SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro Review

Design

The SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro earbuds can be thought of as both Bluetooth earbuds and as a fashion accessory of sorts. Although the review unit I have is the “black” color, the shiny exterior gives off a hint of dark blue in certain lighting. The interior section of the earbuds is a matte, soft silicon material that feels comfortable up against my ears.

The earbuds also have some flex to them, thanks to what SoundPEATS calls nickel-titanium memory steel. They can be spread apart a little bit, so they should be able to accommodate many different ear sizes. They are also very lightweight, weighing just 5.85 grams each and are available in black, purple, beige, and white.

The charging case also has a shiny exterior to match the “pearl” theme of these earbuds, and SoundPEATS did something different with this case by placing the button on the front. With the earbuds in the case, you can hold this button down for 3 seconds to manually put the earbuds in pairing mode, or hold the button down for 10 seconds to completely reset them.

To put the earbuds on, start at the thinnest part of your ear, probably towards the top at about the 2 o’clock position, and swing them down to about the 4 or 5 o’clock position, or wherever the music sounds best to you.

Sound Performance

The sound performance on these earbuds is surprisingly really good for open ear earbuds. They have decent bass performance, but as expected, it’s not quite as good as you would get with something that sits in your ear, like the AirPods Pro. However, these sit closer to your ear canal than some other open ear earbuds that I’ve tested, so this might give them a slight advantage with low frequencies. Mids and highs also come through very clear. And as these are open ear earbuds, you can still hear what is going on around you. This makes the SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro earbuds great for wearing while running outside to hear traffic or other runners, as well as wearing in the office if you still want to hear what your coworkers are saying.

You may need to move the earbuds up and down your ear to get the best sound quality. I found they seemed to sound best at about the 4 o’clock position, but everyone’s ears are different, so play around with them to get the best sound for you.

One cool feature about these earbuds is that it doesn’t matter if you put them in the left or right position in the charging case, as they will automatically adapt. For example, if you were wearing the one earbud in your right ear, but you put it in the left position of the charging case, it will automatically become the left earbud. You do need to pay attention that the side of the earbud with the charging contacts is facing towards the center of the case when you put them in, otherwise they won’t charge. The LED on the front will blink white twice if you did it right and the earbud is charging.

The earbuds also feature multipoint pairing, so they can be paired to your phone and your laptop at the same time, for example.

My only complaint about these earbuds is the touch controls. I’ve had trouble getting them to register consistently. A single tap should adjust the volume while a double tap will play and pause your music. I’ve had more luck with the single tap than the double tap, but I’ve found it is just easier to control the music with my phone or Apple Watch.

Microphone Performance

The earbuds have environmental noise cancellation for the microphone, so if you’re on a phone call, the person you’re talking to should not be able to hear things going on around you. I tested this out with a white noise machine and the microphone did a great job picking up my voice while filtering out the white noise in my sample recordings.

Battery Life

The earbuds can achieve up to 6 hours of playtime per charge. The charging case provides 3 additional charges for up to 24 hours of listening time in total with the charging case. And a quick 10-minute charge can get you up to 2 hours of playtime in a pinch.

SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro vs soundcore C30i vs Bose Ultra Open

I’ve found that the SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro are more comfortable than the soundcore C30i earbuds. The PearlClip Pro earbuds have a soft silicon interior and they have some flex to them, while the C30i earbuds are rigid plastic.

The bass is also stronger on the SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro earbuds compared to the soundcore C30i, but to be fair, the PearlClip Pro have a slight advantage by sitting closer to the ear canal. If bass performance is important to you, you’ll probably want to go for the SoundPEATS. If you’re mainly interested in using the earbuds for podcasts or phone calls, then either set of earbuds should be fine.

The SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro do give the Bose Ultra Open a run for their money, but the Bose does feature longer battery life and dynamic spatial audio.

	SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro	soundcore C30i	Bose Ultra Open
Type	Soft	Rigid (EarGrip inserts)	Soft
Water Resistance	IPX5	IPX4	IPX4
Multipoint Pairing	✅	✅	❌
Microphone for Phone Calls	1 mic	2 mics	Not Disclosed
Bluetooth Version	5.4	5.3	5.3
Spatial Audio	✅ Open Spatial audio	✅ Fixed	✅ Dynamic
Battery Life	6 hours	10 hours	7.5 hours
Total Battery Life with Charging Case	24 hours	30 hours	27 hours
Price (MSRP)	$59	$69	$299

Video Review of the SoundPEATS PearlClip Pro