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Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro Review

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Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro Review
Xiaomi’s success in India has been massive, and one big factor contributes to that: pricing. Most of the company’s products across its brands are highly competitive, and lead the way when it comes to offering features at prices that were previously hard to imagine. Although the company has been a bit quiet in the audio segment of late while competitors including Realme and Boat have pulled ahead, the latest Mi products bring the value-for-money brand back to the forefront.

The company recently launched the Mi Portable Bluetooth Speaker (16W) and Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro in India, priced at Rs. 2,499 and Rs. 1,799 respectively. Today, the focus is on the latter, which is among the most affordable wireless headsets available in India to feature active noise cancellation. Straight away, this looks like an impressive pair of wireless earphones, but just how good is the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro in practice? Find out in my review.

The Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro has all the features you want for the price

The successor to the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones launched in late 2019, the Pro model has small design changes but sticks to the general form factor and basic styling. The earpieces look sharper and have a unique patterned design on the outer side. They can be attached together magnetically when not in use, and sensibly, this doesn’t control the power like on the OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z. The neckband has a textured finish unlike the smooth one on the non-Pro model.

Despite all of this, the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro still looks pretty basic and functional; it doesn’t call out for attention. The neckband is flexible and can be twisted any way you like for easy and safe storage, and at 36g, the headset is light enough to barely be felt when worn. The fit is comfortable, with a decent noise isolating seal to aid the active noise cancellation.

There are just a handful of buttons on the right side of the neckband, while the left is plain save for the only Mi logo on the headset. A multi-function button controls power, playback, and the ability to answer or end calls, and there’s also a rocker to control the volume. A button on the inside controls the active noise cancellation feature, and there’s also a Micro-USB charging port on the bottom. Included in the sales package are three pairs of ear tips and a Micro-USB cable.

Apart from active noise cancellation, there is also environmental noise cancellation for better performance on voice calls, and an IPX5 water resistance rating on the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro. The earphones have 10mm dynamic drivers, and use Bluetooth 5 for connectivity with support for the SBC and AAC codecs. The only significant drawback in the specifications is the Micro-USB charging port; even at this price and with this feature set, there’s no excuse for using the dated standard, and it should have had a USB Type-C port instead.

The earphones latch together magnetically, but this sensibly doesn’t control the power

Battery life on the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro is impressive. I got around 15 hours of listening time with active noise cancellation usually on and the AAC codec in use. There’s no fast charging, but it doesn’t take too long to top up the 150mAh battery.

Bass-heavy sound on the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro

Xiaomi’s entry-level audio products have always appealed to wide audiences in India with their sonic signatures, and the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro is no different. It’s a similar sound to what the non-Pro version offers with a definite emphasis on the bass, which was sometimes overpowering and distracting from the mids and highs. While there still is enough to be heard in the rest of the frequency range, the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro is definitely biased towards the lows.

This sets the tone for a punchy and aggressive sound; this isn’t a bad thing, and it didn’t take away from the vocals and highs very often. The deep rumble of the beat in Justin Timberlake’s Take Back The Night was enjoyable and not fatiguing at moderate volumes, while Timberlake’s peppy vocals and the distinct trumpets that set the mood of the track were easy to hear and groove to.

mi neckband bluetooth earphones pro review logo Xiaomi  Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro

The headset features IPX5 water resistance, and Bluetooth 5 for connectivity

The Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro had a sound that was often quite aggressive and punchy, and was fun with certain genres and tracks in moderation. It was also loud and reasonably clean to listen to; the bass was strong, but was far from unpleasant or muddy even in the most aggressive of tracks. It’s about right for what you’d expect for the price, but I have heard better-sounding headsets that still cost less than Rs. 2,000, such as the OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z.

This punchy bass was held back a bit when it came to tightness and definition, which was somewhat expected given the price of the earphones. With Earth, Wind and Fire’s Let’s Groove, the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro often sounded too raw and plain, with very little depth or detail in the lows, and a very basic, narrow soundstage. The mood-setting disco beats in the track felt a bit dull, which has to do with the tuning of the earphones. This is an entry-level headset after all, and the tuning is elementary at best. It succeeds in achieving a sound that isn’t unpleasant, but that’s about it.

It seems incredible that we can get active noise cancellation on a pair of wireless earphones that cost Rs. 1,799, and the ANC is indeed reasonably good for the price. Xiaomi claims a reduction of 25dB with specific types of noise including airplane engines, hair dryers, and vacuum cleaners. There was a noticeable drop in noise level when using the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro, roughly on par with what other options priced under Rs. 5,000 such as the Realme Buds Wireless Pro are able to offer.

Noise reduction wasn’t significant in many home and outdoor urban settings, but it did make listening to music a lot easier, as well as making dialogue in videos much more audible. Performance on calls was also decent enough. While my voice could be heard clearly, the person on the other end of the call sometimes sounded a bit rough and boomy at times, but this didn’t really affect the ability to have a short conversation.

mi neckband bluetooth earphones pro review earpieces 2 Xiaomi  Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro

The Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro has 10mm dynamic drivers

Verdict

It’s quite impressive what Xiaomi has managed to achieve with the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro, offering entirely functional and worthwhile active noise cancellation for less than Rs. 2,000. That is the defining feature of this headset, but the earphones do come through even with design, build quality, battery life, and to some extent, sound quality.

Although the sound isn’t exceptional, it’s acceptable considering the price and feature set of the Mi Neckband Bluetooth Earphones Pro. If you really want active noise cancellation for under Rs. 2,000 and are willing to settle for reasonable overall performance, this is the headset for you. However, if sound quality is more important to you than everything else, and you can do without ANC, the OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z or Oppo Enco M31 are worth considering instead.


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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox


Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create game development tools for Xbox, enabling developers to create characters, generate entire scripts and quests, and more. The multi-year deal brings an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine to the forefront, both of them being totally optional to use and to varying degrees. Of course, the use of AI in art has been criticised by many for simply lacking originality, in addition to running the risk of fewer jobs for artists — a growing fear among many considering the alarming number of layoffs seen at game studios this year in an attempt to cut costs.

“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”

The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.

Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.

Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.


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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It

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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It


BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is a state-owned telecommunication company in India. Earlier this year in May, the government said that the firm started rolling out 4G services in the country. By December, the networks were said to be upgraded to 5G. However, at the India Mobile Congress, BSNL chairman P K Purwar said that the company will launch 4G services in December and then roll it across the country by June 2024. The chairman added that the 5G upgrades will take place after June next year.

In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.

To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.

Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.

The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.


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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed

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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed


Realme GT 5 Pro’s launch date is not far away. The Chinese smartphone brand on Tuesday (November 7) confirmed the arrival of the new GT series smartphone in its home country. The Realme GT 5 Pro is teased to come with a display with over 3000 nits of peak brightness. It is also confirmed to pack a larger heat dissipation area for thermal management. The handset will ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come as a successor to the Realme GT 5 that debuted in China in August.

Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.

The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.

For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.


The Motorola Edge 40 recently made its debut in the country as the successor to the Edge 30 that was launched last year. Should you buy this phone instead of the Nothing Phone 1 or the Realme Pro+? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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