- The charging case may also charge your phone
- Characteristic hinged design
- £ 179.99 (approx. $ 227 / AU $ 365)
HMD’s new Amped buds are very different from your average earplugs: The buds themselves have a very distinctive hinged design instead of the AirPods style for so many headphones. And their charging case looks more like a power bank than an earplug – because that’s exactly what it is.
The charging case is also a Qi2 Wireless Power Bank with a 1,600mAh battery, and it is a very beef battery for a case-so-beef actually that if you only use it to charge your earplugs, you can expect almost 100 hours of playback time before hunting for a USB C charger.
To clarify, 1,600mAh is not so big the battery you get in a dedicated force bank – they tend to get in Multipla of 10,000 mAh – but that’s enough to charge an iPhone 16 -Pro for approx. 20%, still pretty useful if you run dangerously low on juice.
HMD AMPED buds: Key features and pricing
The quoted battery life is 95 hours, though what ever with the ANC OFF: Put the noise cancellation on and you can expect an ever impressive 58 hours. The buds themselves run for 8.1 hours without ANC and 4.9 hours with.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how long the battery lasts if your earplugs don’t sound good. But the drivers here are 10 mm, so they have to be pretty punchy and the buds support snapdragon sound; There are also three microphones for clear voice calls and to shout at your chosen virtual assistant.
Bluetooth is 5.4 with quick mating, and on Android there is support to find my device. They are IP54 -rated to dust and water resistance and you can choose between black, cyan or pink.
We do not have news of an American launch or pricing yet, but HMD reinforced buds will be £ 179.99 in the UK and € 199.99 in Europe. The British launch will be “very soon,” says HMD.
