I’ve owned the Beats X as long as I’ve owned an iPhone. Actually I’ve owned several pairs because I use them constantly so the battery never lasts me long enough, even though they’ve got a respectable 8 hours (playing audio, shorter on phone calls). They’ve been my go-to and I practically live with them on.
The Beats Flex got released to absolutely zero fanfare after the iPhone 12 announcement, and hardly anyone noticed it seems, but they’re actually worth a bit of a look if you’re after some affordable & respectable buds. Actually I’d go as far as to say they’re THE best choice if you want to spend under £50 and not be left with a substandard pair of earphones.
So what has changed between the outgoing X and the new Flex? As it happens, quite a bit, and yet almost nothing — they certainly stay true to the roots of what the Beats X are and that is a damn good thing.
Price
The original Beats X sold for around £120-£130 in the UK, and over the last few years they’ve slowly slipped down to £60-£90 depending on where you looked. The new Beats Flex rock out of the gate at just £49, a significantly lower entry point and makes them a really affordable set of wireless earphones. I half wondered if Apple mistakenly underpriced these when I saw the price, or perhaps had compromised them to get a lower price, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that it isn’t the case. I’ve yet to see another pair of earphones at the price point that offers such a balance of features and respectable audio.
Look & Feel
The overall look and design has been tweaked in minor ways in most respects. There’s a change from lightning to USB-C (which makes the iPhone 12 launch even more curious retaining that lightning connector). This doesn’t bother me personally as I have a myriad of both types everywhere I go, and the little enclosures on each side which house the battery, charge port, and so on are still there, but the separate in-line volume/control adjustment has been vanished. Instead controls are now integrated into the battery “things” (I wish I knew what we are supposed to call them).
For me that has proven to be a bitter-sweet thing. Adjustment and control is a tad more annoying but is a minor grumble compared to the inferior placement of microphones as if you happen to have a winter coat you will find it sits in the way resulting in them being inferior phone headsets. On that note, there is also a really annoying problem when in a voice call where your own audio comes back too strongly — doing this is normal on any phone or headset, but it’s too much on the Flex and makes calls pretty annoying to take.
The cabling is thinner and it seems clear that these little adjustments are primarily to reduce cost, but there is an improvement to the connection between the bud and the battery thing, which should help them be a little more robust as I have killed a couple pairs on the Beats X where it became detached, and the updated design looks to have addressed that problem.
Audio
Audio has changed too — but only a little. Certainly if you’ve never owned the Beats X and especially if you’ve only had unbelievably poor earphones until now, you’ll be more than happy with the Flex.
If like me though you have owned the Beats X, you’ll notice a few difference. The biggest change is that bass has been given a little more kick, the sound is more pronounced and even gives a little vibration, but still no distortion.
Midranges are slightly different too, and they do have a marginally weaker sound to them particularly if you throw a busy track at them with a lot of activity. Fire a load of EDM at them with many different effects floating at once and they can get a little confused, but I would say they’re still doing a significantly better job than many other earphones and I would take these any day over the AirPods and AirPod Pro nastiness.
Using my go-to test track if you want to make any audio setup struggle, the intensive and pacey Gluetooth by Hudson Mohawke shows the limits of the Beats Flex and there is no doubt that the richer bass response has come at the expense of keeping everything together which the Beats X are just that little bit sharper at. This said, it is unlikely you’re playing tracks like this often, and I’ve seen audio systems costing £15,000 struggle so it shouldn’t be taken as too much of a negative.
Give it something a little less intensive from Shift K3Y and the sound is great. There’s no doubt that these earphones are “best” with EDM. Give them Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash though and they make a perfectly acceptable job, but that bass boost is missing making the sound a tiny bit more hollow. Throw some First Light by Lindsay Stirling at it and they’re fine and rich. A little classical from Beethoven despite the wildly varying tempos volumes and even cranked up there’s no distortion and the sound is entirely pleasant.
What you won’t find is your ear tiring of the sound, the fatigue many earphones provide just doesn’t happen with the Beats Flex any more than it did with the predecessor, everything sounds pleasant enough and sustained listening is no problem whatsoever.
Other than that, it’s the same old Beats X sound and that isn’t a bad thing. For the benefit of the audiophiles, I’m not implying these are the best earphones on the earth, I’m not suggesting they’re the most tonally accurate things ever produced or that there aren’t better. But even more than the X they sound fantastic when you consider they’re small, cheap and bluetooth (aided by the Apple magic whose value shouldn’t be ignored as interference and random drop outs just don’t happen).
Goodbye Earhooks
There are some differences in these things when it comes to features and accessories. The previous incarnation came with some ear hooks. They’re gone now, and honestly I don’t see a problem. I never used them and I don’t know anyone else who did either, the PowerBeats were a better choice if you wanted that kind of bond with your earphones. You do however still get a range of eartips which is essentially the same as before and that’s great news to me as the default ones just don’t sit well in my ears, and I prefer the “double” tip versions which can sit in my ear without falling out as well as allowing me the most satisfying audio stage.
Magnetic Trickery
There’s a new trick when it comes to the earphones being put together with the magnets. Just like the Beats X they snap together, but now they can trigger play/pause to happen when you disconnect or reconnect them respectively. What some won’t have realised from the promotional material Apple pushed out though is that they now have a feature (which you can disable in the bluetooth settings) that means when they’re snapped together, the iPhone routes audio back to the iPhone speaker, and I’m a fan of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had them snapped together, had a call come in, or started to watch a video to find the audio going to the earphones that aren’t in my ears. Great work Apple.
It is worth noting that when snapping or unsnapping, there is a little lag before the iPhone responds — around 1–1.5 seconds after you’ve done it. Perhaps reasonably the audio routing feature is disabled if you’re using Audio Sharing.
Battery Life
Apple claims the battery life is now 12 hours (which they think is All-Day — keep dreaming Apple, my day is considerably longer than that!). Thus far, I’d say that is not an unfair estimate, but you don’t get 12 hours of phone calls, just like with Beats X, the Beats Flex battery life is based on audio playback.
One downgrade from the X to the Flex is the quick charge. The lightning connected X would give you 2 hours of playback with a 5 minute zap of charge, whilst the Flex somehow needs twice as long to give you just 1.5 hours of additional playback, and that sucks a tiny bit when you’re forever giving them a quick boost.
Silly Bits
I have no idea why apple puts a little bit of plastic on you have to remove which just has the address on when you first get them.
You get a Beats sticker — like the Apple sticker in the box. Apple is making this endless fuss about the environment and keeps bunging in stickers with things, for no obvious benefit.
Summary
In the core offering, the natural successor to the Beats X with nothing deal breaking taken away, and no nasty compromise despite the reduced price, but a few changes mean if you’re used to the X switching to the Flex will mean a bit of mental readjustment. The price is very fair for what you get — you’ll be hard pushed to find a better pair of wireless earphones at the price.
