Google Pixel Buds 2 vs Google Pixel Buds 1: Which To Buy?

featured image of 1 google pixel buds

This is the review of the comparison between the Google Pixel Buds 2 and the Google Pixel Buds 1. Both the earbuds are from Google so, it becomes difficult to choose the right one. Before choosing one among them, you must know about both the products. To know more about these earbuds, and to choose the right one for you, go to the detailed review.

google pixel buds (1)1 google pixel buds 1
Google Pixel Buds 2Google Pixel Buds 1
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PROSPROS
Auto-pairing on Android is great.
Bluetooth 5.0.
Well-built and minimal design.
Charging case is easy to use and charges wirelessly.
Easy to use and sounds good.
IPX4 sweatproof.
Google Assistant is fast and helpful.
Pairing process with Android phones is easy.
Tap-controls are straightforward.
They wrap up nicely to fit in a very compact charging case that delivers multiple extra charges on the go.
CONSCONS
Battery life is average.
They don’t isolate well against outside noise.
Get uncomfortable after about an hour of using them.
Only has AAC.
Price.
Design isn’t truly wireless.
Google Translate can be awkward and requires Pixel 2.
Their open design lets in a lot of ambient sound.

SPECIFICATIONS:

MODELGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
BrandGoogleGoogle
ModelPixel BudsPixel Buds
HEADPHONESGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
Headphones Form FactorEar-budEar-bud
Headphone TechnologyWirelessWireless
Sound Output Modestereostereo
CONNECTIONSGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
TypeUSB (power only)USB (Power only)
Connector TypeUSB Type-cUSB Type-C
REMOTE CONTROLGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
Audio ControlsVoice assistantVoice assistant
ControlsVoice assistantVoice assistant
DIMENSIONS & WEIGHTGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
Width0.8 in0.8 in
Depth0.7 in0.8 in
Height0.7 in0.8 in
Weight0.18 oz0.49 oz
POWERGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
Capacity120 mAh
Battery Life5 hour(s)5 hour(s)
Recharge Time1 hour(s)1 hour(s)
FEATURESGOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 2GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS 1
FeaturesVery comfortable

Solid audio

Hands-free Google Assistant

Long range

Excellent call quality

IPX4 sweat-resistant(splashproof)

Easy paring on Android phones

Superb case design and size

Case provides 3-4 recharges

Seamless translation technology

Affordable price
Bluetooth Wireless Earbuds

Integrated Microphone

Supports Google Assistant

Google Translation

On-Device Touchpad

Up to 5-Hour Battery Life

10-Minute Charge for 1 Hour of Music

Charge Case Included

Expert Reviews of Google Pixel Buds 2:

By HotHardware
Google’s done a really nice job with the new Pixel Buds. They offer good design, great sound quality, and seamless Google Assistant integration, plus easy setup and decent noise isolation. Comfort and battery life could be improved, and they lack active noise canceling. Still, like Google’s other devices, the Pixel Buds 2 blend the company’s hardware, software, and services in an effortless, delightful, and uniquely Google-y way. That’s no small feat. And if that’s what you’re looking for, then there’s nothing quite like the new Pixel Buds.

By Wired
I like the Pixel Buds for a different reason. One that’s not really quantifiable when looking at a spec sheet. These are made for the traditional AirPod buyer: someone who wants a pair of headphones that work exactly as expected, every time you use them. For that, they’re the best you’ll find for Android phones. Given the unmitigated disaster that was the first Pixel Buds, I’m thoroughly impressed.

By Mashable
Google’s new wireless earbuds beat the standard AirPods in a few key ways, but there’s still plenty of room for them to grow in future versions.

By Engadget
Google’s updated Pixel Buds are a revelation compared to the previous model. Not only are they true wireless now, but the smart features are reliable, the touch controls are easy to master and comfort is top-notch. Battery life is on par with Apple’s AirPods, but it’s well below average in 2020. Still, at $179, Google has a powerful set of earbuds for the Android faithful that really shine when paired with a Pixel phone.

By The Verge
At $179, the Pixel Buds are priced the same as Jabra’s Elite 75t earbuds, which I’d still personally pick over these for their more dynamic sound and because you don’t miss out on features depending on what phone you have. But if Google Assistant has a decent-sized presence in your life, you might be willing to make do with the downsides of Google’s new earbuds — lacking bass and the occasional swell in outside noise — for the convenience of being able to call upon it anytime, anywhere.

Expert Reviews of Google Pixel Buds 1:

By PCWorld New Zealand
Compared to the rock-solid hardware they share their branding with, Google’s Pixel Buds are unequivocally a bit disappointing. They’re not comfortable to wear, they don’t sound particularly great and the even the headline act of real-time translation…

By GoodGearGuide
There’s a lot of software-side things that Google has done here that I really would love to see transplanted into other, better sets of wireless headphones. The easy-pairing? Great. The ability to have the Pixel Buds read your notifications as they come to your phone? Also great. Even the real-time translation – while still in need of some refinement here and there – is still a feature that I quite like, it’s just one that I’d prefer transplanted into another (better) set of Google Assistant-friendly earbuds.

By CoolSmartphone
When I saw the Pixel Buds announced at last year’s I/O event, I was very interested to see just how good they were for music quality. However, most of all I wanted to use the built-in Google Assistant features. Whilst the instant translation feature wowed…

By goodhousekeeping.co.uk
Those with access to Google Assistant on their smartphones will get the most out of these in-ear wireless headphones. Comfortable and simple to set up but lacking in sound quality, Google’s first attempt at headphones is valiant but falls a little…

By Pocket-lint
On one hand, Pixel Buds offer a decent Google Assistant experience. On the other hand, they’re frustratingly designed, don’t sound great, and don’t deliver on the potential of their real-time translation headline feature. Google has made headway with its…

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Google Pixel Buds 2

Google’s newest truly wireless head buds have a lot of competition to face with companies like Amazon, Samsung, Apple all bringing established offerings to the market, they really need to stand out to make a splash. Google pixel buds 2 is not only a superior offering for audio lovers, but gives a sleeker design, feel extremely comfortable, and have plenty of intuitive features, that they give any Wireless head buds a run for their money.

Google Pixel Buds 1

Google Pixel Buds 1 is the old version of Google Pixel Buds 2. It comes in a soft case. It also has some features similar to the Google Pixel Buds 2. It is a wireless earbud coming in a soft case.

DESIGN & BUILT QUALITY:

Google Pixel Buds 2

This is a really unique circular design that you don’t see on some of the other head buds that are on the market. Most of the earbuds with the exception of, probably the Airpods look fairly close to being the same, but Google pixel buds really kind of stand out from the pack, and they have that kind of uniqueness going for them that the air pods do. It was one of the main things that kind of stood out to me both when I saw them in the presentation, and both when I unbox them and started using them, to begin with, but I’m walking around people tend to notice these earbuds because they stick out just a little bit more than the normal ones.

I really like that Google went with this kind of unique circular design, that really stands out but that circular design allows for a bigger surface or some of the touch controls. The case here comes with is also really nice. If you’ve ever used the Airpods and you’ve experienced how portable and well design that case is you’re basically getting the same thing but the Google pixel buds 2.

I really like the way the build of the case feels, and snap back and forth, and the way that the buds just snap into the case, and securely fastened for charging is fantastic. The buds themselves don’t weigh too much. They’re extremely light, portable, and not something that you’re gonna feel carrying around in your pocket. Fortunately, the case itself isn’t just there for looks, it acts as a charger as well, which is nothing new if you’ve dealt with Wireless buds before.

Google Pixel Buds 1

The box is very simple. The Case is like a little pot to here. They have a G logo on the Buds. There is also the battery indicator and there’s a button on it. You can click it which tells you the battery level every time. The box is magnetic and it actually has hardshell. So, even though it kind of looks like it’s soft, it will provide protection for your device. The case will also provide charge for your devices.

The one thing I want to mention is that, even though we have touch sensitivity control, only the right earbud has that, the left earbud is not a time-sensitive control.

COMFORT:

Google Pixel Buds 2

Comfort really plays a great role in the earbuds that I choose next to sound quality. In my opinion, the comfort level of earbuds is probably the next thing, because it doesn’t matter how well something sounds if you can’t keep them in your ears for longer than an hour, what’s the point of purchasing them. They could have the best sound in the world but if they don’t feel comfortable in your ears, it will be a great problem.

Luckily Google Pixel buds were extremely comfortable. When I had them in my ears for just a long duration of time, I forgot that I had that earbud actually in my ears themselves. They come with your standard three silicone tips so, you can adjust based on the fit that you want, or to seal that you want within your ear. The buds even feature kind of like a small wing that secures the buds a little bit more firmly in your ear, and gives you the ability to kind of tilt, or move them to increase the seal that you’re getting to for better sound quality, and also just to secure them a lot better in your ear itself.

Ironically, the fit is where your mileage may vary just a little bit. They may not fit well in some people’s ears it just couldn’t find the right secureness they felt like they were gonna fall out. With these buds your mileage may vary, you’re gonna have to change out the tips, you’re gonna have to kind of find you fine-tune, your perfect fit, hopefully, they fit in you properly. For me, though I had no issues with the fit at all, and the comfort level of them was pretty awesome.

Google Pixel Buds 1

Opening the case is very simple. It is as I mentioned to you guys magnetic. To keep your buds in and then taking them off is very simple. You remove them, you have a right and left with connectors to be able to charge, the connectors are attached with some connectors that we have directly on the back of the pixel buds themself. You can notice the right and left so, always they’re never going to be a situation, where you don’t know where to put it. You just insert, you put them in, and you’re pretty much set. It’s basically very hard not to put them in the right position.

Fitting the earbuds in your ear is pretty simple. Just adjust the loop have it rest within your ear canal and then tuck the actual peace within your earlobe and you’re pretty much set. They’re actually very good. I’m doing a little bit of tugging, they don’t seem to be wanting to fall off.

They feel very nice, they feel very comfortable the entire time that I’ve had them in my ear. I almost didn’t feel like actually practically forgot about them. They are very light, very simple to use. I do have to say that I feel like the touch sensitivity on the right side is a little bit too much, it’s slightly too sensitive. So, I’m hoping at some point we’ll be able to get away from controlling the sensitivity of it or maybe adjusting the sensitivity to be a little bit less. As I found myself whenever I was trying to change the volume it was actually initiating the playback of the music I wasn’t trying to do that. But playing back notifications directly with the earbuds is gonna come very naturally to us. I’m used to using that with Android auto in the car, I’ll get a notification, I’ll ask the assistant to be able to play that back, and it works now having that within the earbuds.

FEATURES:

Google Pixel Buds 2

One of the important feature that the google pixel buds 2 have is it also incorporates a lot of touch and slide gestures. It really comes in handy and that circular design that Google chose to go with. You have the ability to of course press one to pause-play your music, double-tap to go forward, but you can also slide your fingers forward to increase the volume, slide your fingers backward to decrease the volume.

The touch gestures were kind of a hit or miss for me for the most part playing, pausing, skipping, rewinding all that stuff worked perfectly. When it came to actually slide my fingers across the surface to increase or decrease the volume, Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it just ended up having to default to my phone, or to the Google assistant in order to raise and lower the volume.

One of the coolest things about this particular earbuds is that it manages the use of Google assistant so well. It’s extremely responsive, even in loud areas you’re able to with a medium tone like the Google command, and the assistant pops right up. It handles basic commands really well like checking the weather, checking your calendar, it can even read notifications and messages to you. It has that great integration with the different applications that you have on your phone like music, YouTube Music, Spotify. I’m not a big proponent of using the virtual assistant, it’s like talking to yourself especially when you’re in public it looks kind of weird, maybe not so much in this day and age, but these buds handled it really well again.

You gave that command pop right up, and you can basically navigate, and do a lot of the things on your phone. I found that it was a lot better for me than when I was using some of the other virtual assistants like Alexa or Siri it just felt a little bit more natural. I felt like the Google assistant was just able to accomplish a lot more being able to do things like read my text messages, or messages that are coming in, without taking my phone out of my pocket, became really convenient.

There’s even an application that gives you the ability to turn on and off settings and find to the buds to your liking just a little bit more. It basically gives you some help on how to use them, how to use their features to the fullest potential. You can even get a reading on your battery life for both the buds and the case itself, which is vital information it comes in handy.

So, with these Google Pixel Buds 2, Google tries to offer kind of a robust experience for the users, giving you a nice sleek and cool design, is giving you that application that runs on your phone for some more fine-tuning, and it has a Google Assistant and the ability to access all these features.

Google Pixel Buds 1

 

For the translate feature to work, we do need to have the Google Translate installed, and make sure you download the language packs. I like to keep them offline so, that I have access to them even when my network is not working. Select the languages that you want, the primary language needs to be on the left side so, the one that connected to the pixel Buds will be on the English side, French will be the one using the phone. So, this is to be an example.

If I’m in Paris and I need to talk to somebody and what you need to do is just turn on the microphone, you’ll notice on the bottom the headset logo shows up on the phone screen and you have the French option on the other side of the screen. That has just a microphone and what’s gonna happen here is that you have to speak to it and you’ll see that on the top and when it responds back it’ll show up at the bottom.

To initiate it on the pixel on the actual bud, Just press and hold and say the command. The main benefit of here is that you have it as an auto conversation, as you’re holding the phone up to a person and you’re able to talk to them and then they’ll understand you through the phone and you’ll understand them in the ear but translation is very much easy here. It works pretty well.

It just works really nice and they’re very nicely priced for what they can do sound quality is pretty good, battery life is pretty good, pairing them is super easy. With ios device, it works but it loses some functionality. When you’re not using this directly with a pixel device so, the experience is tailored to the device that you’re using not all features are available everywhere. The best experience is on a pixel device for a Pixel Buds and that’s going to be the best situation.

1 google pixel buds 3

CONNECTIVITY:

Google Pixel Buds 2

Connect wise Google actually tries to offer a Quick Connect feature, that’s similar to what you would get with the Airpods when you open up the pixel by case. Your phone is gonna automatically detect it and give you the ability to connect. This works on and off. It works pretty well with my Android phone. It didn’t work too well on my iPhone, but that’s to be expected. Other than that you compare them just like a regular Bluetooth device they have Bluetooth 5.0. Once you’re connected, for the most part, I didn’t have any kind of big connection issues, I was streaming my media just fine, I didn’t lose any kind of connection, I didn’t have any hiccups. One of the coolest things in the world as I was bouncing from connection to connection so, I had it connected to my phone, to my tablet, I was using on my laptop, it seamlessly moved between the devices without an issue.

One of the interesting issues I did have is because I was using this to take phone calls a lot I would use one, but at a time. So, I’d have one button like my left ear, and have the other one in the case charging. When it came time for me to actually switch buds, I’ll run into this weird issue, when I would switch the buds it would lose connection to whatever device I was currently connected to and in order to regain connection, I would actually literally have to put both buds back into the case, hold the connection button at the back of the case, and reconnect it to the device. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened often enough for it to become a nuisance.

Google Pixel Buds 1

Pairing them to the Pixel XL is very simple here. To be able to pair them up to your device, all you need to do is go in turn on Bluetooth, give it a second to turn on, and you’re pretty much set. The only thing we need to do at this point is open up the pixel buds, and since they haven’t been paired with any other device this should be pretty simple. It is tap to connect, and we’ll be able to set them up. It’s gonna connect over wireless, and it’s pretty much set to send diagnostics. It explains to you how to use the loop. We’ll be able to set up the assistant, or access to the assistant.

As far as audio connectivity and distance this is something that was great. I checked it by going away from the mobile, by going to all the corners, and behind the walls, and the audio was playing back and it was like there was no distortion, the quality was perfect. I was able to connect, start the music, stop the music, change the volume, everything was working perfectly. I’m not sure how they’re doing this would Bluetooth, because it is connected via Bluetooth directly to the device, but the combination between the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel Buds 1 is amazing.

You would also be able to access the location services. You have your assistant in your ear so, you’re able to read your notification by just tapping it once, you hit the notification come in. We’ll be able to turn it on so, what we need to do is go in and give it access. At this point, they explain to you again, how to do that loop. So, press and hold give you access to the actual assistant. It also gives spoken notification about the battery level.

google pixel buds 16

BATTERY AND ITS LIFE:

Google Pixel Buds 2

The case will give you about 24 hours worth of charging time with the buds themselves. Speaking of overall general battery life, I am a long listener I tend to have really long listening sessions. So, battery life for wireless buds plays heavily in my decision on which bud to purchase. The pixel buds are gonna give you about five hours worth of battery time that’s what Google’s saying, anyway on my end when I use them I got about four and a half hours, but I’m using them continuously without any kind of break.

I’m usually just going through a full listening session jumping from youtube videos to music to answering phone calls and just listening to things in general. So without any breaks, I was able to get four and a half hours, which is not great, but it’s not terrible either, and the case actually charges them up pretty quickly. So, even when I was running out of battery life if I pop them in the case, within 30 to 45 minutes I was back to a full charge and not have to worry about it too much.

Google Pixel Buds 1

We do have a little instruction here to show us how to unwind and wind our cables. Lastly in the case, we have some instruction in USB type-A, USB type-c cable to be able to charge up our exabytes.

It has a USB type-c connector in the back, that will charge the built-in battery. The battery on this thing is rated on the pod themselves. They are rated for about four and a half to five hours worth of playback time, and then the charge from the actual pod itself is supposed to be giving us up to 24 hours up to playback. So, you’re supposed to be able to charge them up enough time to be able to get 24 hours of music. When you click the battery level, you’ll be able to see what it is at.

SOUND:

Google Pixel Buds 2

When it comes to sound, which is no doubt one of the most important things in a headset these actually sound pretty phenomenal. I was extremely, pleasantly surprised at how well, how full, robust, how clean the sound coming out of these things were. I would even go as far as to say that this is some of the best sounds that I’ve gotten out of some buds in a really long time. My one and only complaint with the sound is that it could be a little bit louder sometimes. The sound was just not loud enough for me to be true and fully immersed in the music or entertainment that was going on my phone.

These don’t have noise cancellation. They have something that Google calls adaptive sound, which basically just optimizes the volume based on the environmental noise that surrounds you. Turning this option on actually noticeably makes it different how do birds sound in louder environments.

Google Pixel Buds 1

If there’s no latency as far as to playback, the audio quality is pretty good. You’re getting pretty good bass, pretty good music. Obviously, there’s some sound leakage, just keep that in mind they’re not in-ear, they’re not isolated. You’re gonna get sound leakage so, people can hear it, but if you’re in a car, where there’s an experience, where there’s enough noise around you, it should not be a big problem. When we have somebody sitting right next to you, you may want to reduce the volume. Other than that I am really really happy with the fact that this has no latency and a tremendous range.

1 google pixel buds 4

WHICH TO BUY?

Both the Buds are good at their price. If you are looking for a good earbud at less price than you can choose the Google Pixel Buds 1. Otherwise, I would definitely recommend the Google Pixel Buds 2, if you’re looking for a set of truly wireless earbuds, because you’re not getting some of the great features like IPX4 that you’re getting on the Google Pixel Buds 2. These are actually pretty cool. The price is a little bit higher than the Google Pixel Buds 1.