Xiaomi Redmi AirDots review
What is it?
A pair of truly wireless earbuds by Xiaomi which can be imported from China to India for around Rs 2,000.
Design & Fit
- Like all truly wireless earbuds, the Redmi AirDots have a battery case of their own. The buds snap into the case magnetically, which is a great thing.
- The earbuds are fairly small in size and have an in-ear style design which ensures a snug fit. But if you’ve got smaller ears they might stick out a bit.
- Both earbuds also have multifunction buttons which can be used for various things like play/ pause, accept/ reject calls and even to trigger Google Assistant or Siri on your phone.
- The build quality of the Redmi AirDots is obviously not super premium like AirPods or some expensive earbuds from Sennheiser, but these are put together in a way that they feel much more expensive than the Rs 2,000 price tag might suggest.
Audio Quality
- I’m happy to report that the AirDots punch above their weight in this department. The audio profile here is very neutral which means that you can enjoy a wide variety of music on these buds.
- Xiaomi has done no artificial bass boosting here, which is very much appreciated. But if you like a lot of bass in your music, then you can anytime tune the equalizer in your music app for maximum bass, and you’ll be surprised to hear the amount of thump these tiny buds can pump.
- These can get pretty loud at full volume as well. But, it’s best to keep the volume at around 80 per cent as their is a minor distortion at full volume.
Battery Life
- The Redmi AirDots are claimed to give 4 hours of music playback on a single charge, while the case can change the buds two additional times extending the battery life to a claimed 12 hours.
- The battery life I got during my real world usage was around 10 hours in total, which is quite good for the price.
- The case takes around 2 hours to fully recharge via a micro USB cable. However, for cost saving, this cable is not a part of the retail package.
What else?
- Connecting the AirDots to your phone for the first time is a long procedure. You first have to ensure that the buds are connected to each other before pairing these to a phone. But once done initially, the pairing becomes effortless afterwards.
- The buds are also allegedly IPX4 splash-resistant. Allegedly because I wasn’t able to find any official mention of this rating anywhere, but many media reports claim otherwise. Anyhow, I wore them to the gym for a week and the AirDots did well tackling my sweat in peak summer.
How do I buy them?
- From the ShareSave app which is Xiaomi’s official channel for importing its ecosystem products from China to India. The products sold here are mostly those which have not been officially launched in India.
- Orders placed on this app take roughly between 7-10 days to get delivered. Read more about ShareSave here.
Verdict
- In typical Xiaomi fashion, the Redmi AirDots is a high-quality product for a lower than expected price tag.
- You can surely spend 10 times the money on a pair of truly wireless earbuds, but most of that you’d be paying for superior brand value and maybe better battery life, because in terms of audio quality, small wireless earbuds cannot do much better than the AirDots.
- That said, It would have been much more reassuring if there was an official mention of that IPX4 rating.
Watch our Redmi AirDots video review below: