Belkin SoundForm Motion 2 wireless earbuds review

The common knowledge is if you want a pair of wireless earbuds, budget between $100 and $200 for a cheap pair. But that landscape is changing. Case in point, the Belkin SoundForm Motion 2 wireless earbuds that come in under $70. While there are, understandably, some concessions given the price point, there are at least a couple of premium inclusions that I wasn’t expecting for the RRP.

If you want the absolute barebones of wireless earbuds, you can spend under $20. But don’t expect much in the way of features or even reviews. Pushing the budget towards the $69.95 asking price of the Belkin SoundForm Motion 2 offers a decent smattering of entry-level options. You’ll find the JLab JBuds Mini, JBL Wave Flex, and even the Sony WF-C510 if they’re on sale. Bottom line: the SoundForm Motion 2s have a fitting RRP for what you get, well in line with the budget-priced competition.

The Belkin SoundForm Motion 2 follow the original earbuds design mandate: namely, an intuitive build that guides only one possible way of inserting them (unlike the Samsung Galaxy Pros). They come with a moderate-sized wingtip installed alongside smaller and larger pairs. I generally go okay with default wingtips, but it felt like they were slipping out with the mediums installed, so I switched to the largest ones. The wingtips pop off and on as expected, so no dramas there.

But even then, the Motion 2s didn’t offer the kind of fit that I felt comfortable headbanging in, nor were they particularly great for longer playback sessions. Complicating matters further is the temperamental touch controls. While I like the logical inputs and the reminders for the key ones on the inside of the case lid, they didn’t work more often than they did.

Compounding this is the unfortunate reality that fitting them generally results in multiple accidental touch inputs. Impractically, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fit them in firmly without multiple presses. And that’s if you can even get them connected in the first place. Even though my review sample came in a sealed box, I had to follow the prominently placed reset steps in the quick-start guide to connect them to my Google Pixel 7 Pro. That was the first and only device I had success with, as the Motion 2s got stuck in connection loops with multiple Windows 11 PCs and my Samsung Galaxy Tab S7.

In fairness, those devices may not be compatible, but that’s impossible to tell as finding support information online for the Motion 2s was impossible, made more frustrating by a ‘For more information’ QR code and URL that both led to dead links. I might’ve been able to work around this if the Belkin SoundForm companion app was compatible with the Motion 2s, but it doesn’t appear to be.

Given my go-to wireless earbuds are the premium SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds, it doesn’t feel contextually appropriate to put in the boot too much for the average audio of the Belkin SoundForm Motion 2s. At worst, the Motions 2s sound flat, tinny and/or echoey. At best, there’s some decent width and okay balance with the right tracks.

Using our Reviews.org playlist reference tracks, Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance’ and The Beatles’ ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ were the two best examples. Even then, there are disclaimers: the bass doesn’t have any real oomph. You can hold the left earbud for two seconds to cycle between three EQ presets—Belkin Signature Sound (one beep), Bass Boost (two beeps) and Balanced (three beeps)—but there isn’t any massive difference between those, and Bass Boost offers a negligible improvement.

There were multiple instances of instruments getting lost in my Belkin Signature Sound tests in what felt like a balance that favoured mids and highs. The strings were way too loud in Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’. Synths and super-faint static were buried behind the vocals and high hats in Portishead’s ‘Humming’. It was a similar story of highs dominance in Opeth’s ‘The Funeral Portrait’ and The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’. Other tracks sounded messy, where highs continued to dominate and mids melded together: like in the opening to Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’, Radiohead’s tricky-to-tame cacophony in ‘The National Anthem’, and The Deftones’ ‘Swerve City’.

The microphone on the Motion 2s teeters around passable but isn’t anything to write home about. It clipped the first word in my recording test, sounded quite quiet and offered a very hollow recreation of my voice. At least it was clear.

One of the better wins of the Motion 2s is battery life. On a single charge, expect up to nine hours via Bluetooth 5.3, plus there’s another 24 hours in the charging case. For comparison, our current reigning champ for battery life is the Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro, which has eight hours per earbud and 24 hours in the case.

Given the current review landscape, when people see a 2.5/5 score, they may think “trash”. But that’s neither an accurate reading of an average score, nor is it the case with the Belkin SoundForm Motion 2. In short, these wireless earbuds have some strong pros to balance out the cons. They’re affordable, sweat-resistant and have battery life to spare. It’s just a shame the finicky touch controls, average sound and odd fit hold them back from being truly recommendable as a budget pair of wireless earbuds.