Gadgetory

these are Google's pixel buds they're kind of sort of Google's answer to Apple earpods they're wireless earbuds though not truly Wireless and they cost about the same amount of money 159 bucks on one hand they're really good wireless earbuds to do a lot of the basics well while also teasing that seemingly inevitable future of having super computers in our ears on the other hand there are a couple of tiny nitpicky flaws that when added together kind of Mar the experience up front though we have to start with one of the features that Google's hyping the most about the pixel buds and that's real-time translation can you tell me where the train station is what's a time Davian sort of wrong can you tell me where the bathroom is yes turn it into liquid sugar that's good to hear there's a toilet not far from here can you tell me how to get to the train station so let's go fast go straight and turn right okay hello and thanks for helping out do you know how to get to the train station what's wrong about it it would just be a bit like you're kind of like it's using the imperative so it would be a bit like another light to just stop something okay tell me where I could get to the time to get to the train station like you would say can you tell so this is as if I was a rude five-year-old yes hey dummy thank you for helping us with this wait so am i speaking into the app where am i speaking at the pixel box I'm also weird you are speaking into the app but it's reading it out and English to me oh so you can hear it in English so what it's showing up here it's reading to me would you rather hear both though I mean can you tell me how to get to the train station Wow oh yeah yeah what did it get wrong just like a lot of grammar and you're speaking to me in a really informal way this seems to be a problem with it is that it's very real it's translating I'm sensing a little hostility from the one common thread we saw across all the languages is that the translation is pretty crude so you're probably gonna come across as sounding a little bit rude or maybe even kind of like a five-year-old and that's not a problem with the pixel buds themselves it's really just a problem with where translation apps are at this point in time and that's really all this is it's not like the pixel buds are doing magic to translate conversations it's just leaning on the Google Translate app that already probably exists on your phone the weirdest thing for me is that with pixel buds you're adding a whole nother device into what is already an awkward situation when you're trying to speak somebody else's language and it makes it a bit more impersonal my co-workers didn't really seem to have much of a problem with it just testing it out but I know for myself I would probably rather just use the app on the phone as opposed to adding a whole nother device into this situation now there may very well be a time one day where everybody is wearing the pixel buds and using them to talk to people across languages and borders but that future is not here yet this current version of the product is only teasing and it's not delivering on it Google assistant however is much further along and here's the best thing about it on the pixel beds it is stupid fast you just tap the right earbud and you're already talking to the assistant you don't have to wait for it to confirm that it's heard you or anything you just tap talk and it's off to the races it's so fast that I found myself begging for reasons to use it I usually only use the assistant for things like weather or a especially on headphones that said I think Google's assistant is the best of the ones out there and having it less than a second away definitely feels like a genuine step forward I found myself using it in ways that I never had like asking it to tell me how long it'll take me to get home on the subway or asking it to read me the news while I walk from the subway back home so let's set all these fantastical and futuristic features aside now because while they might be useful in a pinch what you're gonna be using the pixel buds for the most is listening to music that's coming from your phone and in the right setting they do that really well they reproduce audio really clearly there's a little bit of depth to it more than I expected to find on earbuds this size and they'll do that for a while to Google advertises about five hours of listening time and I found that as long as you're not using the assistant a ton you'll get at least four hours of what they're claiming but the open air design of these earbuds Google calls it semi occluded is a totally double-edged experience on the one hand it's good for situations like running where you want to have sound from the outside world coming in but on the other hand it means that sound can totally drown out the music listening experience especially if you're in a big city like New York I found myself hearing buses trains traffic people walking by me instead of the music that I wanted to listen to there was even one point where I actually heard the music from someone else's headphones instead of my own music that's annoying that brings us to the last part of the experience with the pixel buds which is the case I really want to like this thing and for the most part I do it's got a nice soft touch finish to it as a couple extra chargers worth of battery in it and a levy quick charge the pixel buds 10 minutes will give you about an hour which is awesome the problem comes from just how finicky the process is of getting the buds back in the case you have to put them in one by one and then you have to wrap the cord around just the right way or else the case won't close and Google even had to put a sticker on the inside of the case to teach people how to do that now the way that you get pixel buzz if it in your ears also has a couple issues you have to tug on this little loop of the cable that connects the two ear buds together which is a nice idea but that cable tends to slip over time and so I found that pulling them out of the case the cable has slipped or even when I have them in my ears the cable slips and I have to constantly readjust them to keep them fitting in my ears the right way now the touchpad on the right is really fast for Google assistant which is great and you can tap to play and pause music and you can even swipe to control the volume but it's super sensitive and so you have to be careful I found myself getting lots of accidental taps and swipes especially when I took earbuds out of my ears and went to put them back in the case that was really frustrating because I would hear music starting to play again or I would lose my place in a podcast it just seems like an easy problem that Google could fix if the earbuds know that they're out of your ears now these are admittedly little frustrations but when you add them all up together it makes for a more problematic experience than I was expecting with pixel bugs there are a lot of good ideas in this product and I'm excited to see what Google does with that going forward it's just painfully obvious right now that this is their first attempt at making wireless earbuds thank you and it missed it