Customer Ratings & Reviews

These headphones are great unfortunately I did return them, but they are absolutely wonderful and ended up getting a pair for my wife because she actually very much liked them!

These earbuds sound amazing and fit perfectly. I can barely tell the difference between having these in and using a high quality speaker.

Does not let you hear anything outside being open-eared. It does not fit in the ear very well. Very low on sound

The new Linkbuds Open True Wireless earbuds from Sony are the latest in their line of open-air earbuds, well-known for class-leading headphone technology. It seems readily apparent to me that open-air earbuds by design are best suited for people who desire good quality audio yet still need to be aware of their surroundings. I think these would be perfect for people who like to listen to music or audio books while enjoying outdoor activities like jogging, walking, or simply working in the yard. It’s important to be able to hear what’s happening around you in those situations for obvious safety reasons. If you are looking for the overall best sound quality, especially focusing on the lower bass range of frequencies, then the open-air design is clearly not the best choice for you. The Linkbuds Open earbuds come in a stylish and pocketable rectangular case, which may at first appear confusing as to which is the bottom, and which is the top lid. Just remember the base has a matte-like finish and the lid is high gloss black, and you’ll be fine. The charging port at the rear of the case and below the hinge uses the common and universal USB-C connector, making it easy to share a cord with other similar devices. Almost everything I use now has a USB-C connector. On my case, the Sony logo is very faint, almost not legible for some reason. The earbuds feature a rather unique donut design that sits inside the outer ear canal, and I quickly discovered that at least in my case, it does require reading the instruction manual to insert them in your ears properly and in the right orientation. A small, pointed piece of soft pliable rubber fits into a crease above the ear canal to hold them securely without adding any uncomfortable pressure. It’s there to aid in keeping the earbuds from falling out during more vigorous activity like exercising. Note also that these are a one-design-fits-all, so there is really no way to adjust the fit and that could be an issue for some. The most important question when it comes to reviewing earbuds is…how do they sound? So far, I have been impressed with sound quality and just as important, they are quite comfortable. Deep bass is lacking, but that’s to be expected with the simple physics of open-air design as mentioned earlier. Like a lot of earbuds and wireless headphones these days, an app from Sony called Sound Connect is a necessity to install on your smartphone to get the most from your Linkbuds. The app offers several configuration options that include battery information, sound enhancements based on fit, a sound equalizer, and several more customization and optimization options. Additional features like 360 Reality Audio require a paid subscription, but it does offer with a trial version and the sample version in the app is remarkable. Some of the features that I liked most certainly include the equalizer, which I set to a bass boost preset. Another is head gestures, which allows head movements to answer or deny incoming phone calls. I always turn on any options that maximize sound quality, which includes a setting for Bluetooth connection quality and LE Audio Priority. If you listen to CD’s or MP3, the Linkbuds have a setting to enable DSEE, which is Sony’s own technology to enhance sound quality from compressed low-quality audio. There’s even an option to take an image of your ears to ensure proper fit for the best sound quality and comfort. Sony advertises a battery life of 22 hours with the charging case. A simple 3-minute charge provides 60 minutes of listening. I’ve been testing the earbuds for several days now and the earbuds remain fully charged while the case is still at 50%. For those times when I want a fully immersed music listening experience, I still prefer a “closed ear” set of earbuds complete with noise cancellation to block out all ambient sound. But for daily use when I need to be aware of what’s going on around me, I find the Sony Linkbuds Open to be the perfect and preferred choice. Rating these becomes difficult honestly as the sound might not be the best there is, but when judged in the open-air earbud category and for their intended use, I believe they deserve at least a 4-star above-average rating for their thoughtful design, decent sound and abundant features.

Dope. I love Sony products. Especially headphones and earbuds.

When I first got my hands on Sony's new Open Air Linkbuds, I was immediately impressed with the small form factor of the carry/charge case. It’s compact, protects the Linkbuds securely, and charges them effectively when inserted. For something so small, it does the job perfectly, making them easy to stash in a pocket or bag without worrying about damage. The Linkbuds themselves have a unique design. They are circular, ring-shaped ear fittings that sit snugly in the ear without any additional winged tips for a perfect fit. This could be hit or miss depending on your ear shape, but for me, they sat securely enough. I’m guessing Sony markets them as “open air” buds because of the ring-shaped driver that allows for ambient sounds to filter in naturally. However, I was expecting more from this feature. While it does let in a bit more sound compared to traditional pass-through technology, it’s not the level of environmental awareness I hoped for. I wanted that seamless blend of music and the world around me, but it only slightly improves my ability to hear my surroundings. That said, the sound quality of the Linkbuds is superb. The clarity and volume are outstanding when streaming music, delivering a rich, immersive listening experience. Phone calls also worked great. I had no issues being heard, and the person on the other end said I came through clearly, even in slightly noisy environments. Comfort-wise, the Linkbuds are excellent, at least for a while. They’re light and easy to wear for extended periods, but after several hours, I did start to experience some ear fatigue. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but it’s worth noting for those planning on wearing them all day. The one major disappointment for me were the touch controls and speak to chat feature. This was where things fell apart for me. The touch input is not very intuitive or sensitive enough for my liking. I struggled with getting the volume, track skip, or call answer functions to work. The built-in voice and motion controls felt like an interesting concept at first, but in practice, they just didn’t work for me. I’m not a fan of speaking commands to my earbuds, and the motion controls, like nodding to answer a call or shaking my head to decline, while innovative, made me feel awkward, as if I was in need of some serious psychological help! It’s a neat feature, but in public, it’s just not practical. The speak to chat feature got annoying really quick. This feature pauses music when you start speaking, so I was not able to listen to streams and speak at the same time. Of course, these settings can be turned off in the app, just worth mentioning if you wanted to get these for that feature. Aside from the quirks with the controls, the Linkbuds offer a solid overall experience. Their small size, comfort (in moderation), long battery life, and excellent sound quality make them a good pair of earbuds. While they’re not quite delivering the "open air" experience I expected, they still have plenty to offer for everyday use. Sony’s got something interesting here, and with a few tweaks, the Linkbuds could be even better.

I didn't think there was much that could be improved in an earbud, but Sony provided that was wrong in a big way. LinkBuds have totally revolutionized the earbud industry. The first thing that stood out was how small the packaging was. Sony did a great job of being environmentally friendly and not wasting material. The small box includes the earbuds in a charge case and short USB-C charge cable. The initial charge time was super really quick. Setup was as simple as downloading the Sony Connect app, removing the right earbud from the case and connecting to your phone's Bluetooth. The earbuds fit in your ear in a unique way by placing them in your ear and slightly twisting. The soft prong conforms very well to your ear, and you don't have to mess around with a bunch of various covers to get the correct fit. I could literally pull on them and they would not fall out, yet just a small twist in the opposite direction allows them to remove with ease. The Sound Connect app walks you through step by step with how to get the best listening performance. You can hold your phone out from your face and it actually tells you if they are positioned correctly. It also allows to take pictures of them in your ear and calibrates for your size. What really surprised was the sound sample of 360 Reality Audio off and on. The difference with it on is amazing. It is difficult to tell if the sounds are coming from the earbuds or are in the outside environment. The equalizer allows easy setup by listening to your favorite music and clicking on various circles with different preset settings. It allows you to easily customize to your listening enjoyment. A really unique feature is using hand gestures by just tapping on your jaw, below your earlobe, to control music and answer calls and notifications. They are more comfortable the longer they are worn. My first day I wore then all day at work and on a long walk in the evening and to bed at night. They were very comfortable even when laying down and did not fall out in my sleep like other earbuds I've used. The wealth of features rival those of devices costing much more. The only slight critique I have is that the charging case has slick black top and show up fingerprints well. Other than that, these are in my opinion the best earbuds I have ever worn. I plan to use them at work, exercising and when relaxing daily.

The Sony LinkBuds Open Noise cancelling headphones are and interesting set of earbuds. Upon first glance, these earbuds certainly look different. Cool design, small and they deliver decent sound. First thing I did was charge the earbuds and then cracked open the case. After figuring out how to orientate them in my ear, I downloaded the Sony Sound Connect app. In the app, you can, and should, download the updated firmware. I also set the sound settings to my liking because the default sound is horrible. In fact, before the update the sound was pretty bad. After the firmware update, and adjusting sound settings in the app they now sound decent. The smart features work fine. Head gestures and whatnot work. Battery life seems pretty good as well. I'm not really a big fan of these smart gestures and features. I just like good sound. Comfort wise I give these a 6/10. They fit pretty well and have not fallen out of my ears like every other earbud I own. They don't irritate my ears or hit any pressure points. They do slip slightly affecting sound, though. One thing that might become an issue is the the tiny ports in the open ring getting clogged. As we all know, earwax builds up on earbuds and can flat out ruin them if you don't maintain them properly. Just something to keep in mind. I could see these needing to be cleaned more frequently than expected. Overall, the sound is pretty decent and comfort is alright. If you're in the market for earbuds you may want to look elsewhere, however. There are plenty of earbuds out there that sound better. These ones just aren't for me.

Sony LinkBuds Open After you open the package and plug in the case to charge the LinkBuds Open Noise Cancelling Headphones using the included cable, you’ll want to download the Sony Sound Connect App. Among other things, this app lets you track the music you listened to in different scenarios for future reference. The adaptive volume control automatically optimizes your listening, based on where you are. And advanced signal processing means clear calls for both you and the party you’re talking to. Not sure why they’re called “Headphones” when they’re really earbuds. However, naming them “Headphones” is certainly Sony’s prerogative. Just want to make sure folks understand that they’re what most folks commonly think of as earbuds, not “headphones”. These earbuds attempt to overcome a common problem with most earbuds, and that’s that they are either so tight that they hurt your ears or they’re not tight enough and they tend to fall out of your ears when you make various movements. Sony has designed these earbuds so that the open ring slides into your ear while the fitting supporter tucks into the fold of your ear for a more secure fit. The Sony designers certainly accomplished that goal, since I only had one earbud fall out of my ear over several days of full-time use. And they were comfortable enough to wear all day long. The quality of the sound was good, both for music and phone calls. Several convenient features include instant pause/play when you take out one of the earbuds, or when you answer the phone (are you ready for this?) with yes or no head gestures! And they can be paired with two Bluetooth devices at the same time. Finally, Sony claims a battery time of up to 22 hours with the charging case. And a three minute charge provides 60 minutes of additional play time. My only negative comment about these earbuds is the cost. IMO, a lot of buyers may not be willing to pay $200 for a set of Bluetooth earbuds, so check around for lower prices and/or sales on these Sony earbuds to make sure that you’re getting a price you’re comfortable with.

The Sony LinkBuds Open True Wireless Earbuds are just another amazing set of earbuds from Sony. While I love the sound and the feeling of blocking out the world of in-ear earbuds, there are often instances where being able to hear ambient sound is very important. For example, runners need to be able to hear traffic. Yes, there are earbuds that allow sound to pass through, but it is processed sound, not natural. The LinkBuds do block a very slight amount of sound, but not significant enough to matter. Sound Quality: I've owned a couple of different Sony earbuds and I've always been impressed with the sound quality Sony produces. The LinkBuds Open are no exception. I like the sound right out of the box. Highs are bright and crisp and the bass is good. But if you want to alter the sound to your taste, the Sony Sound Connect app includes an equalizer. Fit: The fitting process is unique, as far as I know, to Sony. They take a picture of your ear, which I'm assuming is then used to tweak the sound to accommodate your ear's shape. Speaking of fitting, be sure to follow directions from Sony on how to place the LinkBuds in your ears. Once properly placed the LinkBuds sit well in my ears and though the expected ear fatigue will eventually rear its ugly head, I've been able to wear them for extended periods with no problem. Added Features: I love the head tracking feature. When a call comes in, a quick yes head nod answers the call, or a no motion rejects it. Hands off and very nifty. And call quality is very good. Battery Life: Battery life is excellent. Sony suggest you should get close to 22 hours with the charging case, which I've found to be pretty accurate. The LinkBuds Open have become my go-to set of earbuds. Sound quality is excellent, and I love not feeling closed off from life.

I like using these headphones and I can barely find any problems with them. First of all the voice is very clear and I don’t have any issues with hearing the music or sound. It works very well with any genre of music. I also installed the sound connect app and it made the use of headphones even more enjoyable. Second, I feel comfortable wearing them on and unlike other products that I had so far, these headphones are so much more comfortable. It has a soft and ergonomic linkbuds. They wont come off when I am running and I don’t need to be worry about losing them during workouts. Third, I have used some of the smart features such as instant play/pause or answer phones with head movements, which is one of my favorites, and I found them interesting. The touching feature of headphones is pretty powerful and with a single touch I can answer any phone calls. The last but not least is the battery life. I can fully charge them in 5 minutes and use them for almost 20 hours. They give me notifications when the battery is down. All in all I found them handy and easy to use which are really game changers.

These headphones sounds nice, that is the extent that I like them for myself. I would only recommend these to people that have the ability to try them on in the store or return them shortly if there is a problem with fit. The concept is extremely cool, the ability to hear directly through the hole in the ear buds so there is no electronic translation of the noise around you, however in principle for myself and my wife we found that wearing them how it shows to meant that they were constantly falling out, the only way I could get them to stay in was to stuff the ring down my ear like a traditional ear bud, but at that point they didn’t work for the hear through method and my ear canals got soar from the ring being slightly larger than comfortable. The sound quality is nice. The control without touching them is a really cool feature, except that I had to adjust them so much that sometimes it would misinterpret what I was doing so I ended up disabling the feature as I do with all earbuds. So, I really like that bud controls can be completely disabled. Other than that, the app is awesome for the amount of control it gives you. The microphone isn’t great, from talking with my brother who has some hearing loss, the microphone wasn’t crisp on this end and rounded words and conversations much more than my other headsets. Basically he needed to be in a super quiet environment and needed to be able to focus to be able to have a conversation with me when I used these, which doesn’t work for us. The case is a nice size, and the battery life is decent. Overall, I can’t say that I would recommend them. Pros: Sound is good Case is small Cons: Poor fit for myself Microphone softened my voice too much for those hard of hearing

The Sony LinkBuds are by far not my favorite earbuds, and for several reasons. Those include a glitchy app, incredibly poor fitment, some poorly executed features and mediocre-at-best sound. I highly do not recommend them. I have been switching back and forth between several wireless earbud sets for a few years, as I am an avid cyclist and spend a lot of time outdoors doing yard work, running, and walking. I value good fitment highly, as the last thing I want to be concerned about are the earbuds falling out of my ears--because on a bike--it means almost certain loss of the earbud. I also like good sound quality, but I understand that something you give up with a small footprint is superior sound. Lastly, I appreciate an app that allows for a good level of customization of the earbud features. I will give Sony credit that these earbuds have a great compact case, a long-lasting battery, and a lot of nice features for customization. For example, they allow for pairing of two devices at a time (but more than two remembered connections), voice control, head gesturing, several equalizer settings, and a pause-to-chat feature. The bi-pairing is something I have on other earbuds, and the functionality on those is far superior to the Sony. For example, if I have my other earbuds paired to my phone and computer at the same time, if I am working on my computer and the phone rings, the earbuds switch to the phone--and then when the call ends, it goes back to the computer. It is seamless. Not with the Sony. I tried the head gesture (that was a disaster--it attempts to sense nodding yes or no), but after a lot of issues with that, I have to physically pick up my phone to make the switch and then physically switch back to the computer. Not convenient. The pause-to-chat feature was even more annoyong. Clearing my throat or anything louder than a whisper would pause my music--even on the less sensitive setting. And if you're one to talk to yourself or hum / sing a line of a song while exercising, it immediately pauses the music. Nice idea, but not for me, so I turned that off, too. The equalizer had several choices, but even the bass boost setting produced a treble heavy sound and really no oomph. I not a booming bass type of person, but I do like my music with some discernable bass. So for music, the sound was mediocre at best--but for voice podcasts, the treble / bass balance was very nice. The tapping feature for pausing, advancing tracks, etc. does not work consistently. I've tried faster tapping, slower tapping, harding tapping, softer tapping, and every permutation of that and nothing works consistently. Very annoying. By far the biggest complaint I have about these earbuds is the fitment. For proper fitment, you insert the earbuds into the ear and then twist them to lock them in. These do not lock into my ears at all--I can pull them right out with minimal force. Just raking the leaves (using a leaf blower and bending over to pick up twigs every now and again), one or both of the earbuds fell out of my ears NINE TIMES in the course of about two hours. There is absolutely no way I would ever wear these cycling or running--I would lose one or both of them in a matter of minutes. With just walking, they stay in fine, but they do loosen up and I have to constantly adjust them. I have never experienced with with any other earbuds meant for an active lifestyle. The app was working well unitl the latest update. Now, I can't access the bluetooth connection settings in the app. It is greyed out. So even though the earbuds are connected to my phone, the app says they are not connected to anything. And that means I also can't switch sources. In summary, these are earbuds I might wear sitting in front of the computer and nothing else. The bi-pairing is not well executed, a lot of the touted features do not work well, the sound is not impressive, the fitment is the worst I have ever experienced (for an active lifestyle), and now the app is also glitchy. Highly not recommended.

It's been a few months since I wrote a review on new headphones or earbuds, and even longer since I've reviewed a Sony product. I'm a big fan of the WH1000-XM series headphones, and the XM4 is still my go-to over-ear headphone. The LinkBuds Open, or as Sony engineers refer to them, the WF-L910/BZ (at least according to the label on the box) are among the recent craze of open-back earbuds that we're seing from some audio manufacturers. And what a journey it's been since I got these. First I'll say, I'm super pumped for the really creative way that manufacturers are packaging products in an ethical, but also premium, manner. I love unboxing experiences, and when everyone went super-eco-friendly I was dissatisfied (although I totally get it). Now we're seeing some "innovations" in packaging, and I'm totally here for it. Opening the box, I was greeted with an almost cartoonish, silly-looking contraption that is hard to describe. I think the thing is ugly, personally, with its two-tone matte- and shiny- case that looks more like a small, squarish moon pie than it does a piece of technology. It's all plastic, feels plasticky, not particularly heavy, and generally unbecoming. The buds are also weird, but that's to be expected from an open-back earbud, something that almost sounds too silly to exist. In place of a tip that isolates exterior noise from your drums is a small disk that sits in your ear, near the canal, and pipes music in while still allowing ambient noise through. Which is cool, you know, if you otherwise don't want to hear your music really clearly or without interruption. The fit in the ear is weird...the best way I can describe it is, it feels kind of like when you're wearing normal earbuds but they're starting to slip out, so you need to push them back into your ear canal. The LinkBuds Open feel like that, only all the time. Needless to say, not a strong start for our Sony friends. Once I committed to a nice long listening session, I started to get used to how to position them in my ears to minimize the discomfort (of them "falling out") and maximize the transmission of sound in my ears, I really started to like them. I could turn them down to hear the incessant humming of my dryer, or I could turn them way up and hear my music well... along with the still incessant dryer hum. But I get it, I guess. Kind of niche. I got used to it, and I could see these being pretty nice to have in certain situations (you know, like how it's nice to have noise canceling earbuds that have the option of letting ambient noise in). For a brief time, I actually started liking them. Then I took them out, and I noticed that the fins that hold them into place, in addition to the speaker "disk" in the lower part of my ear, were creating pressure on my ears and made a couple of specific spots in my ear pretty sore. I learned then that these are not ideal for long listening sessions. Not to mention, they're $200. For the low price of $200, you can get sore ears, music that gets covered up by your environment (with no control over it), goofy-looking buds and a goofy-looking case. Admittedly, not my cup of tea. Definitely not competitive for earbuds in general. Also... the sound was... fine. Nothing great, nothing terrible. It's the quality of sound that you get from Sony's higher-end consumer buds for sure, but not so good that the price tag and corresponding lack of features is any way justified. It uses the same app that the rest of the Sony audio products use, but that doesn't save what I think is a fundamentally flawed approach to earbuds at a price that's just crazy.

Less than impressed. Honestly I was very disappointed with these Sony linkbuds opens'. First off they are not a true open ear and kind of awkward and uncomfortable, they fit in the ear like a typical in ear headphone or ear bud. The "open" portion is just a hole through the center of the speaker area. Sound quality would be compared to a 9.99 set of gas station wired earphones. No matter the EQ setting or music type I could not get the sound quality I was expecting or hoping for. They lack in play volume as well, which also did not work for me as i where them in a noisy environment.The downloadable app was step after step of product tracking and cross application tracking, luckily you can skip through and opt out of those settings. There were a couple functions I was excited a out, until I used them. The auto pause when talking was one of them, but i felt that it would pause with louder noises that werent voices. And the length of the pause was too long in my opinion, and sometimes it would never start playing again. So that feature quickly got turned off. All in all I think Sony completely missed the mark on these. Super disappointed.

Summary: The sound quality of these is better after updating, they stay in well and are decent quality for their price. To start: on an iPhone, the Sony app failed to find the earbuds, but it was easier to pair them from Bluetooth system settings, when I went back to the app it continued. The app wanted to update the headphones and that took a long time to complete (felt like 60+ minutes), what made that difficult was that the earbuds had to be powered on, so I had to leave them in my ears for the entire time. During the update, I streamed some music off YouTube music, and at this point the sound was disappointing—it just didn’t sound clear (like the sound quality of plug in $19.99 Sony headphones from the 90s — which were terrific at the time). It may be because the update was transferring, but the music froze at least three times briefly while listening, as well as one earbud cutting out at times. To compare, at this point in testing I would say the sound quality of these are better than Air Pods Pro 1 but nowhere near the quality of Air Pods Pro 2 (which are more expensive than these). During the update, listening to music, I desperately wanted to switch back to my Air Pods Pro 2, but I had to let the update complete to give these a fair test. One good thing I can say is these stay in the ears well, if you’re going out for a walk/run that’s a good thing. After the update was completed, the sound quality did improve. After I played with the equalizer settings in the app it got even better. However, these still don’t compare to either the Air Pods Pro 2 (in quality or feature sets) or my Bose QuietComfort earbuds but for the price these are decent quality earbuds that, again, stay in very well. I was admittedly disappointed in these, and to top it all off because they were in my ears a little over an hour or so, my ears now hurt.

The Sony LinkBuds Open wireless ear buds seem to exist in a fairly small section of the market. Whereas a lot of noise reducing headphones have implemented various microphone assisted methods for allowing ambient noise to pass through. The LinkBuds Open, on the other hand, trade the noise cancellation for being ambient-noise forward. It works as expected, but the execution leaves something to be desired in certain respects. As with all earbuds that don't have form fitting tips that place the buds more deeply into the ear canal, sound quality will ultimately come down to how well they fit in your ear and how well you can place them in your ear overall. For me, these tend to miss the mark; while I'm able to get them into my ear fine, the included ear "molding" simply isn't large enough for my ears and don't allow for a snug fit which lends to a number of issues. I find that I need to routinely reposition the buds every few minutes, and by extension, any form of physical activity with these is simply out of the question for me. As mentioned previously, this poor fit has a downstream impact on audio quality of these buds, which is generally pretty good if you can get the fitment correct, but which I have persistent issues with. While most ear buds these days come with a few fitment options, that's not the case with these, so I'm stuck with a pair of subpar fitting buds. I really like the concept of these buds. They aim to solve a problem that exists in society today; people being completely removed from their surroundings at the expense of those around them and at times their own safety. My issues stem from the fact that they don't fit my ears correctly, and I feel it would've been prudent for Sony to include at least one other molding to help with this. If you have smaller ears and are looking for ear buds that don't completely remove you from your surroundings, these could be a great option.