As we know the 3.5mm audio is slowly becoming a thing of past and has been reduced to a distinctive feature that companies tout about. All this paved way for the Truly Wireless Earphones to kick in & are now slowing becoming a norm in the industry.
The TWS market in India has been booming & has seen tremendous growth over the past few months with companies like Realme, Xiaomi Oppo & Vivo launching their Truly Wireless earphones in the Indian market.
So in this article, I will review the Vivo newly launched Vivo TWS Neo which I have been using for some time now and have a detail look at the box contents, build what feature they offer, Sound signature, Call quality & most importantly if these are valued for money or not for the asking price. Let’s dive straight into it.
But before that, here’s an overview:
The Vivo Tws Neo retails at Rs. 5,990 & comes in two colors – Starry Blue & Moonlight White.
Vivo TWS Neo Box Contents:
I managed to get to the buds from Amazon, the Vivo TWS Neo came in the usual amazon delivery package & after removing there you’ll find the white-colored squared box & On the front, there’s the Vivo TWS Neo in “Starry Blue” color which is pretty confusing if you ask me especially when you’ve ordered the Standard White color as I expected it to be of the same color. Anyways to make sure I got the right color ones & had to literally search for it & finally found “Moonlight White” written on the other side of the box.
The package looks pretty good & upon opening the box you get the following contents:
- User manual & Warranty card.
- The charging case with earphones inside it.
- Type-C to Type-A cable for charging.
Vivo TWS Neo Build Quality & Comfort:
Well, the charging case has an Oval shape. The case is pretty small & lightweight at 47.5g, will easily fit into your pockets. Well, on the front, it has a slight curve to open the lid easily, a single LED, and below it is the button for pairing. Lastly, there’s Vivo branding. There’s nothing on the back of the charging case. On the bottom, there’s the USB-Type-C port for charging.
As for the build, The whole case is made of plastic and has a glossy finish to it which I did not like as it makes the case slippery and can easily fall out of your hands if you’re not careful enough. Moreover, due to its glossiness, it is prone to scratches, you’ll need to extra careful especially with the White color. I would have liked the Matt Finish over the glossy finish as it would have looked premium than glossy plastic.
Since its all-plastic, The in-hand feel of the charging is okay not as the premium you’d like it. Although opening the lid of the case is easy to open but the lid itself doesn’t feel sturdy and falls out of his own when you lift the case upside down, a little metal plate would have way better. Furthermore, the lid can get loose over time, so a little metal plate on the back where the lid sits when opened would have much better. Well, nonetheless the sound that the lid makes while the closing is good.
Upon opening the lid, there you’ll find your Vivo TWS Neo earbuds sitting into specially designed grooves. The magnet in the case which holds the buds inside are pretty strong too, the buds won’t fall out when even if lift the case upside down.
The TWS Neo has a half-ear design identical to Apple Airpods though are bit smaller so is their stem. The buds feel good actually & are study. The fit of the buds is pretty good and since I have small ears they fit me pretty well but that might not the case with you and you may find them a little loose since we all have different ear sizes. So just be cautious if you are going to wear them during workout or jogging.
The buds are pretty lightweight too at just 4.5grm so they can be easily worn for hours & won’t even hurt the ears. So you will no problem with binge-watching your favorite web-series or having long music sessions. Though there’s one issue that the slide gesture for volume is big & can easily be triggered while adjusting the fit.
Vivo TWS Neo Connectivity & Features:
As with every other TWS, the pairing processor is pretty simple especially when you have a Vivo phone so to connect you just need to open the lid of the case and you will see a popup for buds just tap on the connect button and there you go it’s now paired with your phone. Now you can see how much battery is there in each bud & the same goes for charging case as well.
For other phones, open the lid of the case & press the button just below the LED for 2 seconds and after pressing it for 2 seconds you will see a white LED light popping that means it’s in pairing mode, now go to your phone’s settings > Bluetooth > pair a new device and there you will find Vivo TWS Neo tap on it to pair it and to see how much battery is left in each bud you will need the download the dedicated app for these earbuds named Vivo Earphones though there’s no way to know how much battery is left other than relying on LED light so if it is orange than it is below 50 %& if Green more than 50%.
Now coming to the features, let’s get the usual things out of the way first. The buds have Wear detection, Bluetooth 5.2, low latency mode, touch controls & are IP54 for water & dust resistance.
The wear detection features flawlessly there’s no delay, as you take out the earphone the music/movie stops & resumes back as you put them back, this works on all major apps i.e. Youtube, Gaana, Netflix, etc but it did not work on Spotify so if you listen on Spotify you’ll probably have to switch to some other music app.
The buds have a standard (10m) range like all the Bluetooth devices, the connection is rock solid and I did not face any issues not even when I was using only one earphone. So you will not face any connection issues. As these are ip54 rated you don’t need to worry about water splashes either.
The touch controls on the TWS neo are pretty simple like double-tap to answer incoming calls, press & hold to 1.5 sec to reject a call, double-tap to hang-up the call & lastly press & hold the touch area for 3 seconds during the call to mute/unmute it.
One feature that makes these buds stand out from the other TWS in this price range is the Swipe up for increase volume & down to decrease it, no other OEM has given this feature yet. The features work flawlessly every time.
As I mentioned above there’s Vivo Earphones app in which you can customize each bud with slide & double-tap functionality eg- double-tap the left earbud to play/pause or next song and slide the right bud up & down to increase or decrease volume & trigger Google assistant by double-tapping it & also see how much battery is left in each earbud.
The low latency mode in the TWS Neo are exclusive to only newer Vivo phones like X50 series, V17 & V19 so if you don’t have these phones you won’t get the low latency mode which Vivo claims reduces the latency to upto 88ms, which is impressive in this price nonetheless.
Find my earphones work only on selected Vivo phones. Also, you cant switch between two devices without forgetting the first.
Vivo TWS Neo Sound Quality & Call Quality:
Before jumping on the Sound Quality, let’s get the specs out of the way. The Vivo TWS Neo has a 14.2-inch moving coil driver & support SBC AAC, aptX Adaptive codecs.
But somehow aptX did not work for me, as soon as I paired them with my phone (OnePlus 6T) it showed AAC, even my phone supports aptX & aptX HD, Well, before you say that it does not support AptX Adaptive so can how you expect it to support.
Yes, it does not support Apdative but it should shift to AptX automatically since that is the codec my phone supports right? But it did not, rather it goes back to AAC, even after re-pairing it & got the same result. Well, it doesn’t end here, I even tried to force shift it via the developer setting of my phone & guess what? it did not work.
It was then I began to research why isn’t shifting to aptX even though it should, Anyway after a bit of research I found out that the Chinese version of the Neo shifts to AptX automatically after pairing (check out the video) but global ver version doesn’t) which means these aren’t optimized for non-Vivo phones. they only support the new Vivo phones mentioned above and there’s no clarity if there will be any firmware update or not. So (these findings are from AAC)
The highs are good so are the mids & lows. Instruments separation is good enough as well. The only downside would be the bass. I mean it’s not like there’s no bass at all its there but you will need to adjust your fit & also crank up the volume to 100% to feel the thumps although I won’t recommend to max out the volume as it can harm your hearing abilities. Furthermore, if you have newer Vivo phones you get three additional sound modes i.e Mega Bass, Clear voice & Clear high pitch.
Well, the earphones get loud enough though you will still hear the outside noise since these are half-in ear they don’t fully block the outside noise this is especially noticeable when you’re out on the road. As for call quality, it is pretty good as well, the Ai noise cancellation works decent, (though will work even better with Vivo phones).
Vivo TWS Neo Battery Backup:
Well, the company claims 4.5 hr of playback time & these buds almost stood upto that mark (lasted me 4hr) that’s good 22.5 hr for charging case & for which I got around 20 hours) so if you are moderate users, can easily last over a day, you can easily charge buds for 2-3 times with the case & the charging case takes around 90 mins to charge, buds take 45 mins.
Vivo TWS Neo Verdict:
Last Words:
So this was my full review regarding the Vivo TWS Neo Earbuds. I guess I was able to make my points clear and give my honest opinions regarding this device. In case you ask me about alternatives: If you want a half-in-ear design you can go OnePlus buds or if you want in-ear buds then go for Oppo W31.
Thank you for reading until the end. If you have any further queries you may drop down a comment below. I will be happy to help. If you like our post do share it with your friends. I will be back soon with more interesting updates. Don’t forget to join our Telegram Channel for getting the latest tech tips and tricks.
A tech enthusiast, a graduate in Bachelors of journalism & mass communication. Gagan loves to write about technology and when he's not writing, he's honing his landscape photography skills.
A deep detailed review and superbly explained that you get clarity…I appreciate your hardwork and honesty.
Thank You
Thank you very much Yash. 🙂