OnePlus Buds 4 brings a refined design, improved audio, better ANC, increased battery life and more

Music News

OnePlus Buds 4 brings a refined design, improved audio, better ANC, increased battery life and more

By Tom NewmanJuly 9, 20259 mins read

OnePlus unveil their fourth generation Buds earbuds with a number of improvements, while keeping the cost low at $100.

Chinese technology company OnePlus has just announced five new products, including phones, a tablet, a smart watch and earbuds – Nord 5, Nord CE 5, Pad Lite, Watch 3 and Buds 4. While the Nord 5, Nord CE 5 and Pad Lite are launching only in Europe and India, the Watch 3 and Buds 4 are coming to the US. The earbuds are OnePlus’ latest version of their Buds line, originally launched in 2020 as a budget alternative to AirPods. Buds are priced in the middle of OnePlus’ lineup, between the budget Nord Buds and Buds Pro.

OnePlus Buds 4 keeps the same core stem-style design, with in-ear tips. They are launching in two colors – Storm Gray and Zen Green. Each earbud weighs just 4.73g, with the total weight of the buds and case coming in at just under 50g. The buds themselves are IP55 dust and water resistant. There are medium sized ear tips pre-installed on the earbuds, with additional small and large buds included in the box.

Internally, there are a pair of new drivers in each bud. An 11mm woofer with a 30-layer ceramic-metal diaphragm drives the lower frequencies, while a 6mm tweeter with a flat diaphragm handles the higher tones. There are dual DACs, one for each driver. Bluetooth 5.4 with support for LHDC 5.0 codec brings Hi-Res Audio up to 1 Mbps, 24-bit/192kHz on compatible Android devices. There’s also dual-device connection, Google Fast Pair for one-touch pairing on Android devices, and Steady Connect for improved range on select OnePlus phones.

Noise cancellation also gets a boost with the Buds 4. There’s standard Active Noise Cancellation mode, which claims up to 55dB of noise reduction and is 3x better at cancelling voices over the previous generation. There’s also Transparency Mode to help you stay aware of your surroundings and Adaptive Mode, which dynamically switches between ANC and Transparency Mode in real-time. Using Adaptive Mode, the earbuds analyse the fit in your ear canal and ambient noise 800 times per second using algorithms to optimise your listening experience, such as cancelling out most noise in the metro, cancelling out some street noise while staying safe, or cancelling less noise in the office to help you hear co-workers.

Noise cancellation and calls are handled by 3-mics on each bud – a feed-forward, feed-back and talk mic. AI noise cancellation filters out noise and wind for calls.

Battery life is boosted with the OnePlus Buds 4. With ANC off, you’ll get up to 11 hours of playback on a single charge and 45 hours when combined with the charging case. With ANC on, these numbers are reduced to 6 hours and 24 hours. This is based on music playback with volume set to 50% and using AAC. Higher volumes, LHDC and calls will all have an impact on battery life. A 10 minute case charge will provide up to 11 hours of playback. The charging case supports USB-C, with a short USB-A to USB-C cable included in the box. Unfortunately there’s no sign of wireless charging on the Buds 4.

The Buds 4 have touch controls. Taps and long presses can be configed via the app to play/pause, next track, previous track, the device’s voice assistant, camera control, AI translation and ANC mode. A swipe up or down on the stem adjusts the volume.

On top of customizable touch controls, the app provides a number of other features. These are handled in the HeyMelody app on iOS and Android or baked into the phone Settings on OnePlus devices. There are three presets, BassWave mode and a custom 6-band equalizer for total control of the sound. Golden Sound scans your ear and gives you a listening test to provide the optimal sound, OnePlus 3D Audio brings spatial audio to the earbuds, a gaming mode reduces latency to 47ms, find my earbuds helps you locate lost earbuds, and you can install firmware updates all on the app. The AI translation feature on OnePlus phones displays the conversation in both languages for real-time bilingual conversations, with support for “dozens of languages”.