In this video I setup and try out Microsoft’s new Surface Earbuds. I will unbox them, pair them up with my phone and laptop and see how well they work.

Setting up

When you first unbox the earbuds they come ready changed and as soon as you pop them out they go into pairing mode, so a PC with Swift Pair enabled will pop up a notification so you can quickly connect. To get the most out of the earbuds there are Surface Audio apps for iOS, Android and Windows which enable you to control equalisation, view the status and control pairing of the earbuds. Once I has set them up with the app they needed a firmware update which took about 20 minutes.

The earbuds come with a charging case which itself is charged via USB-C. Microsoft say you can get 8 hours of playback from the earbuds on a single charge and then you can charge them up via the case (24 hours in total).

In use

The earbuds have three different sizes of the silicon ear tips so you can find the right fit for your ears and don’t fall out. You put the earbud in your ear and then twist them to lock in place. Once in place they are very comfortable, and you soon forget your wearing them. The sound quality is excellent, clear and sharp. There is good bass response and there is good volume range. They aren’t noise cancelling and they don’t block off external sound. For my use I find this ideal as I don’t want to be closed off from rest of the world, I have over ear noise cancelling headphones for when I want total isolation. I find some earbuds give you a kind of underwater effect as they close off the external sounds but these don’t do that.

With the Surface Earbuds you can control volume by swiping up and down with the right earbud. You can also pause and resume playback by doubling tapping. Long pressing brings up your default virtual assistant on Android but it doesn’t seem to do anything on Windows. I used the Surface Earbuds for a Microsoft Teams call and it works great, no additional microphone required.

Switching between devices

One thing that I found a bit clunky was switching between devices. You can use the Surface app to switch between devices but there is no automatic switching. So if you are using the earbuds with your PC and a phone calls comes in you can’t take the call with the earbuds. This is probably the one issue I have with the Surface earbuds.

Apart from device switching I really like the Surface Earbuds. They are comfortable and easy to use. The Surface Earbuds cost £199 from places like Amazon and the Microsoft Store.

Here is my video review: