The Neobuds Planar from Edifier are a comfortable earbud that sports similar accessories to the larger, over-ear headphones (such as the WN950NB) with a small carry bag, charger and a varied bunch of different sized eartips.
Audio with the Neobuds Planar is crisp and clear, this combined with its noise cancelling technology really puts you in the middle of your music. The only thing I have noticed is that it does seem to lack a bit in the bass department with more punchy music/sounds coming across as dampened when used, even at higher volumes.
While in the middle of listening to your tunes on your walk to work you might run into someone and need to talk, that’s where the handy wear detection feature — which notices when you remove the earbud from your ear, and pauses your music or activity for you —comes in. It’s really handy, and makes sure you don’t miss your favourite song, or have to skip back two-or-three songs when you get back to walking.
On the flip side, it does seem to specifically want to turn my music on every time that I use them. If I’m trying to watch Youtube and put the buds in, at times, my Spotify playlist just picks up from where I last left it, even if the app wasn’t open on my phone.
The Neobuds Planar have around 30 hours of battery life with continued use and can be charged to max in a matter of around an hour. If the buds are dead then they can be fully charged, in about an hour, from their case.
At first, when using the Neobuds Planar, I thought that it didn’t have any touch controls which for a higher end midlevel pair of buds seemed strange. It turned out that they did but they were located on the side of the lower part of the bud and require a bit of a firm touch to activate. I have a beard as well, which did lead to it kind of getting in the way as they sit quite snug to your face.
You can customise the touch settings with any combination of music/call related features you can think of, as well as selecting which side does which feature, making it highly customisable.
It’s not just touch features in the companion app but power, mode selection and lighting effects for the case… as well as controls for the percentage of noise cancelling that you want active at any one time. The features that are exclusively tied to the app are great, and there’s some really cool options there, however others may see it as unnecessary and may not want to use an app while performing other tasks.
Overall, the Neobuds Planar are a solid pair of earbuds with decent sound with a heavy reliance on the app with pretty in depth controls. They are priced a little higher than I personally would like for a pair of earbuds, coming in at around £150, but if you want a premium product with premium features then, with their solid noise cancelling and clear sound, you could easily justify treating yourself to a pair.
The Neobuds Planar can be purchased on Edifier’s website.
