New Sony LinkBuds S Firmware 2.1.3 Affects Battery Life! đ¨
Sony just rolled out a new firmware for the LinkBuds S called 2.1.3. According to the update list, it reduces the burden on the battery and reduces the loss in battery capacity due to long term use.
Thatâs great, right? But, it also says this update may result in slightly shorter battery life, depending on use.
It seems to me that this is a preventative measure to ensure that the battery doesnât get screwed as fast as the Sony WF-1000XM4s. But after applying the update, how much of a difference would it be in terms of battery life? And will it affect any of the LinkBuds Sâs key performance metrics, like its sound, its call quality and noise cancelling?
Battery
Since the update is going to affect its battery life, I have tested it using the same settings as the last time I performed a battery test, playing Spotify on loop at 60% volume. And this time, it yielded 4 hours and 9 minutes of battery, compared to the previous count of around 5 hours. So yes, there is less battery now, but not drastically less. And if Sony says this will extend the lifespan of the battery, to me, itâs not too bad of a trade off.
Sound Quality
Letâs move on to sound quality. Are there any changes there? Frequency sweeps before and after the update show that there are practically no differences in the tuning. And even when listening to the buds before and after the update, there seems to be no difference at all as you can hear in these sound samples.
Call Quality
Comparing the new firmwareâs call quality to the previous firmware in both quiet and noisy conditions using some really loud cafe style background noise and some wind noise coming from a fan, it seems like there is no difference to the LinkBuds Sâs microphone pickup, be it in quiet or noisy conditions. Itâs still as great as before, in my opinion, and these are still one of the best right now in terms of call quality. Listen to its call quality here.
Active Noise Cancelling
In terms of noise cancelling under the same noisy conditions as before, it seems that 2.1.3 did not bring any ANC improvements, nor did ANC get worse. Listening to the samples, you can hear a difference, somewhat, but itâs so negligible that I can attribute that to inconsistencies in my recordings instead of any actual changes to its ANC performance.
Conclusion
Overall, this update is not going to have an impact on the LinkBuds Sâs performance be it in terms of sound, call quality, or noise cancelling. There is a small but noticeable impact to battery life. I suspect that Sony is throttling the battery capacity a bit to extend the LinkBuds Sâs charging cycles, in a bid to reduce the batteryâs degradation. Much like how the iPhoneâs âintelligent chargingâ feature only charges the phone to 80% capacity at times when youâre not using the phone. Like, if youâre sleeping at night, and your phoneâs charging in the background.
So if you update the LinkBuds S, and it seems the battery is about 20% shorter, this is actually part of the update and not a product flaw. But if you havenât updated yet, you still have a choice whether this is a trade off that youâre willing to make. That being said, if youâd like to know in advance if future updates will affect the LinkBuds Sâ performance, stay on this space. And if youâd like to check the latest prices of the LinkBuds S, you may do so through the Amazon affiliate link below.
Sony LinkBuds S - https://amzn.to/3xNMab7
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