I've redone this review after having the IEMs for over a year now. Enjoy.

This review of the Beats Flex will try and cover the daily quality of life stuff as well as go somewhat in depth with sound analysis and how they sound in a somewhat technical nature, since I've gotten better at talking about that stuff.

Also, I’ve updated the section about Bluetooth performance.

Introduction

The Beats Flex.

Apple's $50 attempt to get you to give them even more money with your brand new iPhone 12, and a shockingly good one at that. Unlike many Beats products I've seen in the past (including their predecessor, the Beats^X ), the box is tiny. Inside the box, you find the earphones themselves, three different sized sets of two ear tips (including a double bud one, which I used for this review), a USB-C to USB-C cable, a Beats troll sticker and a crapload of paperwork you can largely ignore. Surprisingly no post-purchase marketing, which is always nice.

Most companies that make wireless earphones like this don't understand that this category of neckband wireless earphones aren't just music devices; they're an extension of your phone. They're your phone's companion. They're a bit of your phone that you're probably going to have around your neck all day if you're like me. If you're the type to make loads of phone calls, these should be there to not only make sure you sound crystal clear while yelling at someone but to always be at the ready in such a situation. They should reduce the effort of you listening to a quick voice message on a chat app. And obviously, they should be good at playing music. Well then, what's living with the Beats like?

Living with the Beats

In a few words, pretty great. I'm upgrading from a set of LG Tone Ultra HBS810 headphones, so I expected a similar experience. With my iPhone 12 mini, the Beats have the unfair Apple ecosystem advantage over the LG set. Let me explain. The LGs were a great phone companion - they vibrated whenever my phone rang, they had a great sounding microphone (usually), and they sounded pretty good too. The Beats blow these away because of that unfair Apple advantage. The Beats have automatic audio routing, so whenever the Beats aren't attached with the magnets behind the buds, the sound is going through them. They also pause your music if you attach them, and they also automatically answer calls when you detach them. This is a huge one up over the LGs, as I'd have to manually route audio to them based on if I was wearing them, and I had just used my phone speaker for something.

On top of this, the usual Apple ecosystem niceties are present and accounted for. The W1 chip pairs them fast and every device on your iCloud account - even my iPhone 5s running iOS 12.4.something paired to them automatically. Find My support is there - even if it becomes completely useless once the Beats are switched off, as it only shows when and where last someone else's iDevice saw them. You can’t mark them as lost, unfortunately. iOS 15’s “you left this device behind” feature doesn’t work on them either.

The cable seems to have held up okay in the last year. It's rubberised and flat, so they don't get tangled, but it has the downside of being extremely noisy. I don't have a beard, but you might, and if the cable rubs up against it, you're going to hear it. Same if you're wearing a high hoodie. At this time, I'm not worried about it decaying and exposing any of the copper on the inside.

The 12-hour battery life is also very nice to have but falls short of the LGs. The Beats have precise battery reporting, which is very, very nice. I charge these roughly every four days, with maybe an hour of usage daily. I was travelling for about 5 hours yesterday, and they were connected to my phone pretty much throughout at near max volume (I know this is bad for my ears, but I literally couldn't hear shit below 80% inside an aeroplane), and got through that with 55% remaining from a full charge. That's pretty good. According to what they reported, my LGs got me through a 17-hour bus ride at 70% volume with 60% remaining. I continued to use those for an hour daily and kept them connected to my phone 24/7 for the next week before they complained about the low battery. That's outstanding battery life.

Of course, this isn't to say that the Beats have poor battery life. That's not it at all. Although standby drain could be much better, the Beats legitimately have great battery life. I'm just saying that competitors at lower price range absolutely smash these in that respect. Also, they turn off after like an hour and a half of no activity, which I found slightly annoying.

The microphone also isn't great in less than ideal situations. If you're in a loud environment, just use your phone's microphone. They do an okay job of cancelling wind noise but I think they're held back by their hardware here: the microphone is in the inner part of your neck, and there's no secondary noise cancelling mic. Everything happens in the W1, and it really struggles sometimes.

Performance on non-Apple devices

So, these earphones use Bluetooth 5.0. Bluetooth is backwards compatible by nature, but absolute volume is only supported when the source device also uses Bluetooth 5.0. If it does not, the volume may be quite soft.

My Nintendo Switch took a moment to find them for the initial pairing process. The latency is very noticeable, but that's what you get when you game with Bluetooth. I tested the latency by opening Breath of the Wild, going to the Akkala tech lab and running down that road to the Decayed Guardian, and trying to parry that attack. I use sound cues to help me figure out when to press Y, but I died. No bueno for gaming. Also, the volume buttons on the earphone doesn't work with the Switch, but I think that’s because the Switch uses Bluetooth 4.1.

If you have an Android, there's a Beats app you can use, and in that case, the pairing process is identical to that on iOS. You lose out on the automatic audio routing (unless your Samsung supports SmartThings, but even in that case you have to route the audio manually), and the magnets in the buds become another play/pause/answer calls button, as long as the app stays open. f you don't want to use the app, that's okay because you really aren't missing out on much, and you can pair by holding the power button for 5 seconds. If your Android supports AAC, which many don't, it should use that codec by default. My 2016 Galaxy Tab A did this. Otherwise, they work the same as they do on iOS.

If you have a Windows PC not running Bluetooth 5.0... yeah. Bluetooth audio is a mess on Windows 10, with there being basically no codec support other than SBC (and aptX if you have an Intel Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module which I luckily do). Windows 10 is extremely connect-happy with Bluetooth audio devices. It will connect to any Bluetooth audio devices you have nearby without asking you, without warning or notification of any sort except for you not hearing anything from your previous audio devices. This is a problem with the Beats because they don't have multipoint Bluetooth; any active connection is replaced completely when another device tries to connect. And guess what happened to me a bunch. That's more of a gripe I have with Windows 10, though. They sound fine on my laptop, but they're very soft. The volume is very, very low even if Windows' volume is 100%, and the volume buttons on the headset don't do anything. They also frequently disconnect randomly, but I blame that on Windows 10 because they don't do this to anything else. I can't get the microphone to work at all on Windows, but that's probably because Windows doesn't switch to HFP whenever it tries to use the microphone; it remains connected to A2DP. It’s not great.

If you are running Bluetooth 5.0, it’s slightly better. There’s less latency and the volume buttons and microphone work, and if you’re running Windows 11, there is AAC support. But, Windows is still Windows so all the gripes I have with Windows and how it behaves with Bluetooth audio remain the same.

Sound quality

Time to get to the reason why you bought these. The referee for this review is my Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, a very neutral closed-back studio headphone.

To put it graphically: here's a graph, courtesy of RTINGS.com.

There's a healthy 5dB boost in the bass, and the extension is actually great. I test bass extension with this video, where someone pitched a sine wave over the THX logo. The bass starts off so low, and you can feel the driver making those huge movements in your head. The bass is very good, but it bleeds a little into the low mids and can make male singers with deep voices sound very big. Not boomy, but big. The high bass presence also makes them very warm as well, and I really like that.

The mids sound okay. There's a scoop on the high mids, not sure why that's there, but that can make some female voices a tiny bit shouty (Sia in Elastic Heart is particularly shouty). But, they are presented very well with very good instrument separation.

The treble... could be a lot better. The low to mid treble is very recessed, making cymbals and siblance sound very quiet compared to the rest of the music. Hi hats in particular straight up disappear in some songs. Because of this, they can be a little dark-sounding for some songs. Treble extension isn't amazing either, so there's not much air or sparkle to even the brightest pop songs.

That said, pop music sounds good even if you're smashing it out of your iPhone.

If you listen to a lot of hip-hop and EDM, you will be right at home here. For those kinds of music, this earphone is very fun. Dangerous by Big Data and Joywave is embarrassingly danceable here. Lemonade by Internet Money (yes I know it's not a great song but it's just a fun mindless song damnit) is an entire bop through here, and very sing-along-y. This is a properly bassy earphone, and bassheads will feel right at home here. I wish it had a bit more sparkle at the top end, though.

And for those curious, here is the playlist that I use to test headphones. You may not agree with some of my choices, but this is what I use.

Testing setup:

• Audio source: Apple iPhone 12 mini

• Music source: Spotify @ very high

• Codec: AAC @ 256kbps

• Tips: the double bud ones

Questions nobody exactly asked, but I answered out of curiosity:

• Do these pause the music when you take them out of your ears?

No. They only pause when you clack their magnets together.

• So you can take one out of your ear and clack it against the other while it's in your ear, and the music will pause?

That's correct.

• If I'm walking and I walk past a powerful magnet, will these get ripped out of my ears?

This depends solely on how good your seal is. If it's a weak seal, they might get pulled out a little.

• If the magnets clack to something that isn't the buds, will the music pause?

No. It seems they detect specifically each other's magnets.

• What if I clack them to the buds of another Beats Flex?

I'm... I'm not too sure about this one. If I ever find another pair out in the wild, I'll come back and edit this.

• So, you mentioned that the music stops when you take them out and clack them together. When you put them back into your ear, does the music unpause?

It's supposed to. Sometimes it does. A lot of the time, it doesn't.

• Does it rewind the music a bit to account for you taking time to clack them together once they're out of your ears so that you don't miss any music while they were out of your ears?

It does not do this.

• Wouldn't it be cool if they did?

It'd be a tiny thing I doubt that nobody but me would notice. But yes, it would be cool.

• Does it at least account for you taking time to put them back in your ears to resume the music after you separate the magnets?

Yes, it does. It waits about a second and a half for you to do this.

• How long did it take for you to figure out which side is left and right when putting them on?

The little... pills? The pills in the cable are the same size and shape, so if you're looking from this alone, you're going to mess it up almost every time you put them around your neck. The only thing that's helped me mess it up less when putting them on is to look for the power button: that's supposed to be facing behind you on your right side. You can also look for the USB-C port: that's supposed to be facing behind you on your left side.

Conclusion

The Beats Flex are incredible earphones for the money. They're a great extension to your phone because when you're not using them, they pretty much disappear and become a very low Beats necklace, something people used to do with the Beats Pro - only this time, they're actually useful. If you listen to EDM, hip-hop and pop, they're great for that. You're not going to be doing critical listening with these, not a chance. But they're still amazing for the money.

Other options you may want to consider

I'm going to be focusing on the other Apple/Beats buds here, as if you're interested in these, you probably have an iPhone.

Apple AirPods (gen 2 as I've yet to try the gen 3s)

I hate how the AirPods fit. They get incredibly uncomfortable after like half an hour. The microphone is not great, they have no seal and they have absolutely no sub bass whatsoever. But, I think they sound pretty good otherwise. (Again, this is what I think of them. I just don't like them. Clearly millions more people disagree with me.) They get more total battery life between case charges, but they also cost more than twice what the Beats cost.

BeatsX

The older brother of the Beats Flex. These have a more balanced sound profile, have a better microphone that's closer to your mouth, but they charge with Lightning, so a bit less platform agnostic. (Can we get rid of that, already?) And they cost a lot more. And the battery life is a lot worse. Lots of people are also getting a pink light on them, so there may be long term reliability issues here. But hey, they're not going to last forever.

LG Tone (any of them really)

The LG Tones are not Apple buds, so no ecosystem niceties, but they all sound really good with a bass-first profile, and a very well-represented top end. Very V shaped sound. But, depending on the model you get, they can cost a lot more and you could be stuck with micro-USB. I can however vouch for their durability, as I used a pair of Tone Pros from 2015 up until 2020 because the cable in the right driver became extremely unreliable after all those years.

Final verdict

Are you a basshead with an iPhone? If yes, these are a great value buy.