Great set of wireless earbuds, as long as they'll work for your personal devices. I picked these up along with some Soundcore VR P10's and the JBL Quantum TWS's to have an easy solution for on-the-go gaming and conference calls while I travel. The Inzone Buds sound amazing, using the same top-end driver that are in the Sony MX5's, but at a much lower cost. So yes, they sound incredibly good for bluetooth earbuds. Definitely better than the Soundcore P10's (which is fair since those are like a quarter of the price).

Battery life is insane- 12 hours on the dongle, and I think twice that for bluetooth. The Soundcore P10's get something like 4.5-6 hours on the dongle. I found out that the JBL Quantums only get 3 hours on the dongle so I ended up returning them without opening them up since that's just way too short for me.

Caveats-

First to address using these via dongle (and at least on a Windows laptop)- the dongle actually makes TWO different audio outputs on your machine. There's the "Chat" output that is designed to drop off high and low frequencies to make speech clearer, and this is unaffected by any EQ and makes any music, movies, or games sound very thin and anemic, and overall terrible. It's only meant for things like Discord, Zoom, etc., so you can set an output in those apps that are primarily for voice chat. For some reason this is the default output when you first plug them in on a Windows laptop. You have to go to your audio output and change it from "Inzone Buds - Chat" to the real output, "Inzone Buds - Game". The "Game" output is the full-quality sound that you can tweak with the feature-rich Sony software. This threw me off until I noticed it, and I thought I'd dropped a bunch of money on disappointment. But then after setting it up correctly, these are fantastic for media AND gaming. They're full and clear at all frequencies and have solid directional sound so you can tell where footsteps and shots are coming from in game.

Caveat #2 is that these might not work on your devices when using them as regular bluetooth. They use Bluetooth LE Audio, which is a low-power audio codec that isn't supported by every device quite yet. Bluetooth LE has been around for a long time, and is great for things like smartwatches that just need to get notifications pushed without draining the battery quickly. But LE Audio came out a few years ago, and with years of R&D and testing that go into mobile devices, a lot of phones and tablets don't support it yet. My Galaxy S23 Ultra works just fine as well as my Tab S9 ultra, and the past couple generations of Xperia phones have it as well. But if you're an Apple user, even the iPhone 15 doesn't have it yet since Apple is very careful about incorporating new tech. Maybe next year. So that's something to be very aware of before buying- make sure Bluetooth LE Audio is listed in your device's compatible Bluetooth connections, or else it won't even see the earbuds without using the dongle.

And the only thing I consider as the real Con - the mic. Sony has never made a set of earbuds with a good mic for some reason, and these are no exception. Absolute garbage mic, people had a hard time understanding me calling from a dead quiet room. I bought a set of Lark M2's as a mobile mic for conference calls while traveling and talking to friends on Discord because of this. No idea why Sony can't get their act together and realize that people use bluetooth earbuds for more than just listening to music and videos.

But other than the microphone disappointment, these are definitely worth the price. Top-quality sound, lag-free audio, and the best battery life I've seen on any true wireless earbuds out there. Recommended!

WHY DID I BUY THESE EARBUDS?

I'm primarily a PS5 player, looking for an alternative to the [oversized] over-the-ear headsets (Astro A50 to be exact), and I needed decent mic quality that no one complains about in the party chat. After 2+ weeks of testing and tinkering to my liking, in one sentence.. I can say these earbuds have met all my primary needs.

Feel free to read on to see what else it does and does not do for me, and my thoughts on how it may compare to the PlayStation branded Pulse Explore earbuds.

BLUETOOTH! Major compatibility problem for most. I was well aware of it's limited connectivity when I got it, and I have a Galaxy S23 so it is one of the few phones with BT LE. It works, granted my first attempt at connection did not go well.. I was only hearing from one earbud and mic was not picking up. I was going to write it off and deduct a star from my score but.. My S23 got a system update this week, I retried connecting, and it worked just as well any other earbuds should.

PC/PS5/PHONE APPLICATIONS. Nocompanion app for the phone, none on the PS5, but I did my configurations on PC and the app is very easy to use and customize the earbud functions, add or remove functions etc. for example there are 3 noise cancelling/ambient modes to swap between, I reduced it to 2 for simplicity. There are probably more in-depth youtube videos on the app.

ACTIVE NOISE CANCELLING. Great.

AUDIO & MIC. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but they do sound great. I've been playing Warzone, Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4 and Gran Turismo 7 since I got them, I want to say I'm hearing just as well as I do with the Astro A50 and maybe better since I believe it's employing spatial/3D audio whereas I've stuck with the old 5.1 audio on my headset.

Mic quality I've been told is good, it was too loud initially but I turned the sensitivity down on the PS5 to around level 3 and other than the first person I tested it with no one since has said anything like "put the Astros back on your mic is trash" cause they haven't noticed a massive drop off in quality. Win in my books cause these are earbuds.

PS5 FUNCTIONALITY. All controls you could do on a PS Pulse headset are here, volume+/-, chat/game balance, and mute. Unfortunately that also means the Mute button on the Dualsense controller will no longer mute the mic, you'll have to initiate it from the buds. It will also display the volume balances, battery life and mic status on screen.

So I've customized the taps on the earbuds like this: (L) one tap = mute, two taps = Vol-, 3 = ANC on/off, long hold for game audio balance | (R) one tap = mute, two taps = Vol+, 3 = blank, long hold for chat audio balance. I've gotten used to these settings and making quick adjustments I need feels natural for me. In the PC app you can tailor the potential 4 function buttons each to your liking.

COMFORT. You may have heard these are among the most comfortable earbuds you can get. I won't be the person to say otherwise. It comes with 4 sets of tips in addition to the ones placed on them. I felt discomfort in the original tips after about 2 hours with the default tips, I sized it down one and these fit perfectly. I've had it in my ears for as long as 6 hours in one sitting and its almost unnoticeable.

BATTERY LIFE. As I just mentioned, I had it on for an entire 6 hour session before, from what I remember they were still above 50%. These will last as long as you should need them to.

WHAT DON'T I LIKE? Well the bluetooth compatibility is very very limited, only a few Android phones released this year will connect to it. So it won't connect to my iPhone, it wont connect to a smart TV, smart watches, nothing else that your other earbuds could. But, it may be connecting to your future purchases as BT LE becomes more common.

And while on the subject of bluetooth, no simultaneous audio from the transceiver and the BT device. It will automatically swap if you receive a call, or you can manually fully switch over by holding both buds at the same time for a few seconds, but you cannot get audio from both at the same time.

You may be able to hear that white noise if nothing else is being played and you're sensitive to that.

No wireless charging case.

THOUGHTS ON THE PULSE EXPLORE BUDS. The Pulse Explore may be functionally the same as the Inzone Buds, but compatible with almost all your bluetooth devices and I believe it will do simultaneous audio. That is probably where the advantages stop though, I've read there is no ANC, no button customizability, and the volume buttons may not work over bluetooth. For these reasons, I can't see how they can be better than the Inzone Buds, but simultaneous audio and compatibility may be more important to someone else. I ordered a pair for science, I may update this section when it releases next month.

*** UPDATE *** I tried the pulse earbuds for a week, didn't like them as much. It's just as I suspected above, but the simultaneous bt audio isn't enough for me to give up the comfort and the customizability of the taps on these Inzone Buds.

So these are all my thoughts on the Inzone Buds. Anything I left out may just not have been that important to me personally. $200 is steep, but I think they're worth it overall.

I wanted something other than wireless headphones to game and stream with. I took a chance and bought these. Most other earbuds I tried were lucky to last more than 3.5 hours before dying. These however have been used for 5+ hours without issue. I have been using them for a couple weeks and even for someone who isn't crazy about earbuds, found tips for each ear that its comfortable enough to were they don't drive me nuts. I used the dongle on my gaming PC and have noticed zero latency in games and voice chat. I am really liking these and can recommend them to others.

Updated 6/4/25: They worked fine for months, then around April I started having weird issues where the left earbud just wouldn't connect, or would randomly drop connection while gaming. I am using the dongle in the USB-C port and nothing has changed. I reached out to Sony who quickly replaced mine, but not even 3 days in, and same issue suddenly. The left one just refuses to connect. There are posts all over the internet about this problem too. Using BT connection doesn't resolve it either. So I pushed the Left earbud into my ear a little more snuggly and it connected. So I am thinking part of the issue might be I am not pushing them in snuggly enough for it to detect they are on. If I don't update this review, then it means its continued to work.

Update 2: Right after thinking I had them fixed, the left earbud on the replacement set continues to give me issues. I even tried the dongle on mobile mode and it didn't work at all. I then tried pairing via BT, and it can't find the other earbud, so it doesn't work. Do not recommend these at all. $200 earbuds that didn't even last a full year and replaced with same issue. If they work for you, then consider yourself lucky.

I *really* had to try to get these to work for the first time. It took hours!! The software was easy enough to install, and I followed the directions exactly, but the computer refused to see them. I decided maybe they had completely discharged while in the warehouse, so I followed the directions to charge. However, the orange light never turned green like the instructions said. 2 hours later, the orange light went away entirely. Were they charged? They still didn't work.

When I took the buds out of the case and put them back, the orange light returned for a few seconds. No green. I thought this might mean they were still not charged. I tried cleaning the contacts in case something was blocking the connection. Tried charging again. After 20 minutes the light disappears again. They still don't work. I looked up the light meanings in the manual. They are ridiculously complex combinations of length it's lit for, length it pauses for, flashes, and time-outs. Why???? Ever heard of, oh I don't know, TWO LIGHTS? MORE than two colors?! So, after scratching my head for 15 minutes and using a stopwatch to time various light patterns it showed after doing various things, I finally decided that the meaning was... unspecified error. Great.

I googled instructions for resetting the buds. It turns out there are two types of resets, a reboot and a factory reset. I tried one; didn't work. I tried the other... or at least I thought I had. Still didn't work. After reading some obscure descriptions of more lights related to the resets online, I decided that I hadn't been triggering the factory reset, only the reboot. It turns out that the two types of resets are distinguished by a stupidly small, timed window of pressing and releasing a button. WTF. After tying several times, I finally saw a minutely different display of lights and decided that meant I had finally triggered the factory reset.

But they still wouldn't connect. Give me patience. Maybe they still weren't charged? Gave them another hour or so charging. Finally, I looked over and the light is green. Eureka?

Yes! They connected to the computer and haven't had a problem since (1 week). They fit very comfortably after performing an ear cup size fit-test and going up a size. They're still very comfortable after several hours. The software is easy to use and full featured. But do I risk performing the firmware update that the software says is available...uh...maybe not.

I prefer the eq response of my AirPods Pro, but they sound decent. The spatial surround in games works well, but it's maybe not as good as the Razer THX surround that I used before. Still, I'm happy with the purchase now. Whew.

**PS5 USER**

Good headphones, couple of things I feel like could be a little better but overall, very satisfied. I'll start by saying the number one reason I purchased these was because the battery life on my Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed earbuds was terrible. Couldn't play for an hour and a half with those before they died. These headphones have resolved that issue for me. Great battery, decent sound, good mic, very versatile/functional, customizable (from PC). See below for more detailed categories:

Battery:

They will play for 8+ hours without dying. I usually use one bud only so I can still hear my wife and kids while playing. Had a session where the earbud was in my ear for roughly 8-10 hrs and it still had one bar of its battery life (per PlayStation menu). Overall - great battery life, very satisfied

Sound:

The sound is pretty good, not spectacular. I will preface this topic by stating that I have owned several sets of different earbuds from different brands. One of which, is the Samsung Buds2 Pro's, which are incredible headphones. The sound quality of those Samsung earbuds blow the sound quality of these out of the water. Although sound is important to me, it wasn't exactly what I was after when purchasing these. If I want to get a full sound and picture video game experience, I will just through on my Sony Pulse over the ear headphones. When just wanting normal sound and chat ability, these will do that just fine.

Mic:

The mic is good. Have had no reports from any of my buddies telling me otherwise

Customizing:

This is the other area where I feel like Sony dropped the ball. I don't have a very good PC at home, and if you don't either, you may struggle to adjust these as well. The only way, that I found, to remap the tap controls, sound preferences, and other settings is to download an app on the PC and take the headphones to that PC. MAKE A MOBILE APP. I was surprised I had to do that at all. Every single other set of earbuds I've had would do a mobile phone app adjustment. Even the other Razer earbuds that I own has a mobile app. Now, once getting the app downloaded on the PC, everything was good. Customizing was simple and I was able to remap the tap controls to my preference. Would give this subject 4/5 stars based on that lack of Mobile App

Functionality:

These function very well. Open them up, put them in the ears, the PS5 immediately recognizes them and switches to that audio - love it. Tap controls are solid. Good comfortable surface to tap on. Can customize R or L with different commands or same if you prefer that. The biggest reason why I resort to these earbuds while gaming now-a-days is for the versatility. I play a lot of games that I can pause because I often need to drop what I am doing and go take care of the family. I game in my basement - I was up on the second story folding laundry yesterday while still in the party and talking with the guys. It is just nice to not have the traditional bulky headphones on while doing family things. Great for this reason. I will say one thing that I don't like about these is you can't use the controller mute function or adjust the volume from the PlayStation quick menu. You have to do it all from the tap controls. The one thing you can still do is adjust a friends volume in the party setting.

Hope this helps anybody considering investing in these. I would expect these to last me the next 4-5 years and they will do everything I need them to do for me. Solid Product

I was in the market for some gaming earbuds so that I wouldn't have to carry around my big cans when travelling. I watched videos on different models but one of the aspects was mic quality that was important. I first tried the ROG Cetra which weren't too bad, but once you entered anything that involves chat, the quality went down. Not necessarily the earbuds fault, but Bluetooth connection cant handle this. They do have a newer version that has a dongle 2.4 ghz but that was more expensive than this and hearing samples of the mic wasn't really impressive. So I decided to try these and am glad I did! I own multiple Sony products and have always been impressed with the sound. This was no different, the sound quality is excellent and the spatial audio is fantastic. One ting to note that if you are like me that plan on using something like Dolby Atmos with these, you cannot have the Sony Inzone software installed. so you will have to pick. Alot of the things you want to do in the Inzone software can be done in the app for your phone. You can however adjust the equalizer to your liking in the Inzone app. It also applies (if you have one in your Sony account) the profiles for spatial audio and customized tones. I have used these for gaming, for zoom calls or just watching videos and all have worked flawlessly thanks to the plug and play feature of the usb C dongle. The extra is the mic quality. I have not had any complaints during zoom calls or gaming that they couldn't hear me or understand me. Even doing a recording the voice comes through pretty clear and natural but nothing compared to a studio quality boom mic or external mic. All in all though these have been great, use it daily, even works well with my Legion Go as well as my laptops and desktops no issue. One thing to also leave with since I saw reviews with connection issues, these earbuds does not support dual simultaneous connections. Meaning you can have it connected to the dongle and your phone but can't have the audio of both devices going at the same time. You also have to switch manually from Dongle mode and Bluetooth mode. It will however automatically connect to your phone if you have a call. Also with 12 hours run time (trust me I use these all day and night) I never found myself in a situation where it had died on me. Overall great earbuds!

We're at the dawn of the age of low-latency truly wireless earbuds. The INZONE Buds are a good first entry in this category from Sony with several innovative features, but the overall package is far from perfect (based on software at launch).

The Good:

Above average audio quality

Acceptable mic quality

Long battery life

Good noise cancellation (for earbuds)

Comfortable fit with multiple tip sizes

Strong signal strength in USB transceiver mode

Great device compatibility in USB transceiver mode

Easy configuration and management on Windows with INZONE Hub

The Bad:

No control software available for non-Windows platforms

Hard to hear voices in ambient mode

No IP certification (resistant to moisture and rain only)

Bulky charging case with no wireless charging

Unclear how the personalization features affect sound quality

No Bluetooth multipoint or simultaneous Bluetooth / USB audio

The Ugly:

High noise floor (noticeable white noise when quiet)

Very limited Bluetooth compatibility with 5.3 LE (LC3) Audio only

Transceiver doesn't solve all latency problems on Android

Breaking it Down:

These are comfortable earbuds and look very discrete if you get them in black. They sound pretty good over the USB transceiver link, and the signal is strong enough for me to walk around a small two-story house with the transceiver upstairs and not experience any audio degradation. Audio quality is better than average, but don't expect it to compete with a good pair of headphones or in-ear monitors. Expect to hear a noticeable amount of white noise when audio levels are low. Mic quality is fine for Discord and phone calls but clearly loses lower frequency tones.

The noise cancellation is effective and significantly reduces low frequency tones in particular (you can still hear some higher frequency tones like those from keyboard or mouse switches). The ambient mode lets through environment sounds but does a surprisingly poor job at letting you hear other people. Toggling the "Focus on Voice" feature doesn't seem to help very much, I have to use the "Quick Attention" feature to hear someone next to me when audio is playing. There are several "personalization" features that allow you to calibrate the earbuds to suite your ears, but it's hard to tell what exactly they're doing (I wish the app could show you how it's modifying the frequency response, for example).

Latency is good on Windows for watching videos and gaming. The delay was not noticeable when playing MOBAs and seems to be in the neighborhood of the claimed <30ms spec. Unfortunately, latency still seems to be a problem on Android. While it's better than a typical Bluetooth earbud using AptX or AAC, I can still tell there's a small delay when watching video. This may come down to other latencies in Android's audio pipeline and could vary from phone to phone.

Device compatibility is a mix of extremes. While the USB transceiver works on pretty much anything (including the iPhone 15 with USB-C), the Bluetooth compatibility is limited to only devices that support Bluetooth 5.3 and the LC3 audio codec. For the most part, only Android devices released after mid-2022 would qualify (since Apple doesn't support LC3 codec earbuds yet). On top of that, while the INZONE Hub software for Windows works really well, you don't get control software for any other platform (no Android, iOS, Mac, or Linux apps). Even the PS5 integration sounds very limited at this point (based on other reports).

Overall, it's a decent set of gaming focused earbuds if you're on PC but only so-so for users of other platforms (at time of launch). Unless you have the latest Android devices, expect to be using the USB transceiver most of the time. If you're looking for earbuds that do it all (high quality audio, multipoint connectivity, low-latency, etc.), this isn't it.

Decent headset, but has major flaws if using for PC.

First of all, the left headphone has stopped working competley in under twol years. Not ok.

The other major issue is the headphones like to "dynamically" change the volume of apps and you CAN NOT turn it off. I went through all the setting in the InZone Sony software and no settings event the stating they do this actually work. So you will be gaming and on Discord and all of a sudden your game volume is super low. its very frustrating.

I will say the voume changes isn't a deal breaker, but a $200+ headphone dying within a year is unacceptable.

When they worked I must say I love these headphones in terms of sound quality, but the quality just isn't there.

I bought this thing for the primary purpose of gaming. I've always had issues with headaches while wearing headphones, and even the least clamping headphones I could find (Razer Blackshark V2 Pro) sometimes caused me issues. I finally gave up and decided to look for wireless earbuds that I could use for gaming.

My requirements were primarily that the earbuds be low latency, meaning 2.4 GHz or alternatively any proprietary technology that could achieve similar performance, and that the earbuds have long battery life. These satisfy both of those requirements.

The latency is not quite as good as wired speakers or wired headphones, but are on par with my Razer Blackshark V2 Pro and not noticeable in real world use, and nowhere near as bad as the noticeable latency of Bluetooth earbuds.

The battery life has not really been an issue so far either. They don't last quite as long as their claimed 12 hours, but you aren't going to reasonably exhaust their battery life in a gaming session. These charge pretty fast, so if you so much as take a few minutes break (which you should anyway, go get a drink, use the bathroom or something), you'd get a decent bit more use out of them even if you were about to run out.

On top of these two, the sound quality is not bad. Not as good as actual decent headphones, but perfectly fine especially for gaming. Noise cancellation performance also exceeded my expectations for what earbuds are capable of. Touch controls work reasonably well. The INZONE Hub software is pretty easy to use, and has good enough functionality for me to customize some basic functions. They also fit my ears well, which some earbuds do not.

Personally have not tried Bluetooth, apparently other reviews said this has problems with Bluetooth, but I'd never use these that way. I have cheaper Bluetooth earbuds that are more lightweight and portable that I bring with me on the go. If you can afford these things, I don't see why you wouldn't also buy something more lightweight and portable for on-the-go Bluetooth use. The battery life requirements that I have for this product mandates the size and weight, and I don't see that as a con but rather a necessary design sacrifice.

Do remember to switch these to the correct mode (PC vs PS5) when using the dongle, there's a little physical switch on the dongle for this.

Edit 2: Issue mentioned below has been fixed with a software update, kudos to Sony for actually fixing their products.

Edit:

There is, apparently, a known issue for these earbuds where the left earbud will stop receiving sound. Happened to me only once, after using these earbuds for almost 2 months.

There is a pretty simple fix for this, which is reinitializing the earbuds, which apparently doesn't reset the settings, just the connection method (or maybe the settings get automatically reapplied by the INZONE Hub app when I connect back to the PC afterwards).

The instructions for how to do the fix is not very accurate on their own website, so I'll repeat it here:

1. Unplug the dongle from whatever device it is plugged into (and possibly turn off bluetooth on any paired devices as well, so that it stays unconnected to anything).

2. Open the case, and with the case open, press and hold the button on the back near the USB-C port. The light in front may or may not first blink blue for a while (that means it is in Bluetooth pairing mode), ignore the blue blinking.

3. After 15 seconds or so, it should start blinking orange. Keep holding until it stops blinking orange (the Sony website says to stop holding within 5 seconds of it blinking orange but that's not quite right, you have to wait until the orange blinking stops, which takes around 5 seconds).

4. Stop holding, and wait for it to blink some combination of green and orange. Once it stops blinking, it has completed reinitializing.

5. Now you can plug the dongle in to use as before, or press and hold the button until it blinks blue to put it in Bluetooth pairing mode to pair it back with whatever device you want to use it with, and everything should be fixed.

Edit 2: Have owned these earbuds for a year now. Using them several hours daily, I've noticed at most minimal degradation in battery life. The connection issue described above happened a few more times maybe a month apart each time, but hasn't happened again for several months now. Still very satisfied with my purchase, bumping back up to 5 stars.

Received Brand New sealed. Connection using USB dongle is perfect. Battery life is really long. Using it to make Zoom or Teams call for work. Connection through USB dongle is quick and easy. Mic performance is good. Needs devices with Bluetooth LE compatible to connect through Bluetooth.

Llevo ya 6 meses con ellos y no he tenido ningún problema de conexión.

He leído por aquí comentarios acerca de que no pueden conectarlos por Bluetooth, y tiene que ver con la versión del Bluetooth. En mi caso, nada que no pudiera solucionar con Gemini. Ya que solo se conectan con Bluetooth LE, este no venía activado por defecto en mi teléfono, así que tuve que investigar como activar el audio Bluetooth LE, y pude conectarlos. Esto me permitió utilizar la app de sound connect y personalizar el ecualizador, la cancelación de ruido, el spatial audio, etc.

Los compré con el objetivo de tener un solo par de audífonos de calidad tanto para mí música en el teléfono, como para usarlos con mi PS5.

Debo admitir que tuve que leer e investigar mucho para sacarles el máximo provecho, ya que al principio no me terminaban de convencer o no eran lo que esperaba, sobre todo con la música, pero después entendí que el dungle almacena una configuración diferente a la de la conexión Bluetooth. Así que una vez configurado el dungle para solo usarlo con el play, y el Bluetooth para la música con el apoyo de la app de sound connect, debo decir que estoy muuuuy satisfecho. El sonido es muy nítido, y los bajos son potentes; además de que es fácil identificar la separación de instrumentos que era algo que deseaba. Sé que hay mejores audífonos y que el Bluetooth hace que las pistas pierdan calidad por la compresión de datos, pero aún así, diría que siendo exigente me dejaron satisfecho.

Como tip para el audio 3D en el PS, recomiendo desactivar el spatial audio de la configuración del dungle, ya que el PS5 tiene su propio procesador de audio 3D, al tener los dos activos, podría interponerse uno con otro. Así que es mejor desactivarlo y dejar que el PS5 haga lo suyo.

Funcionando perfeitamente, qualidade muito boa.

I got an open box and used buds!