Amazon Echo Buds (2023) Review: Cheap Earbuds That Are Nice For The Price
- Easy to set up and use without the Alexa app
- Customizable touch controls for each bud
- Good sound and voice quality
- In-ear detection with automatic pausing
- Solid battery life
- No wireless charging and no USB-C cable included
- Might be uncomfortable for smaller ears
- Initial Alexa app setup is obnoxious
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Within the ever-expanding market for wireless earbuds, there are pretty much only two things a new pair of in-ear audio devices can do to stand out: Provide even better quality and features over contemporary models, or offer good quality and decent features at a reasonable price. The 2023 Echo Buds — or "All-new Echo Buds (2023 Release)" as Amazon calls them — fall squarely in the latter category.
Because while 2023's latest Echo Buds aren't going to blow the lid off the market, or eclipse their much fancier competitors, they're marketed as a reasonably simple but solid pair of wireless earbuds sold at a fraction of the price of their biggest-name competitors. The $49.99 price tag (on sale for $39.99 as of this writing) makes them a pretty affordable and accessible option to a much broader audience than most earbuds that cost several times as much — now we just need to make sure they work.
Right out of the box
Amazon's 2023 Echo Buds come with almost everything you'll need to get started or replace an older pair of earbuds. They're tucked inside a compact charging case, which itself is tucked in a fairly small box, with all the necessary setup steps documented on the inside of the box flap — and more extensive booklets nestled behind the case. Each bud has a silicone cover wrapped around it to start (with two replacement covers included if you ever need them), and they'll fit in the case just fine whether they're sleeved or not.
One thing the Echo Buds are missing, though, is a charging cable. Granted these days it's likely that most people will have the requisite USB-C cable themselves due to it coming with some other electronic device because it's pretty much the new norm. Still, it may make for a frustrating experience if you don't know you'll need to provide your own. Fortunately, in this instance, the Echo Buds arrived with a full charge, while the case also had a fair bit of power remaining.
Setting up the Echo Buds was simple and irritating all at once. The negative part of the experience starts with Amazon's documentation that insists that you must use the Alexa app. To put it bluntly, the app is annoying to set up. It asks for information you may not want to share (like exact location, contacts, and so forth) while making it seem like such access is essential (it isn't). But you can also skip all of that and just connect them like any other Bluetooth headset.
About the Alexa app
At the same time, as obnoxious as setting up the Alexa app may be, it's a non-issue if you already have it installed on your smartphone. If you already have the proper Amazon Alexa app installed on your device of choice, you only need to open the charging case (with the buds inside), turn on the app, then let them find each other. The app can also be fairly useful, assuming you have the patience to endure the process. And it's necessary if you ever plan to update the software embedded in your Echo Buds in the future.
Once everything is prepared — and paired — you can use Alexa like you would Siri or Google, as well as use it in conjunction with the Echo Buds to operate other connected devices. The app will also let you see how much of a charge your earbuds and charging case have left, rather than just the earbuds.
Perhaps the app's best feature is in its custom tap control settings. With this feature, you can edit the function of single, double, and triple taps along with press-and-hold, and you can do so for each individual earbud. You can change the earbuds' settings so that one side raises your audio volume, while the other lowers said volume. Or you can drop Alexa entirely and set it so that a long press (or tap) will activate your phone's own voice assistant. And these control changes will persist across devices, provided they support those functions in the first place.
Sounds good
Quality-wise the 2023 Echo Buds don't provide the best audio quality you'll ever hear from a pair of wireless earbuds. The sound quality is acceptable, at the very least. Music, videos, and calls come through nice and clear, the bass is appropriately punchy, and you can adjust the audio balance via the Alexa app if you want to make some slight alterations.
That said, keep in mind that the Echo Buds don't offer premium bells and whistles like spacial audio support or noise cancellation. So no simulated surround sound, and they do nothing to nullify local sounds — the only way you won't hear nearby noises is if what you're listening to is strong enough to drown them out. Though when it comes to safety, not being able to mute the outside world isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Microphone audio is also pretty good, with quality that matches some costlier wireless headsets. And in a limited number of tests (i.e. calls to friends and family), the outgoing audio performed well enough that nobody knew earbuds were being used until they were told. That said, the Echo Buds do have a tendency to pick up non-verbal audio that a smartphone or nicer set of buds would likely avoid — such as creaking floors or chairs.
What else do they do?
While the kinds of premium features you'll often find on more expensive earbuds are absent, the Echo Buds do still come with a few perks. The previously-mentioned touch controls are responsive and there's no noticeable audio delay (though in a couple of instances, there was some slight lag right after connecting to some devices that went away after less than a minute).
It's also easy to connect the Echo Buds to other Bluetooth-compatible devices like laptops and game consoles, and so long as those devices offer the same functions you can play, pause, increase or decrease volume, and so on just like you can on your smartphone. Additionally, you can connect the buds to two devices at the same time and switch between them at will. The Echo Buds (mostly) seem to just know what to give priority, such as ignoring iPhone interface sounds while playing games on the Switch, but superseding game audio with incoming text notifications.
Additionally, they can detect when they're placed in your ears as well as when they're removed, so if you're listening to music or watching a video and take one (or both) of them out things will pause automatically and resume when you put them back in. Battery life is pretty good, too, lasting for several hours on a single charge without the need to go back into the charging case. Actually charging either the buds or the case itself generally doesn't take very long, either.
Size may matter
So using the 2023 Echo Buds for hours at a time is certainly possible due to the battery life and their various functions, but whether or not it's comfortable to do so is another matter. The included (and attached) silicone covers definitely help to keep the buds cleaner than they might've ended up being without. These covers can be removed and cleaned themselves to make the process easier, but depending on the person they may be just a little bit too big.
Thankfully you can simply take the silicone covers off and go without, which does reduce the buds' surface area somewhat and should make them at least a little less uncomfortable if it feels like they're not fitting quite right. That said, the amount of surface area being reduced by the sleeve removal won't be enough to make a difference for someone with smaller ear canals.
And the Echo Buds don't come with alternate sizes, so if they're still too snug even without the silicone covers, there's not much you can do about it. Though like with most earbuds that don't include multiple cover size options, they should fit just fine for the average user.
Echo Buds (2023) verdict
The best way to look at 2023 Echo Buds is to think of them as a nice and solid pair of wireless earbuds at an affordable price. They don't come with a multitude of bells and whistles, but they do offer a handful of handy features for their price point. More importantly, they should be fairly comfortable for most people — even with prolonged use — and they provide perfectly decent audio and recording quality when you take cost into consideration.
Speaker and microphone quality are good, battery life is long enough to stay competitive, they're easy to pair, and they can maintain a Bluetooth connection across a (modestly-sized) apartment with no issues. Obviously, they won't hold a candle to the most expensive wireless earbuds like Apple AirPods or OnePlus Buds Pro, but they get the job done and cost a fair amount less than those examples. For $50 (or less, depending on if they're still on sale when you find them on Amazon), Amazon Echo Buds (2023) are entirely adequate for the cash they cost.