Where to buy? Banggood
Fully wireless earbuds already form a consolidated market, and Xiaomi’s entry into the segment caught attention, as expected. The Mi AirDots focus on simplicity. Their design is extremely simple, bringing a compact and rounded case, as long as small white capsules. Not much excess in design, and that looks good.
I need to say that these can get dirtier than average. Both the case and the earbuds have matte parts that will need serious cleaning from time to time.
The basic operation has no secrets. You take them out of the case and they’re in syncing mode. Put them back inside, they turn off and recharge. After the first sync, as soon as you take them out, they already bind themselves to the phone or device they were connected to. Everything is category standard.
In my first 5 or 6 days of use, however, they lost auto syncing in a weird way. I took them out of the case and nothing happened. Then I would synchronize only the right capsule, not the left one. I had to reset the pair and then it didn’t happen anymore, but I guess this should be mentioned.
The surface of both capsules is touch sensitive. You can perform commands such as play/pause, answering calls or activating Google Assistant by touching or holding that little area. And honestly, sometimes this kind of messed me up more than it helped. That’s because the play/pause is done with a single tap, and I unintentionally performed thoses command many times, when I only wanted to adjust the buds in my ears. I wish I could disable that single tap, allowing only the double tap or hold actions, but that’s not the case.
As for sound quality, I was satisfied. There’s a satisfactory level of bass for such small capsules, and sometimes I think the treble is a little too much, but still not strident. Honesly, I can’t say that they’re better than wired pieces at this same category, but no doubt it’s a good enough result, super satisfying for casual use, which is certainly the goal here.
One cool thing is that they fit me very well. Ergonomics is always very personal, but anyway, in casual use they hardly fall off or got too loose. I can wear them while sitting or eve walking, though I don’t think I could run securely with them. Personal thing… I guess there are sports-focused earbuds for a reason, but anyway, there are people who use products like these for running too.
Battery life is fine. In my use, it lasted about 3 hours and 40 minutes in one charge. And the case allows me two additional charges, totaling something like 11 hours of total autonomy. In practice, I hardly run out of energy. When I finish one session, I put them in the case, when I arrived in a place where there’s a wall plug, I put the case to recharge.
The great deal of these earbuds is they’re very convenient. We have here a very small set, easy to hold and carry in a pocket or backpack… And then, when I’m on the streets, it’s super easy to put them and listen to my stuff with a good enough quality. Oh, and I have not mentioned yet, but since they’re in-ear, they give a reasonable isolation of the ambient sound.
I realize that these earbuds are a bit more expensive than similar competitors, not necessarily because they are better, but because they’re from Xiaomi, a brand that has already conquered a lot of fans. But if you remember that Apple’s AirPods are about $160, you notice that the AirDots are an easier way to get into that wireless world, and it delivers good results indeed.
On a side note: have you seen black AirDots in stores? Those are the Redmi AirDots, a version which is supposed to have slightly simpler audio, as well as physical buttons instead of touch sensitive ones. But they’re cheaper and maybe more appealing for those on a tight budget.
PROS:
– Beautiful and compact
– Good enough bass and overall sound
CONS:
– Get easily dirty
– Minor brands’ models can be a better bang for the buck