These in-ears are designed to offer high-quality audio, all while being comfortable and rated to resist the elements.
"Hello everyone and welcome to another Gamereact quick look.
We have taken a look at several Bowers & Wilkins in-ears throughout the years, but this one is a little bit different because these are not sort of the big budget premium flagship PI8s that we have been gawping over for a couple of years."
"Well we looked past the really high asking price and just basically came to the conclusion that if you're the best, then you have some freedom, some wiggle room to demand a higher asking price.
In this particular regard though, these are not the PI8s as I said, these are the PI6s and they're meant to be sort of an in-betweener, a cheaper, not cheap necessarily, but cheaper way of getting inside the Bowers & Wilkins ecosystem."
"They have this really nice pastel-y color, but there's no getting around that this is just a plastic shell, and I say cheaper and not cheap because these will cost you the same as Apple's AirPods Pro True, the Sony WF-1000XM5s, and the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro.
So basically what a lot of other manufacturers take top dollar for and is considered their flagship."
"So the question is, do you take this as a cheaper way of getting into an ecosystem which produces pretty magnificent sound, or do you compare them to its immediate peers on the pricing ladder and say, well Bowers & Wilkins is offering too little for the high asking privilege?
Well, that depends on who you are."
"For my money, IP55 certification is fine, 7 to 8 hours of listening time and an additional sort of 18 hours for a full 24 hour listening time in the case is also fine.
There is no Qi wireless charging built into this case, which I think is not fine.
That is being offered by almost all of its immediate peers on that pricing ladder that I just mentioned, and I don't think that's good enough."
"The units themselves are pretty nice, plastic-y as well, but I found this touch control interface as you can see right here to be a little bit finicky.
Now I'm not super happy about touch controls on the side of the unit in general because it means that I'm either actively pressing it deeper into my ear canal when I'm using it, or at the very least, it's a very distracting sound to hear the finger interface with a piece of plastic which is mounted so directly to your skull, to your inner ear."
"So I don't really like that.
I enjoy the stem design that is on AirPods and similarly sort of looking earbuds on the market now.
I think it's much less intrusive and I also found it to just be a little less responsive than I would like."
"There's also no immediate voice assist activation through a key phrase, I'm not going to say those, but if you say, hey, voice assistant name, usually with high-end in-ears, you get an automatic activation.
At the very least, I couldn't find that in the settings in the Bowers & Wilkins app."
"Now sound is where Bowers & Wilkins will deliver.
These 12mm drivers support 24-bit sound, aptX adaptive, and they sound great.
They sound awesome.
Do they sound markedly better than the XM5s, the Buds 3 Pros, the Apple AirPods Pro 2?
I wouldn't say so, but there definitely is a clarity, a depth of sound that Bowers & Wilkins have tuned over the years that make these stand out among that particular pack."
"I would also say that this piece of plastic here is a little bit chunky.
They do rest rather meaningfully in the ear, so it's not like it's uncomfortable, but again, most of the competitors that I've listed are lighter and they just sit better, at least inside my ears."
"For me, this is too expensive for what it is.
Sure, Bowers & Wilkins sound quality is great, but a lot of the other stuff just seemed to be lacking, and for such an expensive product, having no Qi wireless charging, it's not good enough for me."
"Sure, you get multipoint connectivity, you get the larger drivers, you get aptX, you get IP54 certification.
It's not that everything is missing here beyond the sound quality, but there are too few sacrifices to make this slot neatly into their existing lineup, and it's a problem that we've seen with other manufacturers time and time again."