Mi TWS 2 Earphones Review: Great Convenience, So-so Sound Quality!

Xiaomi finally launched their Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 in India alongside the Mi 10 and Mi Box 4K. A lot of consumers (including me) were waiting eagerly for Xiaomi to get into the true wireless earphones category and well they finally have. Today let’s talk in detail about the Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 and let’s see whether or not should you spend Rs. 4,499 on this product?

Introduction

Xiaomi India has been quite slow to expand their portfolio in India. Xiaomi china has some really good products across various categories which would be a definite hit in India. But Xiaomi India takes their sweet time to bring some of these awesome products to the Indian market. This has its advantages and dis-advantages.

The advantage is that they do proper research and launch a product only after they’ve figured out the after sales service part. This is excellent for consumers as they do get good after sales service right from day one of the product being launched. Dis-advantage is that we have to wait (sometimes months or even years) for our favourite product /category to be launched.

One such product which I was waiting for is the Mi true wireless earphones. Mi True Wireless earphones 2 are finally here in India for a price of Rs. 4,499. After using them for about a couple of weeks, I have mixed feelings. There are some aspects which are great and some areas where these earphones definitely need improvement.

Design

In terms of design, the earbuds follow half in-ear design. The design seems fairly good. The extending legs of the earbuds are small but a little bulky. The earbuds are very comfortable to wear as they are designed to properly fit into the ear-canals, providing more ease and stability. Xiaomi says that they have optimised the shape of the earphone by mapping millions of ears in simulation.

The case which holds these earphones is boxy in shape and quite bulky. It is bigger than most of the TWS earphone cases out there. The Mi True Wireless Earphones 2’s case resembles the design language of Xiaomi’s water purifier. It is like a miniature version of their water purifier (in terms of design).

Overall I like the design of these earphones. They fit snug in my ear and they’re very lightweight. After a point one won’t even notice that they’re there in your ears.

Build Quality

Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 are mostly made out of plastic, but the build doesn’t feel cheap at all. I have dropped these earphones and the case a couple of times (not on purpose obviously :p) and nothing happened to either.

The case has this matte soft touch texture which feels awesome. It is not glossy and I prefer it this way. The soft touch matte finish is the way to go for cases of true wireless earphones. I just wish that there were more colour options. A matte black or matte red colour would look awesome on these pair of truly wireless earphones.

Smart Features

Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 have some smart features to along with them. These smart features are mainly aimed at providing convenience to the user. Convenience-wise, the Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 are great. These smart features work as advertised and are very convenient and helpful.

• Smart Pairing

Smart pairing feature is available only for MIUI devices. So once you open the lid of the case, these earphones will show up on your MIUI phone and you can instantly pair them with your device. The smart pairing feature works surprisingly well. The moment you open the lid, the notification shows up on your MIUI device and it feels like magic.

Once you pair them up, you can see the amount of battery left in each of the earbuds (right and left) and also the battery left in the case. The battery indicator is very handy and very convenient. Smart pairing feature gets a big thumbs up from my side.

• Auto re-connection

Another smart feature that Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 offer is auto-reconnection. Once you pair them up with a device and in the future whenever you want to connect them to that device, you just need to open the lid of the case and within 3-4 seconds these earphones will be connected to the paired device.

Auto re-connection is surprisingly fast and works super fine. It is a very seamless experience. Just open up the lid of the case and bam! within 3-4 seconds you’ll be listening to your favourite songs.

• Wear Detection

Mi true wireless earphones 2 also have a feature called as wear detection. So for example – you’re listening to your favourite song and someone comes up to you for a chat. You can remove one of the earbuds from your ear and the music will stop playing. As soon as you put them back in your ear, the music will start playing again.

Wear detection also works as advertised. The latency between removing the earbuds and the music stopping is almost not noticeable. Same goes for when you pop them back in your ear. This feature is super convenient and useful for consumers.

• Touch controls

These earphones do have touch controls but they’re kind of confusing. So its a double-tap on the right earbud to play/pause music, double-tap to answer calls on any earbud and a double-tap on the left earbud to activate voice assistant. I wise there were more controls, something like a triple-tap or a long press (just like the realme buds air).

Touch controls have a learning curve and you need to remember which earbud to double-tap on. I personally feel there’s room for improvement in this area.

Sound quality

It’s time to talk about the main thing with any audio product i.e. Sound Quality. How do the Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 Sound? Well, the sound quality is okay-ish. There’s a decent amount of low-end or bass (nothing extraordinary). The mids and highs are okay-ish. I wish that the sound stage would be more wider. Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 sound just okay. Nothing exceptional in terms of sound quality. The volume levels are good though. I almost never used them at 100% volume. Most of the times I’d use them at 80-90% volume.

• Microphone Quality

Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 come with microphones which can be used to answer calls or play games like PUBG. The microphone quality is excellent. I used these earphones for a lot of calls and didn’t a single complaint from the other party about bad audio quality. Kudos to that.

• Latency

Xiaomi claims that Mi True Wireless earphones 2 have very low latency when it comes to playing games like PUBG. But that’s not true. The latency is definitely noticeable while playing PUBG. Hence, if you’re a hardcore PUBG player, then you better buy a paired of wired earphones because no bluetooth earphone would match the latency of a pair of wired earphones.

Battery Charging

According to Xiaomi, Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 have a battery life of 14 hours. 4 hours of listening on a full charge and then the case can charge them up a couple of times to effectively give a battery life of 14 hours. In real-life usage, I was getting about 3 hours of listening and on a full charge and an effective battery life of 10-11 hours with the charging case. 3 hours of listening on a full charge in not bad by any means. In fact it is better than the realme buds air.

Once the battery drains completely, there is support for fast charging. Instead of giving wireless charging (like the realme buds air) Xiaomi decided to go with fast charging and that’s great. Fast Charging is a more practical use and convenient for the users.

Final words

Overall, Mi True Wireless earphones 2 are super convenient because of the smart features like wear detection, smart pairing, auto re-connection etc. But the sound quality is just okay. One can buy these earphones for answering calls, video calls or for light music listening. If you are a hard core music person, then I wouldn’t recommend these earphones to you. Buy the realme buds instead, their sound is way better than Mi True Wireless Earphones 2.

Thank you so much for tuning in. I’ll see you guys around.

Harsh Punjabi

I have always been passionate about technology. Trying out new gadgets like smartphones, laptops, headphones, etc. has always been very fascinating and one fine day, I decided to take this passion and turn it into something substantial. This is how technolobe was born.