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We confronted the hands-free kit of the new Pixel Pro from Google with our voice and the noises of everyday life: a perilous exercise that it honorably takes up, except in the most extreme conditions.
Offering a high-performance hands-free kit for quality calls in all circumstances: this is one of the promises that earphone manufacturers keep making true-wireless, and which few have been able to hold in practice. Like Google with its first Pixel Buds, which suffered from the algorithm’s zeal to preserve the user’s voice from surrounding noise pollution, thus limiting calls in low-noise environments. The formula was slightly improved with the updates and the arrival of the Pixel Buds A-Series, but not enough to match the most talented headphones in this area such as the QC Earbuds or the Galaxy Buds Pro.
With its latest Pixel Buds Pro, the manufacturer swears to us, the call quality will be there, “even in noisy and windy places, thanks to beamforming microphones, voice-detecting accelerometer and wind shields”. In order to get to the bottom of it, we went to the field, equipped with the headphones we had just received, for multiple tests. Unfortunately, despite a different design, the Pixel Buds Pro do not offer any noticeable improvement: the noise reduction algorithm is still very effective and manages without any problem to attenuate or even eliminate various sound sources (nearby conversations, breeze , contact noise, rolling noise, ventilation), sometimes particularly intense (engine noise from a scooter or bus passing nearby, horn, etc.). Still, it always tends to filter our own voice.
Even if the timbre of the voice is a little too nasal, the result remains usable both indoors and outdoors, as long as the surrounding noise level is not too intense. In which case, the user’s words may end up being “chewed up” and suffer from various sound artifacts, ultimately making the user’s voice unattractive, or even unintelligible. Our few sound recordings will allow you to realize the evolution of the behavior of the hands-free kit of the Pixel Buds Pro: in a perfectly quiet room, in a kitchen (extractor hood, microwave oven and flow of a tap ), outdoors in a quiet street, then busier (with a little traffic and a light breeze) and very noisy, in a station, or even on line 9 of the Paris metro (train almost empty or very busy).
Fortunately for them, the Pixel Buds Pro benefit from many other features, enough to offer the most complete user experience possible. Our tests follow their course. We therefore give you an appointment soon to know everything about headphones true-wireless top of the line from Google, both ergonomically and sonically, of course.