Sony LinkBuds

Always open design ; Clear and spacious audio ; Features offer lots of convenience ; Wide Area Tap function is very cool

Always open design ; Not the weightiest sounding pair ; Battery life may not be enough for some

A fascinating pair of true wireless earphones that look like no earbud you’ve seen before. If convenience and awareness is what you want, the LinkBuds offer it in spades.

Spacious sound ; Clever controls ; Tiny design

Bass could be stronger ; No wireless charging ; No multipoint pairing

Light and comfortable ; Excellent control options ; Open, well-organised and energetic sound

Never quite achieve convincing bass reproduction ; Unremarkable battery life ; Call quality is hit-and-miss

If you like small, light, comfortable and fine-sounding in-ear headphones, but you also like to know what’s going on in the outside world, Sony has answered your prayers

Balanced, natural sound ; Open and spacious presentation ; Lightweight and comfy

Sound lacks drive and dynamics ; Ordinary battery life ; No wireless charging

Sony’s LinkBuds deserve a round of applause for their clever design and for offering a different flavour of sound that many will find appealing

Interesting new concept ; Extremely light and comfortable ; Music playback is decent ; Packed with interesting features including adaptive volume control ; Great for video calling

Open ring driver design means the outside world is always audible ; Struggle to hear video dialogue when in a noisy environment

An oddity in the earphones world, the LinkBuds are specifically designed to let the outside world in as you listen to music or make a video call. And for that, they are perfectly suited, coming with an open ring driver design that avoids anything...

Exceptional ambient awareness ; Comfortable and discreet ; Clean, spacious sound

Unusable in certain conditions ; Leak a fair amount of sound ; Controls can be triggered accidentally

I’m a huge fan of Sony’s WF-1000XM4 earbuds and want to give the company credit for trying to break the mould with the LinkBuds. The headphones industry has reached a point where we see far more iteration than innovation and the LinkBuds seek to change...

Genuinely innovative ; Great option if you work alongside others

Divisive design, hard to put in place ; Talk mode needs more work

Ingenious buds… as long as you don’t want to block everyone out

Let's you hear your surroundings ; Compact charging case ; Decent battery life ; IPX4 water resistance rating ; Good mics

Zero noise isolation ; Fit can be an issue for some ; Open design means poor bass response

When I heard about the Sony LinkBuds, I was incredibly sceptical. Having now had the chance to try them, I think they are some of the best true wireless earbuds I have ever used. They are superbly comfortable and the sound is out of this world. The...