Imagine a small person in your ear telling you about your day while you go about the city, and also when you want, plays music. That’s the void Sony aims to fill with the Xperia Ear Duo. They are a truly wireless set of earbuds that seem a bit chunky on the first look. That’s because they are.
The Xperia Ear Duo allows you to talk to your voice assistant, Siri or Google Assistant or maybe even Mycroft in the future. The relatively gargantuan earpiece allows you to interact with it physically. This enables you to change the volume or pause music without having to rely on your assistant, similar to the double tap feature of AirPods.
Actually, compared to the AirPods, or even the Samsung Gear IconX, the Xperia Ear Duo isn’t really subtle. In fact, you’re a walking brand endorsement for Sony, if you choose to wear them in public. Don’t worry though, with four hours listening time on a single charge, you probably won’t have to wear them for that long.
You would think with the massive earpiece, you would get a much superior charge life to the AirPods or the IconX. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The four hours it provides is inferior to the AirPods’ five hours. Or even the IconX’s advertised seven hours, (realistically, six or six and a half hours).
Like the AirPods, the Xperia Ear Duo (quite a mouthful as you probably observed), supports fast charging. So expect an hour of listening time with seven minutes of charging. Not bad to be honest. The charging case houses a decent battery.
The big earpieces are probably there to provide the newest features found in earbuds. Location and time recognizing. The Ear Duo will let you know about any meetings you have. Or if you wander close to a location for which you set a reminder. Though Ear Duo seem like decent mid range wireless earbuds, the price tag may seem off-putting; a whopping 280 USD.
Seems like something for you? Well, expect it this Spring, and get your wallet ready.