The Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 are Google’s latest pair of earbuds and while I never got to try the first pair to see how they stack up, I was very eager to review these to see how Google had improved them based on what I’d heard about the first model.
When Google asked if I wanted to check them out I was, elated, to say the least. I had heard so many good things about the first pair that I was certain Google had improved upon them. I was also genuinely excited for the sheer fact that it had been a few years since Google introduced a new pair of earbuds, so I really wanted to experience what was new. While the overall design has remained similar, Google made some adjustments and added some new tech to take advantage of Gemini.
I haven’t used Gemini a whole lot, but I figured with these in my ears I was likely to start using it more often. My first impressions of the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 were strong but I had to give them some time to see if they were really worth spending the $229 on, especially if you already have the original Pixel Buds Pro. Because $229 is not cheap for a pair of true wireless earbuds. So, with that said, are the Pixel Buds Pro 2 worth your hard-earned money? Let’s dive into this Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 review and see how they do, and whether or not you should really look elsewhere.
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review: Hardware & Design
The design of the Pixel Buds Pro 2 follows pretty closely with Google’s theme of its other Pixel devices, and they’re almost identical to the older model. Save for a few key changes. The most notable, and most noticeable change is the size. Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 are significantly smaller than the first pair Google put out a few years ago.
My first thought when I took them out of the box was “oh my god, they’re so small!” Indeed, they are very compact for a pair of true wireless earbuds. They aren’t the smallest I’ve ever seen, but they are pretty close, and much smaller than anything else I personally own or have used. This, for me, was a major plus both from an aesthetic standpoint and a functional one.
Tiny tech has always fascinated me and it’s one of the main reasons I really enjoy having a compact desktop PC. I just like the aesthetic of smaller, more space-saving devices. Of course, it makes more sense with something like true wireless earbuds. While the smaller size means the earbuds may not pack as much tech inside (battery capacity included), they do take up less space inside your ear and I really appreciate not having a hulking pair of earbuds in.
Putting the size aside, the design has been tweaked in other ways. For instance, the earbuds no longer have that wingtip piece that the first pair had. Instead, Google went with a small half-circle-shaped tension piece that’s supposed to help secure the earbuds up against your ear canal. This in pairing with the different-sized ear tips and the way you insert the earbuds helps to give them a good seal without loosening and falling out even though they are smaller.
Google is also using new colors for the Pixel Buds Pro 2. Google sent me the Hazel color, which I quite like. Hazel is also the color of my Pixel 8 and the Pixel Watch 3 that I’m using. So it was important for me to have a matching pair of earbuds. Google does offer three other colors though too, including Wintergreen which is sort of like the Mint color for its Pixel 8 series, Peony which is kind of a hot pink color, and Porcelain which is making a return from the first model.
While Google did make the earbuds smaller in size, the mics on the outer part of the earbuds actually appear larger this year. The grilles do at the very least. You’ll find one on top and one on the bottom just like with the first model, and then another on the top of the inner part that sits in your ear canal.
The case is more compact as well
It’s not just the earbuds that Google made smaller, the charging case for the earbuds is smaller as well. This makes them extremely pocketable and never did I once feel like there was too big of a bulge in my pocket from carrying these around. This is one of the main reasons why I have carried them with me everywhere I go. I can toss them in my pocket and while the case isn’t so small I forget it’s in my pocket, it’s small enough that it isn’t bothersome. I also just genuinely enjoy using the Pixel Buds Pro 2 all the time. No matter where I am, they’re on me and I never leave home without them.
The charging case also now has a speaker that serves several functions. One of the most useful is the ability for the speaker to play sounds when you’re trying to locate in the event that you’ve misplaced it. But the speaker can also play a sound to notify you that the earbuds and the case are charging, and when the Conversation Awareness mode on the earbuds is active. I don’t really feel that most of these features are necessary, but it is nice that the speaker is there for location purposes. I don’t generally lose my stuff, but I can see the usefulness of having the speaker there for people who do. And I’m glad Google included this in the off chance that I do misplace the case someday. Overall, the hardware feels solid and the design of the earbuds is, as ever, really good. When and if Google makes a pair of Pixel Buds Pro 3, I hope the design doesn’t change too drastically, if at all.
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review: Battery Life & Charging
Ok so the earbuds are comfortable and they have a very secure fit, and they’re pretty compact so you don’t feel like you’re wearing something that just doesn’t belong in your ears. But, how long will they last on a single charge? Well, Google says they can last for up to 12 hours without the Active Noise Cancellation, or up to 8 if you turn that on. I have found that to be mostly accurate.
It is worth mentioning that I never really used these without the ANC disabled because I absolutely loathe hearing ambient background noises while I listen to music. The only time ANC was off was if I was wearing these inside a store while I was shopping and needed to talk to the cashier when I was paying for stuff and checking out. Otherwise, the ANC was on the entire time so I could block out anything that wasn’t being streamed from my phone.
With that said, I was getting pretty close to the 8 hours of listening time. This was with me using mostly ANC with the occasional moment of toggling on Transparency Mode so I could talk to cashiers at stores while checking out, or to friends asking a question. So, in all honesty, not bad at all. For me, this is a pretty decent amount of time as I normally wouldn’t use my earbuds for 7 to 8 straight hours a day. I usually have them in for 2 to 3 hours and then put them back in the case until the next time I want to use them.
So far, I’ve been using the Pixel Buds Pro 2 for the past couple of weeks and I have only ever had to plug the case in one time. That’s pretty good if you’re not listening to these non-stop until the earbuds die on you on a daily basis. Based on my testing I was able to get up to about 30 hours of battery life with the charging case. So most people should have no trouble at all using these most of the day and then charging them in the case after the day is done. Speaking of charging, let’s talk about how quickly these charge back up.
Charging speeds
While the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 do last a long time and I didn’t have to charge up the earbuds and the case often, I did eventually have to charge them. As you will with all things that run on rechargeable batteries. Luckily, it doesn’t take an exceedingly long time to get things back to full. In my experience, once I had depleted the battery on both the earbuds and the case completely, it took around 1.5 hours to charge the case back up to 100% from 0%.
It’s not fast enough to get a full battery for the day if you get up just before you need to jet out the door. However, you can get about 3 hours of listening time in just 15 minutes. So if you just want a few hours of listening time, you can plug these in the moment you get up and should have enough time to listen to music or whatever else with the earbuds for a few hours before you leave.
Obviously, this will change with how much time you have between getting up and heading out. The more the better, but in my experience this was never really an issue since I work from home. Overall the charge time for the earbuds is fine since I never really ran into a scenario where I didn’t have enough time to charge the buds fully.
Your experiences may vary. However, you could easily plug these in at the end of the day after getting home, and simply pull them off before you go to bed and need to plug your phone in. The nice thing about the case is that the LED indicator light will tell you when the case has less than 20% left in the battery. If you put the buds into the case and the LED indicator light is orange, then there’s less than 20%. If the LED indicator light is off when you put the buds in, then there’s not enough battery power in the case to charge the buds.
So use this as an indicator of when you need to plug the case in. As mentioned before, for me this was closer to a week and a half to two weeks, since I was only using the earbuds for a few hours most days and then putting them back in the case.
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review: Sound Quality
Having not tried the original Pixel Buds Pro I can’t say for certain how these compare, but I was expecting them to sound pretty good given the sound quality was well-liked with the original pair by many others. I was actually quite surprised when putting these in for the first time at how good they sounded. There’s a decent level of bass which is nice depending on the type of music you’re listening to, but overall I found there to be a nice level of vocal clarity.
I used these for everything from listening to house and trance to rock to hip-hop to audiobooks. And no matter what I listened to music and voices came through pretty clearly each and every time. The sound quality was also pretty good for the occasional gaming experience. It was even better though because of the included Spatial Audio feature of the earbuds.
Spatial Audio
You can turn this off if you want, and if you do it should help extend the battery life a little bit. I don’t recommend it though, because it didn’t seem to make a big enough difference to make it worth doing, and the Spatial Audio just makes everything sound so much better. The spatial audio also has a head tracking toggle which is really, really cool for movies and games. While watching a few episodes of Jack Ryan on my phone over the weekend this made for a pleasant experience. As it made explosions and other loud parts of the show’s audio seem more immersive.
This was also really cool for games and I took it into a few matches of Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile for that little bit of added realism and immersion. While I don’t know if I would classify these as the best option for mobile gaming audio, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 work surprisingly well for it, and the spatial audio definitely helps with that. In my opinion, you’re better off keeping the spatial audio and head tracking on at all times. The battery life gain just isn’t worth disabling them for all the good those options do.
Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode
Active Noise Cancellation comes in varying tiers of quality and I’ve experienced it on a bunch of different headsets and pairs of earbuds over the past few years. I won’t say the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 offer the best ANC I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. However, I think they do provide the best ANC I’ve ever used in a pair of true wireless earbuds. Granted, I haven’t tried the AirPods Pro 2, Sony’s WF-1000XM5, or any of the Bose options. All of which are supposed to have excellent ANC.
That being said, these block out virtually everything for me. Not once did I put these in and think, “I wish I could just block out a little more background noise.” I routinely would toss these in my ears while driving and turn the ANC on to listen to streaming music from my phone with the windows down, and I would barely hear any feedback from the wind. Passing traffic was a non-issue too. It was also nearly impossible to hear any background noise from the vacuum around the apartment if I was wearing these while sitting at my desk.
I think in most situations, all people are going to hear is whatever they’re streaming from their mobile device. So rest assured that the ANC is going to do its job well. Alternatively, when I wanted to hear something, turning on transparency mode made it so that I could hear anyone I was talking to just as if the earbuds weren’t in my ears at all. I did have to turn my music volume down, but not off.
The transparency mode was good enough that I could simply lower the volume level and not worry about having to pause my music or audiobooks and I could still hear people clearly. This was way easier because both of those actions can be done by using the touch controls on the earbuds. What’s more, is that you can set up the conversation mode in the Pixel Buds app and the earbuds will just turn on the transparency mode for you when they recognize that you’ve begun to talk.
This was useful, but I found that in most cases it was just easier to turn transparency mode on manually. While it only took a second or so for conversation mode to kick in, it only stays on for a few seconds if no one talks again afterward. And sometimes I wasn’t the first person to say something, leaving me to miss something entirely and causing me to have to ask the person to repeat themselves. Still, it’s a nice convenience feature for times when you’re the conversation starter. Overall, I really enjoy both of these features and I’ll continue to use them a lot going forward.
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review: Comfort & Fit
I’ve mentioned how comfortable these earbuds are and they really are the most comfortable pair of earbuds I’ve ever had in my ears. So I wanted to expand on that more. While I already expected them to be comfortable, I also expected them to get uncomfortable after more than 2-3 hours of use. That wasn’t the case at all. During testing, I did keep these in for most of the day once or twice. I never felt like my ears were sore by the end.
Now this won’t necessarily be the same for everyone, because everyone’s ears are different. So you might find them a tad less comfortable or even a tad more comfortable than I did. However, as someone who usually prefers headphones because they cause less fatigue by the time I’m done using them, I was able to keep these in most of the day, while also enjoying them being in my ears and not feeling the need to pull them out. I think that says something about how well-designed they were.
In short, they’re extremely comfortable and I do believe most people who try them out will feel the same way. In terms of fit, these were very secure in my ears and I really only adjusted them a few times in the past two weeks. Mainly because I’m so used to having to do that with other earbuds. So it was less about needing to make them fit snugly again and more about me doing it because it was just a habit.
I also like to do this little test where I wear these while I’m eating. The constant movement of my jaw when chewing food has often loosened other pairs of earbuds, but that really wasn’t an issue for me here. And I can’t stress enough how awesome that is, as I don’t have to worry about these falling out into my food or just falling out in general.
Google also packages a few different sizes of ear tips in the box with the earbuds. So if you feel like the ones that come on them aren’t as snug as you’d like, or the earbuds don’t feel as comfortable as you had hoped, change the ear tips. Our own Alex Maxham didn’t find these as comfortable initially but said the comfort was much better after swapping to a different-size ear tip. The same thing will go for the fit. Try out the different sizes to find the one that feels the best.
In fact, Google actually recommends you do this, and testing out the different sizes is part of the setup process in the Pixel Buds app to find the best seal when you’re wearing these. Overall, these were incredibly comfortable and I had no issues with the fit or them loosening.
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review: Gemini Integration
This is one of the bigger features of these earbuds, or at least in the sense that it was something Google was advertising pretty heavily. I expect the Gemini integration to get better over time, however, in all honesty, I don’t think it’s going to be something that’s worth using a whole lot right now. At least in its Gemini Live form. The big issue is that Gemini Live doesn’t have the capacity to do a bunch of the tasks that Google Assistant can do.
For instance, I can’t tell it to send a message to friends via SMS or any other social app or make a call. It’s almost entirely a conversational tool to talk with Gemini Live for any reason. In my testing, the hot word works well and it was certainly interesting to talk with the AI and ask it questions. You can interrupt the AI if you want to clarify something after it begins speaking which feels a lot more natural. For example, this past week I asked Gemini about the weather for this past Saturday.
It began telling me about it and then I quickly stopped it to say “Actually, I wanted to know about the weather in Seattle on that day.” It took a second and then began giving me the weather for Seattle on the 12th, which was neat, but not something I would find myself using very often.
For the most part, I personally feel like you’re better off using Google Assistant as your main assistant with these earbuds. It just seems like it will do more for you when you need something to be done hands-free. With all of that said, regular Gemini can do many of these things, including setting reminders and playing songs from apps like YouTube Music. So if you’re going to stick with Gemini as opposed to Google Assistant, just forego the Gemini Live version.
I don’t think this should take away from how good these earbuds are, of course. I wouldn’t be buying these for the Gemini integration and I don’t think most other people will either. It’s a cool addition, but it’s nowhere near the best feature of the earbuds.
Google Pixel Buds Pro Review: Call Quality
I’ve always kind of hated using earbuds for voice calls because the mics have been hit or miss in terms of quality. That hasn’t been the case with the Pixel Buds Pro 2. I’ve used them for a number of voice calls on my phone while driving or walking around stores while shopping, and I seem to come through pretty clearly to people on the other end. I also recently used them for Discord voice chat through the mobile app and they worked pretty well there too.
The mic quality wasn’t as good as some of my proper gaming headsets, but my voice was clear enough to not sound distorted or far away. While I don’t anticipate having to use them for Discord voice chat often, it’s nice to know that if I do use the earbuds for this purpose, the people I’m talking to won’t be complaining that I’m hard to hear. Overall, the call quality is really good and I can say with certainty that I’ll be using these earbuds for calls more than I have other earbuds. The convenience of having them for voice calls is just too good to pass up.
Should you buy the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2?
Google’s original Pixel Buds Pro were some of the best earbuds that came out that year and the Pixel Buds Pro 2 feel like they top those in every way. They have better battery life, they’re more comfortable, and they’re more compact. And with audio quality and the added Gemini integration (once Gemini Live gets more useful), there are a lot of reasons to spend the money to pick these up.
For me, these are the most comfortable earbuds I’ve ever used and the ANC is top-notch. These factors, in addition to the great audio quality and the spatial audio, make the Google Pixel Bids Pro 2 a really good option for any of your personal audio needs. I still might recommend using a headset with a boom mic if you want something for game chat, but these will suffice in a pinch. You could even use these on PC if that’s where your gaming takes place, and I would imagine the experience wouldn’t be too bad.
At the end of the day though, whether or not you should buy these depends on what you want in a pair of earbuds. With that said, I do think they’re worth the $229 price tag. They’re my new favorite earbuds and unless I’m playing a game on my PS5 or my PC, the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 are what I’m going to be using for listening to music in almost every scenario, whether I’m at home or not.
You should buy the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 if:
- You want a comfortable pair of earbuds
- You’re looking for really good active noise cancellation
- You want earbuds with long-lasting battery life
You shouldn’t buy the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 if:
- You’re looking for something more affordable
- You prefer headphones
