The Soundpeats UU2 Open-Earbuds: Big Sound, Small Price, No Catch?

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While they might not look much aesthetically, the $50 UU2 open-earbuds punch well above their weight class. They’re lightweight, sound great, can handle sweat and rain, and have a battery that won’t quit.

How good can a pair of $50 open-earbuds possibly be? I’m sure that’s the question most people ask when they come across the newly announced Soundpeats UU2 open-earbuds. A few weeks ago, we were contacted to check out the upcoming UU2 open-earbuds ahead of their launch. We agreed and have been using them for gaming, watching content, listening to music, and making calls.

So, what do you get for such a low price? The company beefed up comfort, bass, battery life, and call quality over its previous buds. Essentially, it provides a more complete open-ear experience at an affordable price. We’ve been gushing over Soundpeats ever since our Clip1 open-earbuds review. However, I forewarn you that we will be talking a lot about the UU2 buds and how they compare to the Clip1 buds. Let’s dive into our testing and analysis to see exactly what the $50 offering is.

The UU2s themselves are similar to the Clip1s in both visual and spec-wise. Both open-ear buds are made of TPU or rubbery plastic, use a 0.5 mm nickel-titanium thin alloy wire inside the flexible U that connects the speaker and battery areas, and have an IPX5 coating to combat sweat, splashes, and rain.

Swapping out touch pads for physical buttons is a welcome addition.

However, the UU2s are slightly lighter, with each bud weighing 4.73 g, versus the Clip1’s 5 g. They also sport a more conservative design with an all-black palette, with a blue cover with the Soundpeats branding on the battery portion. The Clip 1s have shiny portions, including the battery portion and the company logo, with a white gold-like finish. Its charging case is also smaller in comparison and swaps out the glossy plastic finish for an oil-resistant, UV-coated matte finish, which offers a more reasonable shape and size. The latest from Soundpeats also swaps out the capacitive touch pads for small physical buttons, which I prefer using for exact controls when wearing.

The UU2s are comfortable enough for long-term wear for hours. Perhaps more so than the Soundpeats Clip1s and the Sony LinkBuds Clips. This is thanks in part to its redesigned, yet still flexible, U-bridge earhooks. Soundpeats armed the UU2s with a closer U-shaped design with smaller buds to better wrap around your ear. And if you’re someone like me with larger-than-average ears, the new design adds more flexibility to wear them without the bottoms of my ears bending if they’re not placed properly—even with glasses on. This is easily a small yet appreciated adjustment.

Both Soundpeats’ buds are armed with a 12 mm titanium-coated dual-magnet driver, LDAC, and Hi-Res Wireless powering the audio behind the UU2s. Both also retain 12 preset or custom EQ settings within the Soundpeats app, along with multi-device support and the unfortunate need to restart the buds when toggling its LDAC feature on or off.

The UU2 buds swap out Dolby Audio for a spatial audio feature; the latter offers sound all around you with head-tracking, as opposed to Dolby’s surround sound or not-quite spatial sound. The new buds also offer smaller speaker cutouts, which leads to less sound leakage and a Bluetooth 6.0 upgrade.

Now for the actual sound of it all: the UU2s. I’ve been listening mostly to Hov’s Reasonable Doubt and diving back into Maxwell’s music catalog. The outcome was surprisingly robust bass, excellent mids, and clear highs. I’ve also been watching X-Men 97 Season 2 and the Batman: The Caped Crusader streaming series. The buds do an excellent job of crisp voices, balanced background music, and bassy explosions—all without having buds sitting inside my ear canal. Easily punching above its weight class and price point here.

While the mic placement, combined with AI, provides better voice quality for calls, these are still open-ear buds, so some noise will still penetrate. While verifying items not available during a BJ’s shopping run, I could be heard much better, but it still required me to speak at higher volumes for a clearer conversation. However, the results were still better than taking calls on the Clip1s.

The sound quality easily punches above its weight class and price tag.

The Clip1s already were equipped with enduring batteries inside, and the UU2s can last a little bit longer. Soundpeats placed a slightly larger 50 mAh cell inside each bud with a 500 mAh battery inside its charging case. The company quotes the upgraded batteries to last up to 10 hours on a single charge and up to 42 hours using its charging case. I’ve been using these buds religiously for just over two weeks, and outside of the initial charge, I haven’t had to plug these in yet.

My testing period involved watching some YouTube content with the previously mentioned content for a few hours a day with the occasional music trip in the evenings. The case is sitting at 26% at the time of writing this, and both buds are at 100%. It’s worth noting that along with its long-lasting battery, it does support fast charging that offers 2 hours of use with a 10-minute charge. However, a 0-100% charge will take some time, as you can expect a full two hours for a full recharge.

So, to answer the initial question, how good can a pair of $50 open-earbuds be? Pretty damn good, based on our two weeks of testing. Not only are they worth it, but they’re somehow better than the more expensive $70 Soundpeats Clip1s, and I would easily recommend these over the comparable $230 Sony LinkBuds Clips.

The Soundpeats UU2s provide a more comfortable all-day fit, multi-device support, stellar sound, and battery life that can last a full workweek on a single charge—all for less than it currently costs to fill up your gas tank. I’m not sure if there’s a better value on the market than this.