The Nord Buds 4 Pro is yet another pair of wireless earbuds in OnePlus’s growing and confusing lineup. These are the most premium earbuds in the company’s low-end lineup, but below the non-Pro numbered lineup and Pro numbered lineup, and also the non-numbered Pro lineup…. Anyway, it’s best not to get too much into the weeds with this, as at this point it’s doubtful if even people at OnePlus can keep track of these.
The Nord Buds 4 Pro are still aimed at being an affordable pair of wireless earbuds, but with many of the niceties that you now expect in more premium earbuds, such as active noise cancellation, high-resolution audio, touch gestures, AI translation, and more. All for INR 3,999 ($42).
Design and comfort
Starting with the design, the Nord Buds 4 Pro feature a new case design with a familiar shape for the earbuds. The case looks like OnePlus’s older Pro series models, but instead of opening horizontally, it’s just the top that comes off. The earbuds come in two colors, Radiant Gray and Raven Black.
The build quality and finish of the case are decent for the price. It has a smooth matte texture to it that resists fingerprints. The matte texture is also carried over to the earbuds. However, here, it ends up feeling a bit cheap and gives an unpleasant sensation in your ears.
This unpleasantness is further amplified by the cheap ear tips employed here. They feel plasticky (and also just icky), and don’t create a great seal like higher-quality ear tips.
That said, the earbuds are otherwise quite comfortable. I was able to wear them for several hours at a stretch without experiencing any fatigue.
The earbuds are IP55 dust and splash-resistant. However, this does not apply to the case.
Software and features
The software experience is straightforward. You can either access things through the HeyMelody app for Android and iOS, and the latter version can also be installed on a Mac.
There is a good amount of customizability here, including for the ANC, audio, and touch gestures. You can also do things like turn off the audio cues if they bother you. Game mode switches the earbuds to a low-latency mode, Spotify Tap lets you start playing from Spotify instantly with a dedicated gesture, and Sound Space plays different ambient sounds from the app.
HeyMelody app on Android
There is also an option to toggle the Hi-Res mode. This is off by default when using LHDC, and limits the earbuds to 24-bit/48kHz and lower bitrates. When enabled, the earbuds can go up to 24-bit/96kHz, and up to 900kbps (not 1000kbps, as OnePlus falsely advertises), although this needs to be done manually through Android’s developer mode settings, as the default even in Hi-Res mode is still 24-bit/48kHz.
Performance
Audio quality
The Nord Buds 4 Pro support SBC, AAC, and LHDC codecs over Bluetooth 6.0. They have 12mm dynamic drivers with a titanium coating. OnePlus claims these drivers provide 100% more power than those on the previous generation Nord Buds 3 Pro. The company also advertises these as bass boosted, so there should be no real surprises in store when you hear them.
With that said, I was genuinely impressed by what I heard when I put these on for the first time. A moment of truth here — and this really is the bitter truth — but aside from a handful of exceptions, I wouldn’t willingly listen to OnePlus’s audio products longer than it takes to review them. There has almost always been a crudeness in the way they are tuned, as if it were an absolute afterthought. You could sense a complete confidence in the notion that whoever buys them wouldn’t care or know any better, so there was no need to bother. This is different from Oppo or even Realme audio products, which are generally tuned better.
The Nord Buds 4 Pro did break that mold for me. Leaving the bass aside for a moment, I was pleased with how refined and tasteful the rest of the frequency response tuning was. The mids come through wonderfully across the range and have a beautifully mellow timbre to them. The highs often feel just right without too much piercing detail or murkiness. You feel like you are getting more than the crux of what you’re listening to, and that there is a genuine attempt to present the information in a restrained but sophisticated way.
I say restrained because quite often manufacturers get caught up in the idea of highlighting one aspect or the other of the sound. This is how you end up with ridiculous peaks or troughs in the frequency response, and a sound that is just unnatural since it’s just not how your ears expect to hear things. The Nord Buds 4 Pro presents no such major audible deviations from what one could arguably call the ground truth, so it is infinitely more pleasing to listen to than even some of the company’s more expensive models.
Yes, there is a ton of bass in the sound, and it is the elephant in the room. However, the bass never encroached much on the rest of the frequency spectrum and is mostly isolated to its region. It’s also just sort of funny; there’s so much of it that it always catches you off guard when it crops up in some tracks, and you can’t help but be amused by it. It was never too distracting, and it knew how to work with the rest of the sound rather than overwhelming it.
I was also taken aback by the spatial characteristics of the sound. The imaging performance is good, so the sound often feels three-dimensional with distinct positioning of different elements. It’s not super spacious, but you can enable the Spatial Audio setting if that’s what you really want.
Overall, I was greatly impressed by the sound of the Nord Buds 4 Pro. It’s equal parts fun and restrained, and knows how to wield that balance. To think this should come from one of the more affordable models in the company’s lineup is intriguing. One would hope that this wasn’t just a coin flip and that perhaps active efforts were made to steer things in the right direction.
Microphone quality
The Nord Buds 4 Pro have good microphone performance. The sound is clear and of high enough quality for audio and video calls in a quiet room.
In a noisy environment, the Nord Buds 4 Pro impress with their background noise reduction, and the voice remains distinct, if a bit quieter.
Noise cancellation
The Nord Buds 4 Pro have active noise cancellation, and the company claims up to 55dB of noise cancellation in a 5000Hz range. It is said to be 200% better than that on the Nord Buds 3 Pro.
In my experience, the ANC on the Nord Buds 4 Pro wasn’t that good. Not because it isn’t effective, but because of the way it works.
You get three levels of ANC, along with auto. The first two settings offer a static level of cancellation, while the highest mode can vary its intensity based on the ambient noise.
All three modes work by shifting some of the noise to higher frequency bands, but this is the most noticeable on the High preset. Switching from Moderate to High results in a notable increase in high-frequency noise, even as the low frequencies get quieter. This can actually make the High mode less effective at times than the Moderate mode, as the added noise in High is easier to notice and more distracting. This is true for most moderately noisy environments.
It’s only in extremely loud scenarios that the High preset switches gears to more potent forms of noise cancellation, at which point some of the high-frequency noise goes away. At this point, the High preset can seem impressive, but it can really only do this in very loud environments, and if the noise level falls below a certain level, it once again becomes somewhat ineffective.
This annoying variability is what makes it hard to be satisfied with the ANC on the Nord Buds 4 Pro. The High preset should really just offer the highest level of ANC it is capable of, rather than turning into yet another Auto mode. If someone wants less isolation, they can always use the lower two presets or use the actual Auto mode available. Having the highest preset do broad range adjustments, to the point where it can be worse than a lower preset, is just bad design.
It’s also worth noting that the cheap ear tips affect the ANC performance, and the ANC effectiveness could have been much higher had the ear tips been of a higher quality.
Finally, the transparency mode works reasonably well. It’s not the most natural or the most revealing-sounding mode we have tested, but it gets the job done.
Latency
The Nord Buds 4 Pro have good latency performance. By default, it works just fine for video content, since modern devices adjust for the delay. Gaming was also decent, and things can be improved further with the game mode.
Oddly, the game mode also affects the audio quality and enables a spatial audio effect of sorts. There is a setting to disable it, but it didn’t seem to do anything.
Connection
The connection performance on the Nord Buds 4 Pro was very good. However, there is one thing that I’d like to bring up on top of the things mentioned in the software section.
As mentioned before, the earbuds don’t go up to the full 1Mbps bitrate with LHDC, no matter which devices I tried them with. The highest possible is 900kbps, and it’s even lower if you don’t enable the Hi-Res mode. Of course, you also have to do this through the developer mode, and not something that just happens automatically.
What I wanted to highlight here is that not a single one of OnePlus’s own devices can maintain high bitrates with LHDC or LDAC, even with its own earbuds. All the devices I tried, including some flagship models, could do up to 500kbps with these earbuds. I had to rely on a trusty old Nothing Phone (2), which I know has good enough Bluetooth to consistently hit the highest bitrates with LHDC and LDAC with every device I tested, to review these earbuds. And that’s when I realized even the earbuds don’t hit the maximum advertised 1Mbps.
OnePlus seriously needs to look at the Bluetooth performance of its phones and tablets. Not being able to handle over 500kbps at a one-foot distance from the paired device is embarrassing. Not to mention, they still don’t support true lossless codecs like aptX Lossless, probably because of how bad their Bluetooth is with existing codecs.
Battery life
The Nord Buds 4 Pro have a claimed battery life of 7 hours with ANC on and 13 hours with ANC off when using AAC. With LHDC, the ANC on number drops down to 6 hours, with no claimed ANC off figure.
The testing here was focused on LHDC set to 24-bit/96kHz, 900kbps. With these settings, I got 9 hours and 17 minutes with ANC off, and just over 6 hours with ANC on. The case holds about another three full charges for the earbuds, so you can get close to 30 hours of total use with a full charge.
Conclusion
The Nord Buds 4 Pro are a relatively affordable pair of earbuds, which is why it’s hard to judge them too harshly. As such, some of the plasticky build quality and cheap tips can be excused. The ANC is also nothing to write home about, not because it’s incapable of being good, but because it’s poorly configured. If OnePlus could fix the High preset, we may have properly good ANC on our hands, at least for the segment.
What I did find unreservedly enjoyable was the audio quality. The mellow, soothing tonality was a pleasure to listen to, and I wasn’t even bothered much by the bass this time. I do still think the cheaper Realme T200 that we reviewed earlier sound notably better, but those are also considerably worse in every other way.
On top of the sound, the earbuds also have good comfort, good microphone performance, reliable connectivity, and decent latency. The battery life should also be more than enough for most users.
All in all, a fairly competent pair of earbuds for the price. Definitely worth checking out.
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