Sony Inzone Buds Review

About the Sony Inzone Buds

The Sony Inzone Buds are flagship gaming earbuds that go head-to-head with the Razer Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed, EPOS GTW270 Hybrid, and Logitech G Fits to vie for the crown of Best Gaming Earbuds. They even compete against Sony’s other true wireless gaming earbuds, the Pulse Explore, but come out on top with their mix of practical features, easy touch controls, and all-day battery life, albeit at a higher price than most of the competition.

The Inzone Buds come in eco-friendly, completely recyclable packaging that holds the charging case and cable, a selection of silicone tips, and some documentation. The case has room for the buds and the 2.4GHz receiver while still being easily pocketable, which wasn’t the case with the Pulse Explore.

Even though they’re designed for use with PCs, they’re also compatible with the PlayStation 5 and Android devices using a switch on the dongle. There’s also Bluetooth 5.3 support but it’s important to note that they only support the still-new Bluetooth LE (LC3) and not traditional codecs like SBC or aptX, so you’ll need a newer device to use it without the dongle. The Nintendo Switch is also out. Using the dongle to connect, however, is quick and easy.

Sony Inzone Buds specs

• Price: $200
• Battery Life: Up to 12 hours over 2.4GHz, 24 hours over Bluetooth 5.3 LE; up to 24 hours over 2.4GHz with case, 48 hours over Bluetooth 5.3 LE with case
• Fast charging: Five minutes of charging delivers 60 minutes of listening
• Colors: Black, white
• Eartip sizes: XS/S/M/L
• Ambient sound modes: Active noise canceling, standard and voice-based Ambient Sound (transparency) Modes
• Speakers: 8.4mm dynamic driver
• Connectivity: Bluetooth LE, 2.4GHz via USB Type-C dongle
• Audio codes: LC3
• Dust/water resistance rating: IPX4 equivalent
• Weight: 6.5 grams
• Extra features: Inzone app support, AI-based environmental noise cancellation, customizable touch controls
• Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

What we like

They sound fantastic while gaming

Gaming earbuds should first and foremost make your games sound great. That means they should have a spacious, detailed soundstage that allows you to hear every footstep, directional gunshot, environmental detail, and sweeping note of a soundtrack. The Inzone Buds deliver all of these qualities and enhance them with personalized 360-degree spatial audio.

The heart of the experience is driven by the 8.4mm dynamic speaker. It’s the same driver found in Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM5 earbuds but tuned specifically for gaming.

They offer powerful bass and ample detail in the upper registers, so you can pick out every tiny nuance in your games. There’s enough oomph to feel cinematic but the sound isn’t muddy, and the bass doesn’t overwhelm the other frequencies. It’s the mids that show their gaming bonafides, though, with an emphasis on key audio cues like footsteps, gunshots, and distant engines with clear positioning.

The soundstage is wider than you might expect from a pair of earbuds. A great pair of open-back gaming headphones will still sound wider, but they’re not congested or distractingly closed in. They also support 360 spatial surround sound, though the effect is minor. Instead, I found Dolby Atmos for PC a much better solution that both widened the soundstage and made it more positionally accurate.

The other high point is the strong active noise cancellation and great ambient passthrough. While not quite as powerful as the XM5s, the noise cancellation immediately cuts down on noise in your environment. The ANC is tuned to capture more of the middle frequencies instead of just low drones, so your gaming keyboard and mouse and other people who might be around, while still audible, will sound noticeably thinner; many environmental noises, like PC fans, are cut out completely.

Touching the left earbud reveals an equally impressive ambient passthrough mode. The quality is excellent and very natural, almost as if you’re not wearing earbuds at all. Between the ANC and game-first sound design, they are a joy for gaming and won’t leave you at a disadvantage in competitive settings.

Awe-inspiring battery life

The Inzone Buds compete with the very best true wireless earbuds when it comes to battery life. Sony wasn’t kidding when it said to expect 11 to 12 hours of battery life (depending on noise canceling). I found this to be spot on. You can count on all-day battery with these earbuds, so when that game you’ve been waiting months to release finally comes out, you can play without worrying about whether your earbuds can match your stamina.

This is even more impressive on Bluetooth. Since the buds use the new Bluetooth 5.3 LE format, they’re especially power efficient. With noise canceling enabled, they’re rated for 18 hours and that extends to 24 hours with ANC off. If you do happen to run them dry, the case supports quick charging and can restore up to an hour of listening after just five minutes in the case.

Compared to the competition, the Inzone Buds are nothing short of class-leading. Its nearest competitor, the Razer Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed is only rated for four hours with ANC enabled. The Logitech G Fits are better but still only top out at seven hours. Even Sony’s Pulse Explore earbuds only offer five hours between charges.

They’re comfortable enough to wear for an entire day

Battery life wouldn’t matter if the buds weren’t comfortable but are they ever. The Inzone Buds are genuinely the most comfortable gaming earbuds to ever grace my ears. They have a shallow fit that extends just deep enough to secure in the ear canal while resting their weight on the outer ear. Each bud distributes its six-gram weight with aplomb.

They come with six sizes of silicone ear tips. They’re soft, pliable, and easily conformed to the shape of my ear without rubbing uncomfortably on my skin. The downside is that they seem to pick up every stray bit of debris in the vicinity, so they need to be cleaned often or risk looking gross.

What we don’t like

An EQ is required for music

It’s not all sunshine and roses, however. When listening to music with these, something just sounds off. The emphasis on the mids might be good for gaming but tends to make vocals sound too close compared to instruments. If the uncanny valley exists in the audio world, this would certainly qualify.

This can be addressed inside the Inzone Hub app for PC but not without diminishing its gaming advantages to some degree. Sony provides you with a ten-band equalizer as well as a handful of presets to adjust the sound to your taste. There’s also a dynamic range control, which can level out volumes between tracks or commercials.

With a little tweaking, I was able to get the buds to sound great for music but found those adjustments to be surprisingly necessary out of the box.

The limited Bluetooth connectivity is a real bummer

The Inzone Buds have frustratingly limited connectivity. Sony has gone all in on Bluetooth LE and left every other codec by the wayside, which means they simply won’t work without the dongle on devices that don’t support it. Even if they do, you might still run into issues. My Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra insists it needs an app to pair, even though both of Sony’s official Android apps can’t see the buds at all.

Sure, you can just use the dongle with your smart devices or Steam Deck if you need a low-latency connection, but who wants to be tethered to a dongle when you’re away from your PC? It also pokes out enough that getting damaged in your pocket seems like a real possibility.

Apple users should also beware. Even though the dongle might let them connect (I was unable to test this), Sony’s Inzone Hub app is only available for Windows, so the majority of its features will be inaccessible.

The trade-off is the earbuds’ extended battery life. That’s a feature I love, but not being able to use them as normal earbuds is a major drawback that significantly diminishes their value.

The microphone is disappointing

For all of the marketing surrounding the quality of the microphones, the Inzone Buds comms turn out to be bog standard for true wireless earbuds. Across a number of test recordings, I found that my voice sounded distant and digitally compressed. That distant quality is on par with Sony’s XM5 earbuds and isn’t poor—your teammates will still be able to hear you—but I would take a quality USB microphone any day of the week.

The AI environmental noise cancellation is quite good, however. They easily cut out the sound of my clacky mechanical keyboard and cut out nearly all of the wind noise of a fan blowing directly on my face. If you’re gaming in a noisy environment, the trade-off in mic quality could still be worth it.

Should you buy the Sony Inzone Buds?

Yes, if you don’t mind paying top dollar

Few things in PC gaming are perfect, and the Sony Inzone Buds are no exception. But taken as a whole, their flaws don’t compare to the combination of sound quality, battery life, comfort, and ANC they offer. Compared to the competition, they’re simply some of the best true wireless gaming earbuds you can buy.

Price and connectivity are its biggest Achilles heel. The Razer Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed addresses both at the expense of battery life but are a better choice if you’ll also be using them on the go with an incompatible device. For a cheaper pick, the JBL Quantum TWS have worse ANC but regularly go on sale for around $80 and are rated for eight hours of battery life.

Ultimately, it may be expensive, but the combination of features makes it a great bang for the buck. Few other gaming earbuds can compete with this level of battery life and ANC, even if traditional Bluetooth support would have been very welcome to make it a more well-rounded package. The 2.4GHz dongle does allow you to quickly switch between devices, including the PlayStation 5. It’s a pricey, but very good, pick, nonetheless.