The OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro don’t sound as good as the price

Ever since Apple unveiled its first set of AirPods, I've been wondering how far off a future where true wireless earbuds become just as ubiquitous as the wired earphones they replaced. Environmental impacts aside, the world where even budget smartphones come with a set of true wireless earbuds in the box is one that I can't help but like the sound of.

That prediction hasn't panned out yet. Still, the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro is close enough to it that complaining can feel like splitting hairs. All told the appeal of OPPO's latest set of budget buds isn't difficult to grasp. The Enco Buds2 Pro earbuds have a simple design, a lot of promise and a price tag that's as cheap as chips. They're not quite free but if you wanna go wire-free, these are one of the cheapest ways to go about it.

At a recommended retail price of $99, the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro earbuds are one of the cheapest sets of in-ear headphones that you'll probably be able to find in Australia right now. Even if there isn't any sort of Spatial Audio or wireless charging found here, that's still a great price to pay for a set of AirPod alternatives.

That said, there aren't many places where you can find them. For now, the true wireless buds are only available through the OPPO Australia online store. Check out the table below for a round-up of places you can buy the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro.

The Enco Buds2 Pro earbuds look distinct enough from AirPods that you're unlikely to get the two confused. Still, it's hard to deny the inspiration. The form factor is a little chunkier than the slimmer stems on Apple's iconic earbuds but the resemblance is obvious.

In large part, it's the flourishes and deviations from the formula that give OPPO's AirPods alternatives much of their character. The choice to dial down the gloss and embrace a grey-and-white two-tone palette goes a long way towards helping the hardware here sit at the unlikely intersection of familiarity and freshness.

Weight-wise, each Enco Buds2 Pro earbud clocks in at around 4.3g. On the inside, the thrifty true wireless headphones are armed with a set of 12.4mm drivers, a pair of microphones, Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity and IP55 dust and sweat resistance.

If you're looking for omissions, you don't have to go too far. There's no form of noise cancelling or ambient mode to be found here. Naturally, niche extras like Spatial Audio support are also MIA.

While you can pair the Enco Buds2 Pro with whatever you want right out of the box, you'll have to set up the earbuds using OPPO's HeyMelody app if you want to unlock all the features or tinker with any settings. Having to download another app is never ideal, but what's here is relatively inoffensive.

HeyMelody makes swapping between the Enco Buds2 Pro's three "Master Equaliser" presets (Balanced, Bass and Bold) as simple as pressing a button. There's also a dedicated game mode that promises to reduce the lag between in-game audio and Bluetooth headphones.

The HeyMelody app is also used for remapping the touch controls on the earbuds. For reference, the default control scheme for the OPPO Enco Bud2 Pro is as follows:

That's a fairly idiot-proof and intuitive setup, which helps make up for the fact that the material design and overall fit of the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro earbuds is as iffy as it is. Don't get me wrong, these aren't the worst true wireless headphones I've ever used. However, the plastic feels cheaper than it looks and the loose-fit makes it easy for external noise to creep its way into the mix.

It's a similar story when it comes to the touch sensors themselves. There's a sensible click noise whenever you hit the spot but that trigger sometimes felt a little too small for purpose or outright unresponsive. More than once, I'd end up fumbling with hardware asking for a surprising amount of finesse.

Although they fall short on design, the Enco Buds2 Pro shines when it comes to battery life. The lightweight earbuds boast 8 hours of playback on a single charge. That number gets halved if we're talking calls but quadrupled (and then some) if you factor in the charger case. All told, you're looking at around 36 hours of music, podcasts and other audio playback on a full charge.

The fact that I never had to worry about the Enco Buds2 Pro earbuds running out of battery life went a long way towards making me like them. It also helped make it easier to live with how they fell short of what I expected (or was accustomed to) from a set of true wireless earbuds.

As someone who uses a set of Sony WF1000XM5s daily, the difference was immediately noticeable. Vocals sounded flatter and even the most vibrant soundscapes sounded more mundane. Podcasts and audiobooks were not subject to as severe a drop in sound quality, but that has more to do with the production values involved than anything else.

Faced with the usual testing routine, the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro were all over the map. The thrifty especially struggled with bassier tracks and while the soundscape here has some depth, it often felt stifled by a sense of shallowness.

OPPO's earbuds struggled with almost every other song I threw at it. The bass in "3005" didn't quite land, the jangled guitars on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" couldn't make it out of the mix and the chaos of Deftone's "Swerve City" proved difficult to navigate. Add to that the existing issues that the hardware here has with external noise and it's safe to say that audiophiles are likely to find these earbuds wanting.

In contrast, the microphone on the OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro was more serviceable. I wouldn't recommending anything you want to listen too later on it, but it worked fine enough for the odd phone call. There are plenty of true wireless earbuds out there that cost more and sound worse than these do when it comes to microphones, but if that aspect of the experience matters you might want to consider something like the Jabra Elite line instead.

The OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro swing above their weight on a few key fronts, but the performance is where the shortcuts (and shortcomings) become a little harder to ignore. That said, if all you want are a cheap set of earbuds with lots of battery life then there's still a lot to like here. These aren't likely to replace my existing earbuds but all I had (or wanted) to spend was $99 then these are definitely worth a look-in.

The OPPO Enco Buds2 Pro veer closer to do-the-job-earbuds than they are delightful ones. That's not going to be what everyone is after, but with the price and battery life being what it is it's not necessarily going to be a deal-breaker either.