Boult Audio, a brand that entered the market now a long ago, now sits on top of the audio segment. They have a sizeable market share in the budget truly wireless earbuds space and come in the top five audio brands in the country. Like it or not, their TWS products still are heavily leaning toward Apple’s design language and this could be their key differentiating factor.
Boult Audio Xpods Pro TWS is the company’s newest pair of earbuds on the market. The name is a mouthful, so for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to them as the Xpod Pros. These come with a sticker price of INR 5,999, though are being sold for INR 1,299 as of writing this review on the company’s own website. So should you pick these over other the competition? Let us find out in our review.
Boult Audio Xpods Pro TWS Features
Here are some essential specifications and features of the device.
- Bluetooth Version – 5.1
- Drivers – 13mm Dynamic Drivers
- Controls – Touch Controls
- Earbud Weight – 4g
- Claimed Battery Life – Up to 6 Hours/ Up to 24 hours with the case
- Number of Microphones – Quad mics (each side)
- Rating – IPX5
Package Contents
- Boult Audio Xpods Pro TWS
- Quick Start Guide
- Charging Case
- USB Type C charging cable
Design
Starting with the design, the Xpods Pro looks a lot like generic Apple AirPods-inspired product from the buds down to the case. While the AirPods come in just a single shade, these come in a white and a black color option. The case has a glossy finish while the buds come in a matte finish with a grippy texture on half of the stem.
The construction is done in high-quality plastic on both the units and the lid offers a satisfying click when opening or closing the case. The buds pack a large high-fidelity driver on each side and, despite that, feel quite lightweight. They have an in-ear design minus the silicone ear tips. These styles of buds are not meant for everyone and can cause fatigue over prolonged usage. What doesn’t help either is the liberal use of Boult Audio branding from the case down to buds.
Despite the price and the resemblance to Apple AirPods, these come with a Type-C connector on the bottom to top up the case and a status LED upfront.
Performance
Pairing these buds is quite easy and mostly straightforward. The buds come to life as soon as they are taken out of the case and enter into pairing mode for the very first boot. Now all you need to do is, to open the Bluetooth panel on your phone, search the buds, and hit the pair button. These buds pair as a different unit and can be used in an individual setting. Boult Audio still does not mentions the size and the type of the driver, all they have mentioned in their marketing material is ‘You get, high-fidelity audio’ out of these.
You get all the basic codecs here including SBC and AAC. Coming to the performance part, we found the buds quite bass-heavy. This is pretty much the story with most TWS in this price category. The sound stage is balanced with an emphasis on lows. The mids and the highs are not that clear and lose the lackluster. During our brief usage, we found the mic quality above average on these.
The quad-mics and ENC do help in cutting down the background noise. We didn’t really notice any static noise present, which is quite common on TWS units. Despite the AirPods-like looks, the touch-sensitive areas on the Xpods Pro are sized well, and the touch commands work as intended. Talking about the battery life, the company claimed the figure is 6 Hours on a single charge which is somewhat true. During our testing runs, with the volume capped at 50% we got a little 5 hours with just the buds and around 20 hours from the case. Both the buds and the case took just under 1.5 hours for a full top-up.
