The Beats Flex were announced on the same day as the iPhone 12. You may have missed them.
They cost just $50, far less than most Beats headphones, and are a pair of wireless earphones with a neckband. If you want a true wireless set, look elsewhere.
However, there are benefits to this classic style and the Beats Flex are a great budget buy for runners. And for general listening if you’re not going to sit down and critique every last element of their sound quality.
Here are the highs and lows of the Beats Flex earphones.
Beats Flex: They pass the run test
One of the first questions to ask of any pair of earphones to use while you work out is whether they will stay in place as you run, or jump about at the gym.
The Beats Flex nail this part. I took them on a couple of 5-10km runs and found they stay in place brilliantly well. No attempts to slither off your neck. No annoying bounce with each footfall.
Plenty of far more expensive neckband earphones fail at this basic test. It’s good to see the affordable Beats Flex do not.
There’s no magic here. The Beats Flex have a flexible but formed neckband that grips the back of your neck ever so slightly. Pair that with low weight and you have the perfect mix for a runner’s fit.
They have no official water resistance at all, but there is a degree of water-sealing to the USB-C charge port and buttons. I would not hesitate to use the Beats Flex for runs. Just don’t give them a full rinse at the faucet when you are done.
Flawless reliability with Apple’s W1 chip
It is much harder to test the signal of Bluetooth headphones than it was in 2019. Packed train stations are the perfect place to see if a pair’s signal will break up thanks to interference. And train stations just aren’t as busy as they once were.
Still, after wearing the Beats Flex while running, and travelling on trains, there were zero signal break-ups.
It would be surprising if there were any, as the Beats Flex use Apple’s established W1 chip. This is the wireless communications hardware that lets your iPhone recognise Apple hearphones like this, and pair with them seamlessly.
I mostly tested the Beats Flex with an Android, however. Bluetooth signal is reliable regardless of the phone you use.
Beats Flex: How do they sound?
The Beats Flex have dynamic drivers with a “layered” design claimed to improve stereo separation.
This isn’t classic Beats sound of old, swimming in mid-bass with a very overt generalized bass boost. The Beats Flex are clearer than that. Still, they have a boost in the low bass and sub-bass frequencies, which is particularly good at giving electronic and pop music more energy.
Treble is slightly conservative: easy on the sparkle, but free from the fatiguing effect of high frequency spikes.
The mids are the weak point, as they are in most cheaper earphones. A soft mid-range that lacks detail and texture means naturally recorded vocals lack the timbre and cut through of the best-in-class pairs. The SoundMagic E11BT and Beyerdynamic Blue Byrd perform better in this area.
As a result those earphones also sound more dynamic and three-dimensional when playing music that features “real” instruments.
The Beats Flex are not critical listening earphones. But at $50 I found them a perfect fit for running: enough sub-bass clout to keep you going, and no serrated top-end, should you want to play your music loud.
No ANC, good basic isolation
The Beats Flex lack active noise cancellation. To see a company like Beats fit this in at $50 would constitute a minor miracle.
However, I do find their passive isolation above average. This is the sound reduction you get from the tips and earpieces physically blocking your ear canal.
The Beats Flex do have a port on the top of each tough plastic earpiece, which can often limit passive isolation, but these do not seem to leak much noise at all.
What’s missing?
These earphones have Apple’s W1 wireless chip, not the newer H1 or U1, which also acts as a way for iPhones to precisely track the location of devices. This will no doubt prove to be an excellent addition to a pair of future Apple or Beats headphones, letting you find exactly where you left them.
Why the Beats Flex don’t have this chip is no mystery. They are low-cost earphones. The Apple U1 may, at this early stage, be a little too expensive. And even if it is not, the rumored AirPods Studio would be a much better vehicle for the day-to-day benefits of that hardware.
The Beats Flex last up to 12 hours off a charge but, in our test Android at least, do not give you a battery level indication if you don’t use an iPhone. Fast charging promises 1.5 hours of use from a 10-minute charge.
Verdict
The Beats Flex are one of the easiest-to-recommend pairs of Beats headphones to date. That’s mostly because of the price, of course, but there are no major mis-steps here either.
They work perfectly as running or gym earphones even without official water resistance, and their sound quality is easygoing and enjoyable.
Don’t buy them for close listening, though, as the mids are too soft for that. But for exercise and general use: no serious complaints. The Beats Flex are $50 well spent for many.
