Customer Ratings & Reviews

First off lets start with the miss conception of the battery life. Its 5.5hrs with ANC on. Its 8 hrs with ANC Off. Bass is just as good as Bose, the wow factor for me, blind sided me. In my opinion sony linkbuds sound better then Bose in thr mid range and the equalizer actually works so if you dint wont bass then turn it down. Comfort wise these are great no complaints, the new Bose Quietcomfort Earbuds are a little more comfortable since they took out that hard plastic out that connects to the earbuds, this have that hard plastic piece with the defult eartips but pull off comfort. Sound is amazing mids are better and don’t get drowned out at all, bass is strong but dont over power the mids like Bose has a hard time with. Microphone is great too, not as loud as most but could be louder.. music gets loud so yiu wont have to worry there.

Have been a Sony fan from the good old walkman days and then during the mobile days with walkman series, but since the airpods came out, haven't used anything else simply because of Apple's ease of use and integration with their products. But they lag in the sound department and i've never been content. Picked these up and I cant complain at all. I am no music expert by an means by I do enjoy listening to music quite a lot. My daily driver is an over the head walkman which is bulky for sure. But these simply sound amazing. I started with normal office calls and they are comfortable for long stretches about 6 hours. Battery life is excellent and quick charge is super helpful. Love the bass and music simply sounds way better compared to airpods. I work from home and its dead quiet where I live, so noise cancellation is not something I wanted but it has it. I have an office trip next month so can update how they perform in the flight. Do feel they are a tad bit expensive but I will recommend them for sure. if you're on the fence, go for it, you will not regret these.

These earbuds are great! They generally stay in my ear perfectly and are incredibly comfortable. The only issue I ever have is if I’m smiling a lot, it moves them in a way that tends to loosen up their hold in my ears. I can’t say enough praise for how comfy these are, I barely notice them. I’m pretty sensitive to the fit of earbuds in my ears, but I love how these fit so much. My friend who has very small ears and is even more sensitive to earbuds tried them and also liked the fit, I had the medium sized buds on them and they were just a little too big for my friend. The audio quality is very good, I wouldn’t say they’re amazing but as far as true wireless headphones go I’d say they’re pretty great. The touch controls are alright, they can be a little finicky at times but are usually fine. You can adjust the touch sensitivity in the Sony app. The touch controls work well even while wearing a hat. I do wish you could customize the touch controls more, the description implies you can fully customize them but it’s more like selecting from presets. The battery life is very good, and they charge quickly in the charging case.

Very great product everyone should flock towards getting getting a Sony product because of this song you can tune your sound the way you want to and because of that I can’t have it my way I like it. I love it and I will continue to recommend it.

Good it is a good product too have listening all the time

Sony’s Linkbud Fit earbuds are small and light, and have an earbud tip that makes them fit snugly in your ear. You get several sizes of silicone tips to also help give you a tight seal when they are in your ear. Mine are a Sage Green color which are unique, as is the pearlish looking charging case that also recharges the buds via a USB connection. Pairing is easily done via the bluetooth settings on whatever device you’re using these on. The moment I open my case near a device and remove a bud, so far, the devices seem to be able to sense them nearby, and I’ve been getting a prompt on my computer, phone, and TV asking if I’d like to pair them to the device. A few clicks and it’s done. A QR code in the box will connect you to a help guide should you need it, and a Sony Sound Connect app via the app store can be downloaded that will allow you to find your buds, and make equalizer adjustments, adaptive sound controls (noise canceling, ambient sounds, etc) and more. The app was a little buggy at first and would not connect initially, but after three attempts it finally set up correctly. There will be at least one update, so through the app you can download it to the buds (takes a long time – be aware). Once set up and paired, I find the sound to be good on the Linkbuds, especially once I fiddle with the settings for a bit to get it all set up right. Noise canceling works pretty well and uses AI to adjust and adapt based on your surroundings, so if you want, you can set it so you won’t miss important sounds near you, while still blocking out some of the unwanted noises. Cranked up, you’ll just hear what’s coming through the buds. So far I haven’t heard any abnormally loud obnoxious “hissing” sounds you sometimes get from buds when using noise canceling. Balance is good, as are tones. When using for phone calls, I can hear the caller really well, and they can hear me pretty well, though I do have to speak slightly louder than normal for them to get the full sound from my voice. So maybe good, but not great, when it comes to phone calls, but very good when using to listen to music or TV. Battery life is pretty good. Sony says you can get around 5 ½ hours per charge, but if you crank up the noise canceling, this does drain the battery a little quicker. You can give them a quick top-up charge of just a few minutes in the case to get more than an hour of regular use if need be, too. The charging case will hold enough charge to let you recharge the buds 3 more times before you need to recharge the case itself, which takes a couple of hours depending on the charger you use. Side note, there is a certain amount of water resistance to these which technically allow them to be used when working out, etc. But I found them to get a bit sweaty pretty quickly and one side did sputter a couple of times when it got wet – personally based on my experience then, I would avoid water and excessive sweaty activities using them. Overall I do really like the Sony Linkbud Fit buds. They are more comfortable than some others I’ve tried, the sound is well within the good range. They fit snugly and don’t fall out. The Sage color is unique. Battery life is acceptable. Noise canceling works well enough to keep obnoxious sounds out. The only things I don’t like are the slightly buggy app when setting up, the ridiculously long time it takes to download and install updates (an hour!), and the sputtering on one side when it got sweaty/wet. The mics could be a little better during phone calls. But I’d still recommend these as a good set of buds, especially when on sale.

I’ve had some time with the Sony LinkBuds Fit, and while they do a lot of things right, there were a few areas where they could be better. Here’s what I thought: Fit and Comfort: The first thing that stood out to me was the fit. Sony’s Air Fitting Supporters were a welcome surprise. Unlike other earbuds that rely on rigid ear canal guides, these were soft and flexible, which made them super comfortable, especially for long periods or during a workout. They stayed snug without feeling like they were digging in, which I really appreciated. Sound Quality: The sound was fantastic. I customized the EQ through the Sound Connect app, which walks you through a setup process that feels like an ear test, where you adjust the settings based on what sounds better to you. I ended up with a sound profile that was perfect for me, and I was really impressed with how it handled different genres of music. App Experience: The Sound Connect app was great overall, but I did have one gripe. While it lets you customize the tap features, I wanted more flexibility. It groups functions into categories (like playback or transparency), but I wished I could mix and match. For example, I wanted the right earbud to handle all my playback controls and volume up, and the left earbud to control transparency, SIRI, and volume down. Unfortunately, that kind of setup wasn’t possible. Tap Controls: This was my biggest issue with the LinkBuds Fit. The tap controls were inconsistent at best. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t reliably get double taps or triple taps to register, and adjusting the sensitivity in the app didn’t help much. If you’re out on a run or trying to make adjustments while working out, I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to find the right spot and get the taps to register. Charging Case: I wasn’t a fan of the case design. It’s chunky and cube-shaped, like a toddler’s block. While I liked the smooth touch on the bottom, the marbleized top looked cheap, and overall, the case felt too awkwardly shaped for something you’d want to carry around in your pocket. Final Thoughts: The Sony LinkBuds Fit offer great sound and a super comfortable fit, but the inconsistent tap controls and bulky case design hold them back from being an everyday go-to for me. If Sony can improve the tap sensitivity and slim down the case, these would be near-perfect wireless earbuds.

With a billion sets of earbuds available, what's one more set of earbuds in an entire ocean, what makes them stand out? It seems like Everyone is just copying everyone else, so why pick these over another set? Packaging: To start, they are packed conscientiously, not a bunch of excess packaging or literature, just enough to showcase the product and even give you a little bit of a 'reveal' in the process. the top opens like a lid to showcase the headset when you first open it, which is nice in such a small amount of packaging. To me presentation is often what's most lost in packaging these days so to find a set packed so lightly and still manage to have that presentation aspect shows a level of forethought that is usually missed. Connectivity: These earbuds immediately popped up on my Galaxy S21 asking to be connected, which is nice as I usually only see that option with the brand that matches the same brand as my phone. This makes it one step easier to connect the headset rather than having to open the bluetooth menu and go hunting for the device. To me this doesn't just make it easier for the average consumer, but also for those a little less tech savvy to be able to use something like these that might be a little daunting at first. Usage: The Sony Sound Connect app is on par with some of the better ones for headsets available, it doesn't clock when trying to detect it's own devices, has plenty of controls for audio as well as managing the noise cancelling aspects. An interesting piece of this is the automatically adjusting ambient sound control which changes based on your environment. I've tested some other brands recently that leave you in this truly 'cone of silence' type of situation where you literally block out everything, and while that might be good for some, in most cases I've found you need at least some level of awareness of your surroundings. With the automatic ambient sound control they go a long way towards blocking that background noise while still keeping you aware. The literature and settings say it uses AI to learn your surroundings and automatically adjust based on locations you visit frequently. I dont know if I've had them long enough to experience that yet, though I do notice that while it will block background noise, if someone is trying to talk to me it will allow their voice through without that 'cone of silence' effect I've experienced with other brands. I think this is a valuable addition to this set to prevent annoyance on both my part and the part of the speaker, whomever I'm talking to. Audio quality: They are exceptionally good, though I will admit not the best I've recently used, these are also not the most expensive I've recently used, to me it's probably due to the tradeoff of the noise cancelling capabilities, in allowing additional sound through to keep you aware of your surroundings, you're going to lose a little bit of fidelity, again not necessarily a bad thing, and to regain most of that, you can set it to the 'cone of silence' mode where it blocks everything out, but that's not where these excel. Set it to automatic ambient and let them do what they do best. Allow in what needs to come in and block what needs to be blocked. I imagine with firmware updates they will only improve with time. Battery life: I will say I've gone a whole day without even having to consider recharging the case, which is in line with what it says, and a quick few minutes in the case will get me tons more listening time when the headsets themselves run low. I have yet to run them dead in even heavy usage during the day so it's more than enough for probably anyone. In light to medium usage you can get days of use from a single full charge. Overall: I think they are superb, the automatic ambient noise cancellation is excellent and bound to improve further, the sound quality is good and the battery life is amazing. In a sea of headsets these stand out because they give you that situational awareness that is often lacking when wearing a true noise cancelling headset, and for that reason I highly recommend them.

I needed a new pair of workout ear buds as my old wing tipped earbuds finally died. I’ve tried many different ear buds, but the only ones that stay in my ears while working out are the ones with a wing tip or wrap around the ear. Sony announced their new Link Bud Fit that is focused on staying in place with a bunch of other features that sounded interesting. I know Sony does its audio well from prior sound systems and headphones, but this will be my first try with their ear buds. Pros: - Comfortable and secure fit. - Adaptive ambient sound is amazing. - Touch controls on your head! Cons: - Case is a chunky. Setup & Initial Use: Even just taking the Link Bud Fit out of the box, you can tell Sony put in the attention to detail. The packaging opens with the cables, extra ear tips, and instructions all neatly slotted below the ear buds’ case in little drawer like boxes. It’s a neat little way to organize everything. Setup is easy, just scan the QR code and install the Sony Sound Connect app. Then follow the guided setup to add the Link Bud Fit and configure the additional features like Adaptive Sound Control, Smart Assistants, and other audio enhancement features. The Earbuds are super lightweight, to the point that I’ve forgotten I’ve had them in on more than one occasion. Even after wearing these earbuds for hours, there is no discomfort. The little wing tip is soft and flexible enough to fit most ear shapes. The ear tips included also go from Large to extra small, which are quite small. One thing I didn’t particularly like is the size and shape of the carrying case, it is chunky and oddly rounded. It doesn’t quite feel right in the hands nor in the pockets. A case you’d want to put in a bag over carrying in a pants pocket. Smart Features & Gestures: Adaptive Sound Control is by far my favorite smart feature. It adjusts the Ambient Sound feature to match the activity you are doing, while still providing a filter to sounds, such that loud or sudden sounds are reduced but still able to be heard clearly. Like a sudden horn of a car or slam of a door isn’t as jarring to the ears. I personally like this because it helps me focus while still hearing what is going on around me, even when in a crowd I can hear the person I’m talking to clearly while tuning out the background noise. You can be immersed in your music while sitting at the desk, then get up and go take the dog out for a walk and hear everything around you. It’s crazy. The Smart Gestures are great, providing enough hands-free options that I rarely had to open my phone which is exactly what I want with a workout ear bud. You can answer or reject calls simply by nodding or shaking your head. The extra crazy thing Sony did, is you don’t have to tap directly on the device. You can tap your actual ear or around your ear and trigger all the commands, which is helpful when you really don’t want to get the ear bud covered in sweat, chalk, or dirt. Additionally, there is a setting to pause or play when an ear bud is taken out which is great for when you need to talk to someone in the middle of a song, but want to pickup right where you were afterwards. Performance: Sony continues to show that they know how to make sound, sound good. While these are not the best sounding headphones I’ve tried, the Link Buds Fit are the sounding best ear buds I’ve tried thus far. Even on flat Equalizer there’s no deformation of sound, and with the customization you can adjust the sound profile with a manual or custom mode. I found the call performance was also substantially better, with multiple callers telling me I was crystal clear even when walking down a busy road. The microphone noise cancelling was quite impressive. The battery life on the buds is pretty good, the individual buds last around 5 hours of continuous play and the case carries around 21 hours of charge, which is more than a day of use on one full charge. This was enough for multiple days of continuous use for me, both in the gym and while out and about. The case charges the individual buds up relatively quickly, which is nice plus the case will do a quick charge in 5 mins that will provide up to 1 hour of charge. This is helpful if you’ve forgotten to charge the buds and case before heading out the door in the morning. Conclusion: If you are looking for a premium ear bud that stays in while working out or on the go, with a ton of smart features that take little effort to setup, the Sony Link Bud Fit is a perfect option. The smart features alone make it a strong suggestion to anyone. Sony did a great job with Adaptive Sound Control and comfortable fit. These will be my ear buds of choice going forward.

There are tons of options for earbuds anymore, and many are high quality, but Sony always seems to having a winning approach. Sony’s LinkBuds Fit stand out in their design, size, and in no small part for their clever and comfortable technique for providing a secure fit. __Sound & Features__ Sound is high quality, about on par with my other higher-end earbuds with balanced highs and lows. I find that noise cancelling allows some sharper noises to come through, but that the overall effect is good. Through the app, these are stand out for some of their features like Speak-to-Chat, which allow you to simply start talking to pause your music and turn on audio passthrough. It's convenient and I don’t find myself having to pull out my earbuds when someone interrupts. It’s a much more natural way to move from focusing on a task with music, to a brief discussion with someone. Then, with a quick double-tap, I’m back to my music. Sony’s new Sound Connect app provides a lot of these features and settings, presented cleanly in a modern app. Here you’ll find ways to adjust noise cancelling to your activity (Adaptive Sound Control), sound EQ modes and fine-tuning, view charge levels, and update your device. My only negative with the app so far is that it took a whopping 70 minutes to do a software update for these earbuds. That’s way longer than I’ve ever seen from the competition. In theory you can multitask while this takes place, but the earbuds need to remain on and near your phone. Hopefully they’ll make that experience better in the future. __Design & Comfort__ The ‘Fit’ part of these LinkBuds are small protrusions that extend outward to provide an extra point of grip, or hook, to the outer ear. Unlike other designs that have tried something similar, these are made in the same way (and in the same material) as the earbud tips. They call them Air Fitting Supporters, which is apt, since they are hollow and provide only the slightest pressure. This lightweight / light-touch approach makes these buds very comfortable to wear. When done listening, these nestle perfectly into the stylish, small charging case. The black model looks almost like square-ish pebble. It’s slightly taller than some, but very small overall. The case does not support wireless charging, but does charge easily through USB-C. In typical Sony fashion, they are as much high-tech as they are high-style. The combination of glossy top portion of the case paired with the perfectly matte finish of the bottom and interior, is very satisfying to hold. It also opens easier than more typical cases that often just have a seam + a fingernail gap. __Summary__ These beautiful earbuds offer a lot in a compact package. The case is deceivingly small, as are the buds themselves - yet they pack in great contextual features, have 5.5 hours of battery life (plus 3 more full charges in the case), are supported by a great new app, and offer a new level of comfort and secure fit with their air fitters. ——— ***The Good Stuff*** - Great design throughout - Sound quality, balance and bass - Super compact and stylish charging case (especially in black!) - Hollow air fitters are both comfortable to keep these securely in my ears - Speak-to-chat auto pausing and passthrough ***Less than Good Stuff*** - Slow, 70 minute firmware update was unusual - Case does not support wireless charging

Nice step up from the previous linkbuds. Overall I'm pretty happy with these earbuds. The sound quality is great and the app lets you instantly change the EQ pretty easily. The noise cancelling isn't as good as the wf1000's but the wing tips make these fit a lot better for my ears. They're also much lighter which is a plus if you're using these for a long time. I've taken these for workouts as well as using them on the train and they've become my go to all rounders. The charging case is a little chunkier than I'd like but not enough to take away any stars.

These headphones are pretty great! - Good in-app experience (can tune sound to your liking with a great guided process) - Comfortable wingtips to keep in your ears, even when exercising -Tiny case (see photo to really see how small it is!) - Good sound quality with pleasing soundstage (adjustable equalizer) - Active Noise Cancelling that works pretty well These earbuds are very comfortable with good sound and adequate ANC. What I find really special about the experience is the app which not only can automatically set the level of ANC based on if you are sitting down or moving. What’s even better is the app-guided equalizer setup - as you are playing music it will show different options to help guide you towards more/less bass/treble with easy switching back and forth. My only slight criticism is that the case, because it is so small, is that it doesn’t have wireless charging built in - that would be made it better, although it would have probably increased the price. All in all, a great product!

Finally something that fits right. The hunt for an earbud that sounds good and has a giant wing to slide under the ear is done… or so id hoped. Despite the wonderful fit and good sound, i cant get past one minor flaw and one insanely bad flaw. The minor flaw is ANC is basically nonextistent. Its about the same if you turn anc/transparency off. It wouldnt even block the sound of a door closing in a room above me. As for the major flaw, the tapping feature and customization of the tap feature is absolutely dreadful. They have a third party contract with amazon, spotify, and endel to hijack one of the quick action tap functionalities if you choose to have one of the buds control your anc switching. Also, you cannot configure a single tap function and in its place, are left with what i call, go f yourself tap where to control the volume of the buds, you must repeatadly tap (4 times with 0.4 second intervals) to control volume. Fortunately you dont need to tap directly on the buds like your directing a drumline on your ear canal, but even tapping in front of the ear dowsnt change the fact that if you stop tapping the ear for even a second the ensure your at the right volume, you must quadruple-tap again to begin the volume changing process. The way i see this feature fixed is either allowing the user to remap the taps to whatever they want, including volume adjust. Or allowing the user to increase the intervals at which the volume control tapping remains active after the first 4 taps.

The LinkBuds Fit Earbuds pack powerful sound capabilities in a surprisingly small and light, form factor. These buds are really the state of tech right now in the earbud space and while they are not the most premium looking and feeling offerings on the market, you will not believe what you are hearing and for how long. On top of the excellent battery life (rated 5.5 hours) and small size, these headsets still pack excellent Active Noise Cancelling capabilities as well as Ambient Sound Mode which allows some outside sound to permeate the buds with the external speaker softening and blending outside noise. This allows you to keep some situational awareness and also allows you to hear people without them having to yell at you or snap their fingers at you to get your attention. Another interesting feature is the headphones have location-based AI, mixed with sound detection that allows the headphones to determine where you are to apply certain sound profiles to the headphones. For example, if you're at home, you might get full sound passthrough or ambient noise mode because the buds expect it to be quiet at home. If you're commuting on the subway and its noisy, or flying in an airplane, it knows to apply noise canceling mode to drown out cabin/subway car noise. Overall I found this feature a little distracting because just mowing the lawn and walking around, the sound cut in and out of Ambient Noise Mode and Noise Canceling when I just wanted Noise Canceling. Also, the chime sound when the headphones changed mode was super annoying especially bc they were changing profiles so frequently. I need to check to see if this can be disabled. The LinkBuds Fit work best with the Sony Sound Connect app, which has been renamed and rebranded multiple times since I got my WH-1000XM3 headphones and they've added a ton of features and usability to it as well. Setup and usability was super slick, very Apple-esque out of the box experience. The app represented the headphones down to the color and accurately gave info on battery level, sound control mode, equalizer, devices connected. Speaking of which, this does natively support BlueTooth 5.3 multi-point, which just means you can connect 2 devices to the earbuds simultaneously and swap between them quickly and easily. I like to connect my headphones to my iPhone but also my work laptop which allows me to listen to music or take calls, but also take my Teams calls on my work laptop when needed. Very handy. Case is TINY and interesting looking, like a fake marble glossy top but a matte bottom. It is SO small and compact which is great for travel. I compared it to the size of some of my other earbuds and you can see the difference. You can get 3 full charges from that tiny case and you can see its really next level of tech with that LED light. Sound quality is excellent as well for such a small package. If you like Sony, you will like these headphones as they have the same sound characteristics as their other wireless products. Clear high notes and treble, passable bass, no muddy notes anywhere. I will use them mainly when working in the yard and walking around the neighborhood as my active true wireless earbuds as they are so light and comfortable that it is easy to wear them long periods of time.

I really liked the look and color of the green ear buds. They didn't fit me quite right they were a little smaller than I needed even with the largest size. The sound was really great and all the features of the app if you are familiar with the Sony app they lead the way in some of the functionality. What did not work great for me was getting the wide area tap to work consistently. Basically you tap on the side of your face near your ear and not the earbud. In my case it was 18 degrees out and I was surprised that it worked at all with gloves on inside my car so maybe it was a heat issue. I do have the fit open earbuds and the wide area tap works fine at least with normal temperatures. Maybe this will get fixed in software. If the fit was a little better I would probably have kept them to see if they improved over time. Your fit and tap controls might work better. You might want to consider the cheaper 700s or more expensive xm5s also great Sony earbuds.

I have owned many Earbuds in the past, so the Sony LinkBuds had some pretty big shoes to fill. My first impression was that the case was small and the earbuds had a great fit. I put them through the typical fast motions and jumping tests where they passed with flying colors. Out of the box, they looked premium, felt premium and were incredibly lightweight. Unfortunately, I had to remove some points for setup and sound. As stated above, these LinkBuds Fit true fit perfectly in my ear. I tend to use my earbuds for 3-4 hours at a time and my ears never felt fatigued. I did't feel the need to remove them to give my ears a rest and I didn't need to fight with them constantly to get the right position. These earbuds slipped into place and stayed put. Personally, I only had two issues with these earbuds. First, the app felt a bit clunky during setup and the settings were overwhelming. Sony did a nice job with the tutorials that walked me through and explained all of features of each setting, but I personally prefer less options when it comes to earbuds. Sometimes I want to toss them in and not have to tinker with the EQ, sound stage or the slew of tap functions that can be tweaked to achieve the best sound. I subscribe to less is more and the app can be overwhelming if you are in a rush. For example, there is an Adaptive Sound Control feature that I'm sure some people would enjoy but I found it to be more gimmicky than anything. This feature is intended to allow the user to control the level of ambient sound based on what activity you are doing and where you are. This seems like it should be something they have running in the background at all times and I'm not sure the average user would take the time to understand what it does and make practical use of it. The sound quality is average for what I would expect in a earbud at this price point. You have to go through the app to properly set everything up before you can get the most out of these buds. Make sure you go through all of the Spatial Sound Optimization and ear shape analyzer before you jump to any conclusions. Out of the box, I was immediately disappointed. But after adjusting the settings, my experience improved dramatically. All considered, these earbuds are feature rich and sound great. Are they the best sounding earbuds in their class? No. But the fit and features more than balance out the experience. I do wish Sony offered an expert level app experience and one that is simplified so the user can choose how they want to interact with the software. Personally, I would opt for the simplified experience because I'm not the type of person who finds joy in tweaking the EQ for different genres of music. I just want to toss my earbuds in and go without having to think about my environment or whether or not I prompted the ear buds to measure my ear shape for an optimal experience. They are great earbuds that perform well and prove to be good value for the price. I would defiantly recommend these if you are someone who wants complete control of your listening experience.

These earbuds deliver an unparalleled audio experience. Immerse yourself in crystal-clear highs and deep, resonant bass. Exceptional craftsmanship ensures comfort and durability for extended use. Enjoy seamless connectivity and effortless pairing with your devices. Experience audio like never before with these extraordinary earbuds. It's wonderful that i have found a feature that seamlessly integrates into my workflow. Having the ability to communicate effectively, even when busy, is truly valuable. The pause and resume functionality adds a new level of convenience with the speak to chat feature.

Unlike the flagship models, the Linkbuds Fit is geared towards the exercising demographic. The earbuds are designed and shaped so that they stay in the ear as you move about. But they can also be worn as normal earbuds when not working out. The soft silicone ear tips and flexible ear wings help keep these earbuds in your ear and should stay fitted throughout your exercising session. But like any product, there are tradeoffs to giving you that secure fit. Also, while the earbuds are designed for physical activities, they are rated for IPX4 for water and dust resistance. Do take note whether these will survive your activities. The earbuds were connected and set up on a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. Setting up the earbuds was easy. Having a previous Sony audio product also helped with that, since its companion app, Sound Connect (formerly called Headphones Connect), guided me through the setup process. Spatial audio and 360 Reality Audio were not used. Bluetooth Connection is set to Prioritize Sound Quality and DSEE Extreme is turned on/auto. Noise cancellation is fully turned on. After playing through my audio testing playlist, these earbuds sound good to wear for almost any activity. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and so they are perfect for general listening for whatever genre you’re into. There’s an equalizer to adjust the sound profile should you need to adjust it. Noise cancellation is good enough due to the design nature of earbuds, as they do not reduce as much noise as traditional over-ear headphones. Battery life is a bit of a tricky matter. When compared to its flagship model, the Linkbuds Fit doesn’t last as long. You can get by with a quick charge from the charging case. But that is time that you cannot listen to media. They’re good enough for an exercise session and commutes, but not airline flights longer than 4-5 hours. While on the matter of battery life and charging, Sony is notorious for including extremely short USB charging cable. And in this model, they have once again included a USB cable that is six inches in length. It is truly terrible and wasteful that Sony would include such a short cable to their audio products, including flagship models. I am unsure if wireless charging works. I held the case up to a wireless charging stand that I use for phones and it did reacted to it. But I could not find the spot that will allow it to start initiating a charge. I do not have a pad on hand to test this. The companion app, Sound Connect, is not new. The app was formerly Headphones Connect. All of the options and settings can be found on the app. The left and right earbud can be set for a variety of tap function categories. Things like noise cancellation controls, playback controls, or assistant functions. A quirk I ran into while using the Pixel 9 Pro XL is the assistant controls. In an attempt to use the Google Assistant as the default assistant tap function, it prompts to finish setting up Google Assistant on the phone. Setting it to default digital assistant option can work around this. But this method functions similar to simply accessing the assistant on the phone. It’s a minor behavior issue and I hope there will be a future fix to make the Google Assistant option work more fluidly with newer phones. Overall, these are nice earbuds. They fit well and they stay in the ear. As a commuter, these are probably a great alternative to Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM5. They use mostly the same hardware and will sound great. You lose a bit of battery capacity but at least you save a bit of cash. I also cannot stress hard enough just how frustrating it is to see a six inch USB cable included in this. Not only is it a waste but it’s also useless. Verdict: Recommended The Good: good sound profile, fits well, small charging case, cheaper alternative to WF-1000XM5 The Bad: six inch USB cable, only has silicon eartips The Ugly: a landfill pile of six inch USB cables

Sony had done it again with their new LinkBuds Fit noise canceling earbuds. In the package I have the earbuds, charge case, and tips. I didn't need to change the tips as the ones already in place fit me well. They are very comfortable due to their small size and light weight. The fit is good enough that I haven't had any problems with them coming loose or falling out. Not even when out jogging and riding my mountain bike. Sound Quality The sound quality is the best I've experienced in earbuds. The sound is rich and clear. The driver in each earbud can drive enough base that audio has a full, rich, high quality sound. Music has good base as well as treble. HD audio books sound really good. They also have noise canceling capability. The noise canceling does well at blocking out external sounds. A noise canceling feature Sony has added is that it has adaptive noise canceling. This also works well. While I'm sitting, noise canceling automatically turns on full noise canceling. While I'm jogging it lessens the amount of noise canceling. This helps me to hear vehicles approaching and with general situational awareness while out jogging or riding my mountain bike. This doesn't take away from the audio quality as it still maintains that. Sony calls this feature Adaptive Sound Control. Sony has done well with this feature as it works as it is supposed to and is a helpful feature. App The Sound Connect App is what is needed to set the numerous settings. This app is the most feature rich app I've seen for earbuds. There are dozens of settings and features you can turn on or off. Sony developers have put a lot of time in developing the app. It's easy for me to fine tune the settings within the app. You can set the sensitivity of the touch sensors of the earbuds, set any one of many equalizers Battery Life The battery life is ok. I charged the case with the earbuds in it when I first got them. I was able to get about 2 hours out of the earbuds the first time. I placed them in the charge case and fully charged them which resulted in the charge case dropping in available battery life from 100% down to 75%. Based on that, I can get 3 full charges out of the case before hitting 25%. Many manufactures fail to add in the capability to see the percent of battery available for the charge case but, thankfully, Sony added in this. On an Android device, I can use the Android battery app to see the charge levels of both earbuds and the charge case. I can also see these levels in the Sound Connect app. When the earbuds reach 20% battery life left in them, there is an audible notification of "low battery" that is heard. This gives me a little time before I need to place them back in the charge case. Another battery charge feature is that you can place the earbuds back in the case for 5 minutes and the earbuds will have enough charge to use them for another hour. The charge case is small enough to fit in my front pocket. Given how small the case is, I'm happy with being able to get 3 or 4 charges out of it before I have to connect a USB-C charge cable to the case's USB-C charge port and charge it up again. It's more than enough for me to get a days worth of listening out of the LinkBuds. Final Thoughts I'm very impressed with the LinkBuds Fit. Sony has done nothing short of an amazing job with these. The number of features are too many to list here. The sound quality and sound setting options enable me to set the equalizer the way I want it and the driver in each earbud provides treble and plenty of base which together produces rich listening experience. I'm incredible happy with these and I'm looking forward to seeing what Sony's Audio Team can do next.

The Linkbuds Fit are one of the most comfortable wireless earbuds I’ve worn and they sound great. They’re also pretty stylish to boot and I like that Sony is including options to customize both the case and the buds to fit your style. The ANC and transparency modes are both good. I do wish the case included wireless charging, but all of the other features mostly make up for that and these are great everyday earbuds. The Linkbuds I got are the sage green version and they look very attractive. The case resembles a ring box with a pearly finish on top and has a satisfying open/close mechanism. The box includes a short USB charging cable and 3 additional sizes of silicone eartips. The medium size is what comes on the buds, but I ended up swapping them out for the large tips as I have done on most other earbuds. The earbuds are small and with the silicone wingtips they fit securely and comfortably in my ears to the point where it’s easy to forget that I’m wearing them. The setup on Android is very easy and once I opened the case I was instantly shown the Android Fast Pair notification. Once that was done the additional setup happened within the Sony Sound Connect app (formerly Headphones Connect). I was familiar with this app using previous Sony headphones and it hasn’t changed a lot. The most basic features like controlling noise canceling and transparency modes are front and center, while the more niche features are buried a little bit deeper. The app can help automate the sound modes based on what you are doing (sitting, walking, riding, etc.) and your location (home, work). There are also other features you can turn on like speak to chat, which pauses your music when you start talking. There’s also a feature that allows you to nod or shake your head to accept/reject incoming calls like Apple recently advertised on their AirPods. Spatial audio and head tracking is there too. And there is an Activity section, which is tracks what you have listened to so that you can look back on it and collect little badges and achievements, but I did not really see the value in this sort of tracking and thankfully it is optional. All of these features in general work well and it’s nice to be able to have so much control over whether they are off or on, but it makes the app a little overly complex by forcing you to dig into the menus to find each of these things. The sound quality overall is excellent. The Linkbuds Fit use the same Dynamic Driver X and V2 processor that’s used on the higher-end WF-1000XM5 earbuds. The sound is full, detailed, and bass is great for a wireless earbud. You get the high resolution LDAC codec, as well as the standard AAC/SBC codecs. There’s also LE audio with the LC3 codec, though it’s currently listed as a beta feature in the Sony app and requires you to repair the earbuds to your phone. The app shows LE audio as a low latency option for gaming and I definitely noticed much lower latency using that instead of the standard connection but for my use case I’ll probably just stick with the higher res LDAC option on my phone. The latency using LDAC is noticeable but not atrocious for gaming. Playback is controlled by various taps hitting either on or around the area where the earbuds are. I did find myself having to tap somewhat firmly to be consistently recognized, but it’s nice not to have to land right on the buds to control them. The standard setup has the right earbud controlling playback and the left controlling noise canceling/transparency, but this can be changed in the app. On the subject of noise canceling, I found it to be good for how small these are, but definitely not on part with a full size set of headphones. It does a good job of canceling low frequency sounds like AC and car noise, but it doesn’t block out voices particularly well. The transparency mode is better and probably what I value more from wireless earbuds anyway. The audio that’s piped in sounds pretty natural and working at my desk it’s easy for me to hear what’s going on outside of my office or if someone is calling out to me. I tested the microphones by going outside and calling myself first from the earbuds, and then just using the phone up to my ear. The difference between them was almost imperceptible, though I would give my phone a very slight edge mostly owing to the fact that the microphone was much closer to my mouth in that scenario. In the voice message I left myself my voice comes through clear and does not sound distorted or compressed. I called someone else and they could not tell that I was talking on earbuds and not my phone. The battery life is rated at 5.5 hours with noise canceling on and the case provides another 15.5 hours of battery. I don’t tend to use my earbuds continuously this way and put them away when I’m not listening to something, but I ran them down by about 23% an hour and twenty minutes into a podcast I was listening to and that more or less lines up. I am disappointed that the case doesn’t have wireless charging at this price point. I’m really happy with the Linkbuds Fit overall. They sound great, they’re comfortable to wear all the time, and they pack a lot of extra features. The only thing that’s missing for me is wireless charging on the case, but for everything that’s here I’m okay giving up that convenience.