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The Register tests Dell’s first attempt at outplaying Apple’s AirPods
Last year, The Register spotted Dell selling cloud-manageable wireless earbuds that feature the company’s famously stoic styling at a price higher than Apple charges for its latest AirPods.
Dell eventually offered your correspondent a pair of the Pro Plus Earbuds to try so we could hear what all the fuss is about – and we accepted, on condition that the company showed us the cloudy management tools that make the buds worth the big bucks.
Dell's Pro Plus Earbuds
Divya Soni, a go to market lead, showed me Dell’s cloudy Device Management Console, a tool that lets admins enroll and track the buds, send them new firmware, or do things like turn on active noise cancellation by default across a fleet of earbuds.
New firmware matters for earbuds because they’re Bluetooth devices and the wireless protocol has had its fair share of security scares over the years. The buds have already earned Microsoft’s Teams Open Office Certification – a seal of approval for being able to handle noisy offices, plus a Zoom accreditation. New firmware might help there, too.
Soni admitted earbuds aren’t the main priority for the Device Management Console, which Dell expects customers will mostly use to manage docks and displays.
Dell delivers firmware updates to those devices at least once a year, to address security issues or fix bugs. The tool can do the same for keyboards or headsets.
I can’t imagine anyone would adopt Dell’s Device Manager just to keep an eye on earbuds. I’m also not sure anyone would buy the buds for personal use.
I say that because I own two sets of wireless earbuds and in their own way both are better than the Dells.
My go-to buds are JB’s $40 Vibe Beam 2, which fit brilliantly, bring out some nice nuances in much music, boast batteries that last about six hours and only need about 15 minutes to recharge.
That makes them satisfactory for long-haul flights, during which they drop a warmly enveloping cone of silence when active noise cancelling kicks in.
My other pair are $100 Soundcore Space A40s (bought after destroying another pair). These buds have even nicer noise cancelling powers but fit terribly: I recently endured quite the scene when running to catch a bus and one dropped out of my ear and bounced into a shrub.
The Soundcores redeem themselves with impressive microphones, so I use them when Zooming or recording a podcast. I prefer them to stay home because the case is bulbous and a little conspicuous in a front jeans pocket.
The Dells are even bigger. They fit my ears well and battery life is strong at around eight hours. Active noise cancelling is poor: A high hiss persists in-flight and I perceived distracting artefacts when using them in noisy environments on the ground.
Neither of my two PCs made a Bluetooth connection with the Dell buds. Dell has a fix for that – the buds’ case houses a small USB-C dongle devoted to connecting with the buds. It works every time and delivers a more stable connection than Bluetooth and brings out some musical nuances that I can’t hear with my other buds or desktop speaker.
The dongle feels like a clue about how Dell imagines these buds will be used, because today's laptops seldom offer more than a pair of USB-C ports and they’re commonly used for power in and video out. Dedicating a port to earbuds seems wasteful … unless you’re using a Dell dock or monitor that offers more ports.
The USB-C audio connector therefore made it hard to escape the idea that Dell expects these buds will almost always be sold as part of a corporate peripheral purchase.
I can’t imagine consumers would prefer them to Apple’s AirPods, or the many cheaper earbuds that match them for performance.
But if the boss decides your organization must have cloud-manageable earbuds it would be churlish to turn down the chance to use a pair of Pro Plus Earbuds for work and play. The experience of using them is in the name: they're built for the office but can handle after hours activities. They’re not delightful, but they’re far from trashy, annoying, or inconvenient. And when I inevitably lose or destroy my current buds I’ll be very happy if I have the Dells on hand. ®
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