Sony’s upcoming LinkBuds S look set to be some of the smallest ANC earbuds on the market
Sony launched the uniquely designed LinkBuds earlier this year. They eschewed the traditional closed-ear design for a radical ring-shaped driver with a hole in the center that helped keep you in touch with the outside world while listening to music. In ourLinkBudsreview, though, we found them an expensive experiment that fell short of thebest wireless earbudson the market. Leaked images have already given us alook at Sony’s next LinkBudsthat will have a more traditional design and ditch the hole. Now, more details about these wireless earbuds have surfaced online ahead of their potential launch in the coming weeks.
Apparently, the earbuds will be marketed as LinkBuds S WF-LS900, which is quite a mouthful.WinFuturereports Sony intends to claim that they are the lightest and smallest earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC) and Hi-Res Audio support. The addition of ANC would be a notable upgrade over the original LinkBuds, which instead featured adaptive volume control. The latter option will reportedly also be present in the upcoming model.
One unique design trait of the LinkBuds S that’s visible in the renders is the outward-facing grate on each earbud. Google also implemented something similar on thePixel Budsseries, dubbed “spatial vent,” though the physical proportions of Sony’s version is notably larger. While it’s unclear what is hidden beneath this vent (a microphone or a speaker?), this should help with ambient noise passthrough and offer a better experience than other earphones, and is certainly not merely a design decision.
Each earbud should weigh 4.8g and offer a total runtime of 20 hours, though this includes the additional juice provided by the bundled charging case. For connectivity, the earphones will support Bluetooth 5.2.
The LinkBuds S will seemingly house a 5mm driver enclosed in an IPX4-certified body that can withstand splashes of water and sweat. There’s also Speak-to-Chat that will automatically pause music playback when the earbuds detect that someone has initiated a conversation with you.
The Sony LinkBuds S should make its debut in the coming weeks in black, white, and beige colors with a price of 199 Euros.
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