Sony LinkBuds S and Nothing Ear (2), they’ll make you question how much you truly need to spend on a pair of earbuds.

What I like about them

Comfortable design that’s just the right size

One glance at the OnePlus Buds 3 and you’d swear that you’ve seen them before. Not only do they look a lot like the Buds Pro 2 but they sport a similar shape to AirPods. This means that the buds are comfortable to wear for long periods of time, they’ll fit in almost anyone’s ears (especially thanks to the extra tips), and they’re nice and light.

OnePlus gives you two color options: Splendid Blue and Metallic Gray. I was sent the latter, which is a bit more my style, although I do appreciate how vibrant the Splendid Blue appear in renders. The case they come in isn’t all that big or clunky (an important factor for $100 earbuds), and they give you a satisfying clasp when you close the lid. There’s a USB-C port on the back for charging and an LED indicator on the front, along with a pairing button under the lid.

If all that weren’t enough, OnePlus even throws in an IP55 certification for sweat and dirt resistance. This makes them safe for the gym or going for a run, which is nice since you won’t need to buy a separate pair of buds for working out.

Loud, booming sound that you can customize

I was left very impressed with the sound quality from the OnePlus Buds 3. Serious audiophiles might not be blown away, but the rest of us will be enjoying our favorite music with a sound profile that’s loud, warm, full of bass and surprisingly great with detail at high volumes.

OnePlus includes 10.4-millimeter woofers and 6-millimeter tweeters in the Buds 3, capable of making everything from Justin Timberlake’s “Everything I Thought It Was” to Johnny Cash’s “At Folsom Prison” sound terrific. Music felt wide and well detailed, regardless of the song I played, while your favorite pop and rap songs will benefit from the deep bass level. I’ll admit, the bass was a bit too overbearing for my music taste, so I cranked it down in the settings app and it made my listening experience much better.

Speaking of which, you can customize the sound quality to your liking. There are various EQ settings to tinker with, as well as a custom EQ setting that can build your own sound profile based on the size of your ears and how well you can hear. It didn’t do much for me personally, but I’m sure results will vary for everyone.

I also enjoyed a few podcasts and YouTube videos with the Buds 3, and vocal performance was generally good. At higher volumes, voices can get a bit screechy, but I only found that to be the case a couple of times. Generally speaking, these are some of the best sounding earbuds you’ll find for $100 or less.

Compared to the similarly priced Nothing Ear (2), the Buds 3 sounded fuller with a stronger focus on ensuring your music really cranked. I like Nothing’s tamer approach to sound quality, but if I’m being honest, the Buds 3 are more fun to listen to. The Ear (2) are great buds for detailed listening; the Buds 3 are great for jamming out.

Solid active noise cancellation

Another thing I was surprised by was the quality of the active noise cancellation. While it isn’t the best I’ve heard on a pair of earbuds, these buds cost just $100, and the ANC performance outpaces that price point quite a bit.

I turned the feature on and compared it to the noise cancellation of the Ear (2)s, my AirPods Pro, and my Pixel Buds Pro. Surprisingly enough, it held up during my testing. All background noise was suppressed equally well, and there wasn’t a lot of noise bleed or a pressurized feeling, something that’s hard to avoid with any headphones. Yes, you can find better ANC out there, but I was delighted by how well it worked on the OnePlus Buds 3.

Plenty of battery life, even with ANC on

I used ANC a lot, and despite that, the Buds 3 could still last me a long time on a charge. OnePlus says the buds are rated for 6.5 hours while using ANC and 10 hours with it off, and those numbers lined up with my testing. This means that you can easily get more usage out of them than the Ear (2) or AirPods, which typically last about an hour or two less.

The charging case that comes with the buds offers another 21.5 hours with ANC or an additional 34 hours while not using ANC at all, which means you can take these puppies on a weekend getaway and forget about the charger. When it’s time to juice up, it never seems to take very long at all; I drained them completely and recharged them in about an hour, which wasn’t bad.

Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging on the Buds 3, but that’s to be expected from a pair of earbuds at this price.

Good microphone quality

I also appreciated the solid mics on the Buds 3. It’s hard to find expensive earbuds with good microphones, let alone budget-friendly buds. From phone calls to voice recordings, the microphones performed well and didn’t sound overtly wet or pitchy.

What I didn’t like about them

Transparency mode needs work

For every lower-cost pair of earbuds with ANC typically follows a bad Transparency mode, and that’s what the OnePlus Buds 3 are suffering from.

Flick the feature on and you’re greeted by the sounds of your environment … but underwater. Well, not completely submerged, but with enough dampening that it feels cheap and like an afterthought. While you can definitely have a conversation with someone while using the feature, I wouldn’t recommend it for anything else. For example, if you’re walking down a street with a slight breeze, you won’t be able to hear anything — it’ll all get drowned out. I also realized that cars passing by are kind of hard to hear so, y’know, be careful out there.

Whether it’s cheap hardware or poor optimization, the Transparency mode isn’t worth turning on for anything more than your brother bothering you for the 80th time asking you to listen to his latest TikTok idea (totally unrelatable, I know).

3D Audio is a gimmick

There’s a feature in the settings for the Buds 3 called “3D Audio” that’s supposed to give the music you listen to a Spatial Audio-type feel, and guess what? I turned it off after about 60 seconds. It’s simply not worth using at all. Unless you find a recording of a song that’s been mastered for 3D audio in such a magical way that it’s better than the original version, just keep it disabled.

Touch controls are a bit spotty

To control things like playback and volume, you swipe up, swipe down, pinch and tap the OnePlus Buds 3. There are all sorts of functions built in, and you can customize the controls to an extent.

While the controls are easy to learn and use, they can be kind of spotty. There have been more than a few times that I’ve swiped up to increase the volume and the buds simply did nothing. Similarly, I’d have to pinch the buds a couple of times for Transparency mode to kick in, then a couple more to go back to ANC. It should be one pinch to do this, but it’s taken more than that on a number of occasions.

I haven’t been able to figure out a reason behind this issue, as it doesn’t happen for any discernible reason — it just happens. Regardless, know that if you start using these buds and fumble a few times with touch controls, it’s not just you.

It’s best to pair them with an Android phone

As is the case with most products from Android heavy hitters, it’s best to use the OnePlus Buds 3 with Android phones. They come with Google Fast Pair that can sync them to the rest of the devices assigned to your Google account, and the Hey Melody companion app feels better optimized for Android than its iOS counterpart. In addition, if you pair them to a OnePlus phone, you can get to its settings right through the default Settings app.

Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely get them to work with an iPhone (you can even long-press on the buds to access Siri), but the experience doesn’t feel as smooth or integrated.

Bottom line

Given its success over the years in the low- to mid-range sector, it’s no surprise that OnePlus has produced a great pair of $100 earbuds. The OnePlus Buds 3 offer solid sound quality, long battery life, a comfortable design and noise cancellation for less than half the cost of the most popular earbuds out there. Despite their shortcomings, the Buds 3 have quickly become one of my go-to recommendations for anyone who needs a pair of earbuds under $100.