Realme Buds Q2s Review: Basic Smart Buy for under 2k price point?

Realme held a launch event in India in the last week of April 2022. During the event, the company launched Realme GT Neo 3 smartphone, Realme Pad Mini, Realme TVs, and Realme Q2s TWS buds. The Realme Q2s buds claim to give best-in-class audio features with a stylish design, long battery life, and quick charging, and all this for Just Rs. 1999. They come in 3 attractive colors and are IPX4 rated for water and splash resistance. But are they really what Realme claims them to be? Or there are some kinks in its armor, let’s find out.

Realme Buds Q2s Review: Design & Fit

Realme has tried a new kind of design from their regular for the Q2s Buds. Following the footsteps of Buds Q2 Neo and Q2, Realme Buds Q2s are a combination of them both plus a little different. The buds come in a transparent case that looks like a space capsule from afar. Buds are cobble-shaped and come in 3 colors- Paper green, Paperwhite, and Night black, all inspired by the Realme GT 2 smartphone.

We got the green variant for review purposes and it did look different from all the other TWS I have seen in a while. The case of the buds has a matte finish at the base, while the top part is transparent showing the buds clearly. There is a Realme Branding inside and a power indicator on the front of the case. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port for charging but there are no physical buttons anywhere on the entire case.

The buds have an ergonomic in-ear beak-like design to adapt to one’s inner ear shape. The buds fit perfectly well into my ears and this makes the listening experience better. The case as well as the buds feel featherlight in ears as well as in pockets. The case weighs just 39 grams whereas the buds weigh 4.1 grams each. The earbuds are IPX4 rated for water resistance which made them perfect for use while working out and in any kind of outdoor environment. The cobble is actually for touch control and its functions will be explained in the features section of the review.         

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Although the design is good-looking the case tends to look dirty even with slight dust on it because of its light color. This problem will be faced with both paper green and paperwhite variants, black will be an exception.

Realme Buds Q2s Review: Battery

Realme’s TWS has been good in the battery department. Its last launch Realme Buds Air 3 has a good battery life and the same goes for Buds Q2s. The Realme Buds Q2s give around 29 hours of battery life on a single charge (case included). It is one of the best battery life in the price segment at the moment. Since I used the buds for around 4 hours a day, I did not need to charge them for 7-to 8 days, which is good.

Each earbud can last up to 6-7 hours depending on one’s usage and volume levels. For me, it lasted for 6.5 hours as I mostly keep the volume low and ANC turned off. As for charging, the buds with case take 2 to 2.5 hours to charge completely which is a long time considering devices these days. However, in case you don’t have much time, a 10-minute quick charge will give you about 3 hours of battery life. The battery percentage will be visible in the support app installed on your smartphone.

Realme Buds Q2s Review: Features

Realme Buds Q2s come with ENC and easy-to-use touch controls. There is a gaming mode that can be used while one is playing any game on their device. Switching on this gaming mode makes sure sound quality is different from what you hear when you listen to songs. The Buds can be controlled by connecting them to the Reality Link App.

The app allows you to customize and control the features of the earbuds and shows the battery life of both the buds and the case. It also shows firmware updates so that you can keep the buds up to date. The voice can also be customized via the app and a low latency mode aka game mode can be switched on too which claims to give an 88ms response delay.

Transparency mode makes sure one is aware of surroundings even with ENC. Dual microphones ensure the voice quality is one of the best in its class. It supports Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity which makes Buds Q2s pairing with any device seamless. The device supports dual pairing which means you can connect the buds to 2 devices simultaneously for better usage. If the Buds are already paired with a device, then buds connect to it as soon as you take them out of the case.

To pair the buds, there is a button inside the charging case that has to be pressed for the device to enter pairing mode. Touch functions of the Realme Buds Q2s are as follows-

• Double-tap- play/pause music, answer/end call
• Triple tap- Go to the next song
• Press and hold one side- Reject the call
• Press and hold both sides- Switch noise-canceling mode/transparency mode

Realme Q2s Buds Review: Sound Quality and ENC

The Realme Buds Q2s come with 10mm dynamic bass boost drivers with support for ENC i.e. Environmental Noise Cancellation. This is basically ensuring a better fit to isolate surrounding noise. The ENC blocks some sounds but it cannot block every.

The sound quality is good considering its price range. The bass-boosted sound seems fine but only till the volume is at a medium level. If you take the volume level to above 80, the audio starts to get slightly distorted and unpleasant to the ears. There are 3 modes to choose from- Bass boost+, Balance mode, and bright mode. Frankly, speaking I did not find much of a difference in audio quality when I switched on to any of these modes.

To test the audio quality, I mostly try and make a playlist with different kinds of songs to judge how the highs, lows, mids, and other things sound on any TWS earbuds. With the Realme Buds Q2s I heard Dhunki by Neha Bhasin, the song has electric guitar and drums as the core instruments and they both sounded decent at the mid-volume level. Singer’s voice blended well with the instruments being played in the background.

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Woh Humsafar Tha by Qurat-ul-Ain Balouch sounded immersive as her powerful voice hits all the right notes and doesn’t get overshadowed by piano and guitar notes in the song. At high volume, the voice tends to prick your ears which is a bummer. Overall, the sound quality is good but could have been better.

The 88ms low-latency gaming mode makes sure that the audio experience while gaming is lag-free and effective even during online multiplayer gaming.

Realme Buds Q2s Verdict: Should you buy it?

The Realme Buds Q2s come with a unique design and have long battery life. It has a low latency gaming mode and good connectivity features too. Although the battery takes long to charge and the sound quality is good considering its price point is under 2k, Buds Q2s might just be your choice if you want a basic TWS device for everyday use.