Angry Miao Cyberblade Review: Peak Gamer Wooing With Serious Substance

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What do you get if you ask gaming peripheral engineers to go overboard, but in a breathtakingly innovative fashion? You get Angry Miao. The Chinese company is the epitome of gamer-pleasing over-engineering, but that's somewhat the whole point of such aesthetics, I'd say.

The Angry Miao Cyberblade is the company's first set of TWS earbuds, and they have a look that's unlike anything you've seen before. Unless, you've played the "Horizon" series of games and have been dreaming about Focus, the triangular earbuds worn by the protagonist, Aloy. Angry Miao explicitly mentions that Focus was the inspiration for the Cyberblade, and it is on full display on the white trim.

But it's not just the RGB-toting looks of the Cyberblade that demand your attention. Everything that comes in the uncharacteristically huge retail box will take you by surprise. The charging case is actually a cylinder with an RGB halo (of course), and there's also a dock with a glass base that lights up in the same colors with some cool RGB effects.

These earbuds cost $328, which is a bit hard to digest for earbuds that don't offer any standout audiophile benefits, but there's plenty here that will definitely convince gaming enthusiasts and even fans of cool gizmos to drop that amount.

Then you have the charging case, which is cylindrical and looks stunning. It is not the most pocketable form factor, but again, it looks unlike any other earbuds case out there in the market. Plus, it has a few tricks up its sleeve. It has a USB Type-C port for charging, but there's a charging coil underneath that allows it to draw power from any Qi-supported charging mat.

The lid has a textured metallic finish alongside the periphery and actually doubles as a rotating knob for volume control. It's a thoughtful perk that works like a charm. The lid actually serves as a tactile button, which accepts single tap, double tap, and long press gestures for switching between sound modes, pairing, and controlling the mic.

Nadeem Sarwar/SlashGear

Each function is color-coded, which is helpful. The movie booster mode is by default coded to green-yellow lights, the music booster mode has a blue-purple aura, while the gaming booster mode offers a spinning light-show of neon pink with a dash of yellow.

A triple click can turn off the RGB light show. The visual cues make it easier to remember the gestures, somewhat easing the learning curve. The inside of the lid and the base of the charging case have metallic pins for charging. Just put the case atop the dock, and it will juice up.

It's not just the design that Angry Miao prides itself in, but the audio-centric features that make it an ideal fit for gamers. To start, you can pair them with gaming consoles like the PS5, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch, aside from phones and laptops.

What's notable is that the Cyberblade offers a latency of just 36 milliseconds, which really comes in handy at playing fast-paced action games like "Call of Duty" and "Apex Legends." Angry Miao claims that the latency of Cyberblade is over five times lower than the AirPods Pro, and even beats wired earphones.

Nadeem Sarwar/SlashGear

I played a few rounds of "Valiant" and "Apex Legends" and came out with a positive experience despite my noob-level skills. The ultra-low latency is not going to revolutionize your gaming experience unless you're really serious about millisecond-level incoherency between the on-screen action and the corresponding sound output. But if you are the kind of person who balks at the idea of wireless mice and keyboards for gaming, Cyberblade earbuds are here for you.

The six-mic array does its job well, producing a satisfactorily clear sound. In fact, I found the voice pick-up to be noticeably better than Samsung's flagship Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. If you're worried about call quality, the Cyberblade will serve you well even in a crowded place.

Now, these won't blow your socks off with pristine audio goodness that you would otherwise get from wired audiophile-grade gear or even the likes of AirPods Pro or Sony WF-1000XM4. But I compared them to the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and found the Angry Miao Cyberblade to be the better-sounding option.

The Cyberblade doesn't quite offer the widest soundstage that I've come across, but the audio profile is clean. Compared to Sony's flagship earbuds, the sound signature of the Angry Miao Cyberblade is bright, with a noticeably better performance at treble reproduction. The bass output is somewhat flat, but the sharp instrumental output serves as a saving grace.

I started the review hoping for a V-shaped sonic signature but ended up with a straight graph that had an impressive performance for higher frequencies and underwhelming low-frequency response. What the Cyberblade lacks in bass power it makes up with a beautiful depth effect courtesy of its 3D spatial audio enhancements.

As a control test, I handed over the Cyberblade to a few of my friends, and they were all impressed with the punchy audio. Only the select few that call themselves audio purists noticed the sub-par bass. I also wish these earbuds were a bit louder. The noise cancellation is not top-notch, but it gets the job done.

The hybrid ANC masked the sound of my PC fans whirring at full blast, and also did a neat job of negating the sound of vehicles honking right below my apartment. The transparency mode also does an acceptable job. Again, it's not up to the same level as the AirPods Pro, but you won't find the Cyberblade lagging too far.

But there are a few more areas where I feel that the Angry Miao Cyberblade don't quite do justice to their asking price. There is only support for AAC and SBC audio codecs. It's somewhat of a bummer that for a wearable audio gear that costs $350, you don't get any high-end codec for uncompressed, high-resolution music playback.

There's also a companion app, but it's quite barebones. You can only adjust the RGB lighting effects between four styles and tweak the color, or pick between three audio profiles viz. balanced, vocal, and bass. There's no equalizer control or user profile facility here. On the homepage, you get controls to switch between the ANC and transparency mode.

For earbuds that sound this good with all that fancy triple music processing chip facility— and cost so damn much — I expected more. I sincerely hope that Angry Miao adds a native EQ customization option to the mobile app. However, there's a neat trick that happens at the hardware level.

The Angry Miao Cyberblade earbuds are an unabashedly gamer-centric product. They look like a million bucks and absolutely nail the standing-out-from-the-crowd part. The whole setup deserves a place on your desk if your dreams are RGB-tinted. The overzealous folks at Angry Miao also added some meaningful engineering wizardry into the mix, such as baking the volume and sound profile controls right into the lid. The sound output is good, and the mic reception is impressive, as well. Battery life is also satisfactory, and I am happy with the charging versatility, too. The novel triple audio chip system is also one-of-a-kind.

However, given their current asking price of $328, any buyer would expect more in terms of sound quality and audiophile-pleasing features. From a pure value perspective, Cyberblade earbuds aren't quite up there with Apple and Sony's best. I was consciously aware of their steep asking price every time I popped them out of that sleek charging case.

But hey, you're knocking at Angry Miao's doors looking for something unique. Angry Miao's Cyberblade earbuds will serve just that by oodles, and then some, especially for fans of gamer aesthetics. Overall, Angry Miao appears to have created what it set out to and has done a rather good job of it. My only advice would be to keep an eye on festive discounts and snag them happily if they fall below the $300 mark on any given day.