The Realme Buds T200 are the latest in the company’s range of entry-level true wireless earbuds. Priced at just INR 1,999 (~$23), the Buds T200 are aimed at those with a tight budget but still want to experience more premium features such as active noise cancellation, dual-device connectivity, and LDAC.
Design
The Realme Buds T200 have a fairly simple design for the case that looks like a boxier version of the AirPods Pro case. On the front of the case is a status LED and on the bottom is a USB-C charging port. Unfortunately, there is no pairing button on the case, which means you have to pull the earbuds out of the case and use the press and hold gesture on both of them to initiate pairing.
Like the case, the earbuds also have a fairly simple design with color-matched ear tips. On the stalks are little indentations to show you where you need to tap to execute the touch gestures. The earbuds have no optical or capacitive sensor on the inside so you don’t get auto pause when you remove them.
One annoyance with the earbuds — and this is more to do with how they sit inside the case — is that they can be difficult to pull out of the case. They sink far too deep inside the case when seated, leaving very little surface area to grab on to while pulling them out. The surface that is exposed is very rounded and often covered in oils from the skin, making this entire process cartoonishly challenging.
In terms of comfort, the Buds T200 are great. The earbuds are light and have plush ear tips despite the low price. There are no single tap gestures so you don’t have to worry about activating something every time you pick up the earbuds.
The overall build quality is okay. Both the earbuds and the case are made out of plastic, as you’d expect at this price. The case lid had a bit of side-to-side movement and the glossy finish got scratched up pretty easily. The earbuds are rated for IP55, however, so you don’t have to worry about dust or water getting in there.
The Buds T200 come in four colors. The Neon Green pictured here is seriously vibrant in person but has a simple black interior. The Dreamy Purple has matching purple interior. The Mystic Black has a fetching blue interior while the Snowy White settles for a plain gray interior.
Software and features
The Realme Buds T200 support the Realme Link app. Unlike with other brands that have dedicated apps for their audio devices, the Realme Link is a general-purpose app from Realme for all its accessories, including smart home devices and fitness bands.
This is where things get annoying. It’s bad enough that companies often force you to create an account whenever you want to use one of these apps to use your smart home devices or even fitness products but for some reason Realme also does it with its audio devices. This means, you cannot use the Buds T200 with this app until you first create and sign into a Realme account into the app.
This is a very annoying condition to put on your users and while it is relatively easy to just use a temporary email ID to create an account, many people would just end up giving their personal email IDs or phone numbers to create the account. There is no benefit to doing so and is a waste of time and invasion of privacy by the company.
Realme Link app
Moreover, this process is also necessary if you use a Realme phone. If you have a OnePlus or Oppo phone, you don’t need to use the HeyMelody app to access features of the OnePlus or Oppo branded audio products as all the features just appear within Bluetooth settings. The HeyMelody app is only for use with non-OnePlus/Oppo products. But you still have to use the Realme Link app on a Realme phone, which just comes across as a desperate attempt to siphon people’s phone numbers and email IDs through the app.
Once you get past this unnecessary hurdle, the experience of using the app is similar to what you find in HeyMelody used by OnePlus and Oppo products. You have a bunch of audio options at your disposal, including a six-band custom EQ and four presets, Spatial Audio (without head tracking), and a toggle to enable ‘High-definition sound’, which just enables LDAC. This is off by default, so if you thought you’d just not use the Realme Link app to avoid the hassle of logging in, know that you will be limited to SBC and AAC.
Audio settings
The app also has something called Dynamic audio, which just enables another three-band EQ. It’s not clear what this adds over the six-band EQ already available and what precisely is dynamic about it. The fewer bands also make changes that are far too broad, so unless you are someone who is somehow intimidated by a six-band EQ then you can probably try this option.
Other features in the app include ANC modes toggle, a game mode that reduces latency, gesture settings, dual-device connection menu, and something called MindFlow Mode, which are a bunch of sample tunes to help you relax.
Other settings
I don’t have much to complain about the functionality within the app itself. It even does little things like showing the exact color of the earbuds that you have paired with the phone. It’s just that there is simply no need to force the user into making an account and ideally Realme should just use the HeyMelody app like OnePlus and Oppo.
Performance
Audio quality
The Realme Buds T200 use standard 12.4mm dynamic drivers. They connect using Bluetooth 5.4 and support SBC, AAC, and LDAC at up to 32-bit/96kHz.
Using the Original Sound preset, the Buds T200 are astonishingly good-sounding pair of earbuds. Realme’s tuning here is truly impressive and leaves little room to complain.
Starting with the low frequencies, the Buds T200 employ a very reserved bass-boost that provides just the right amount of thump and rumble without overwhelming the listener and obfuscating the mid frequencies. The mids, in turn, are very clear with superb body and timbre that makes vocals and instruments come alive in the mix. The treble finishes strong with brilliant clarity and air, which also helps create a stunning imaging experience with great object placement and a relatively broad soundstage.
If I had to nitpick, I would say just a tiny bit more presence in the upper mids would not have gone amiss. Also, the treble can get a bit too sharp at times and if you predominantly listen to bright music then you might find this a bit annoying. However, this is very easily fixed by the EQ with very minor adjustments so it’s simply not a concern.
Overall, I was truly stunned with how well Realme has tuned these earbuds. I found myself constantly trying to find more and more music to listen to just to see how well it would play on the earbuds and after a while I was just enjoying myself.
This is a far cry from other products in this segment where I often find myself mentally checking out after a few minutes and have to essentially force myself to listen to for the sake of the review. It’s not the most detailed sound I’ve heard, even from wireless earbuds, and I think we are reaching the limits of the drivers here. But the sound is so well-tuned that you keep wanting to explore more of your library in a way I’ve rarely felt wanting to, even with products that cost twenty times as much.
Microphone
The Realme Buds T200 have okay microphone performance. Voices sound fine when tested in a quiet room with only some amount of warbling. In noisier environments, voices get quieter and softer, but people on the other end would still be able to understand you and the background noise is relatively well-controlled for this segment.
Noise cancellation
The Realme Buds T200 have active noise cancellation. The earbuds use two microphones each, both of them being on the outside. There is no feedback microphone inside the earbuds to listen to the sound within the ear canal, which is also why you don’t get the feature to check if the ear tips create a proper seal.
The active noise cancelling performance isn’t good. The first time I put the earbuds on I felt as if the feature simply wasn’t active even though it was. You are always aware of your surroundings as the earbuds do very little about noise in the mid and high frequencies. The ANC performance on offer here falls in the ‘better than nothing’ category and you should definitely be looking at spending more if this feature truly matters to you.
In a similar vein, the transparency mode performance is also not great. The sound is muffled and often it was better to just remove the earbuds to hear your surroundings.
Latency
The Realme Buds T200 have a claimed 45ms latency performance with Game mode enabled. Even with this mode disabled, the latency performance isn’t too bad on these earbuds, as there’s likely not a lot of audio processing happening. Enabling Game mode tightens things further and whatever minor delay was there also becomes negligible.
Connectivity
The Realme Buds T200 had good connectivity performance. There were no connection issues and dropouts during testing. Multi-device pairing also worked flawlessly.
Battery life
Realme promises 4.5 hours of battery life while using LDAC and ANC. In my testing, I got 4 hours and 40 minutes, which is just a bit higher than the claimed figure. This was, however, with LDAC set to the highest 990kbps bitrate.
When set to 660kbps, I got 5 hours and 19 minutes, which is a good bit more with no audible difference in sound. If you just leave it at auto, as most people do, it would default to the lowest bitrate as it usually does and you’d get even longer battery life.
Conclusion
As mentioned at the beginning of the review, the Realme Buds T200 cost just INR 1,999. There are times where this is apparent, whether it’s in the plasticky build quality, the subpar active noise cancellation, and a few basic features being missing. Then there are things like the forced login to use the app, which shouldn’t be a thing at any price point.
But then you listen to them and suddenly the price doesn’t make sense. Realme’s tuning here is so outrageously good that I have half a mind to revisit some older reviews and start docking points for sounding so much worse despite being so much more expensive than the T200. For an audiophile on a budget, it does not get any better than this.
So I want you to get your priorities in order. If you want good ANC above anything else, then you should look elsewhere. But if you want good audio quality while spending as little as possible, then you just found your next purchase.
