vivo TWS Neo review: The price is halved and the configuration is upgraded, a bucket-shaped true wireless headset rarely seen in the market

In September 2019, vivo launched its first true wireless Bluetooth headset, vivo TWS Earphone. With a price tag of less than RMB 1,000, it has excellent sound quality, which inspired the industry and delighted consumers.

Now, only nine months after the release of vivo TWS Earphone, vivo has continued its efforts and launched a new generation of true wireless Bluetooth headsets, vivo TWS Neo. Although the price of vivo TWS Neo is only half of that of Earphone, from the product point of view, Neo has a significant upgrade in both performance and latency control compared to Earphone, and can be called a conscientious product of "increasing quantity and reducing price".

Continuing the family design language, but going further in details

Overall, the vivo TWS Neo adopts the traditional family design language of large curvature, which ensures a sense of technology while also having some humanistic sentiments. Of course, this does not mean that the vivo TWS Neo has stood still in terms of design.

The vivo TWS Neo places the power button on the front of the body and does not use the same gradient transition as the body. In this way, every time we hold the vivo TWS Neo, our thumb can easily be placed on the power button, which is very convenient whether it is a short press to check the battery level or a long press to re-pair.

In terms of the shape of the body, vivo TWS Neo has made the curvature larger, making the whole machine look like a whole piece of carefully polished pebble, effectively improving the texture of the product.

Similar to the previous generation of products, the cover of vivo TWS Neo also adopts a magnetic design. There will be a very obvious but moderate damping feeling when opening, and it will also be subject to some pulling force when closing. The damping can be adjusted just right in a small space. I believe that vivo's engineers have also incorporated a lot of ingenuity into this.

Open the box and you will see the main body of the vivo TWS Neo - two separate earphones. In terms of appearance, the earphones and the box of vivo TWS Neo complement each other, both adopt a large curvature and dark color design, presenting an orderly beauty.

According to vivo's official introduction, the weight of a single earphone of vivo TWS Neo is only 4.7g, and the design that fits the ear bones makes the two earphones of vivo TWS Neo extremely comfortable to wear. Even if you shake your head hard, it will not fall off, making it very suitable for wearing during outdoor sports.

In terms of details, considering that consumers need to "blindly interact" with the earphones, the vivo TWS Neo earphone handle also adds a new Slide Bar runway cut design. When using it, even if we can't see the earphones, we can accurately control it by touch.

In general, the appearance of vivo TWS Neo not only continues the advantages of the previous generation, but also does not forget to improve the details. The interaction of these two factors makes it have a humanized experience that is consistent with the appearance while having an excellent look and feel.

88ms low latency, no more worrying about not being able to hear footsteps in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds"

The biggest highlight of vivo TWS Neo is that it is equipped with the low-power Bluetooth chip QCC3046 released by Qualcomm earlier this year. In addition to the conventional computing power upgrade and lower power consumption, this chip also supports Bluetooth 5.2 and aptX Adaptive technology.

With the support of the new high-definition audio decoding technology, the amount of information transmitted by vivo TWS Neo is about 1.5 times that of traditional true wireless Bluetooth headsets, thus presenting richer and more three-dimensional sound details.

In addition, vivo TWS Neo is also equipped with the "dual-channel transmission 2.0" technology jointly developed by vivo and Qualcomm, which can ensure that the two earphones have a completely consistent experience, completely avoiding the problem of inconsistent sound between the left and right ears of traditional wireless earphones and heavy reliance on the main earphone.

Considering that games have become the main form of entertainment for modern people, vivo has also added system-level full-link optimization for vivo TWS Neo. Combined with the "dual-channel transmission 2.0" technology, the game delay of vivo TWS Neo is as low as 88ms.

Of course, no matter how excellent the hardware parameters of vivo TWS Neo are and how powerful its technology is, it still needs actual use experience to speak. Therefore, skip the continuous video and music and directly test its delay control and connection quality through real-time games.

We connected the vivo TWS Neo to the vivo X50 Pro phone and ran two popular online games, "PUBG Mobile" and "QQ Speed". In actual testing, the vivo TWS Neo can transmit engine sounds or footsteps in almost real time, and it can run continuously for 30 minutes without any sound frame loss or freeze.

In addition to low latency, another major criterion for consumers to consider when evaluating true wireless headphones is battery life. After all, it is easy to make the body small, but how to ensure battery life at the same time is a big challenge.

The nominal battery life of vivo TWS Neo is 5.5 hours at ACC standard sound quality and up to 4.2 hours at aptX Adaptive high sound quality. If used with a charging box, the overall battery life will be close to 27 hours.

During the test, the earphones played aptX Adaptive high-quality music for 2 hours, and the left and right earphones still reached 50% of the power, which is in line with the official nominal value. Therefore, if we use the vivo TWS Neo with a charging box and use it moderately, we basically only need to charge it once a week.

Of course, even if the vivo TWS Neo suddenly runs out of power, there is no need to panic, because it uses a standard USB Type-C interface, and it is easy to find the corresponding charging cable. You only need to charge for 15 minutes to listen for 2.5 hours. Therefore, starting from long battery life and fast charging, vivo TWS Neo has conquered the power anxiety that is common in true wireless headsets.

True wireless headphones also have good sound quality

Unlike ordinary true wireless Bluetooth headsets that can only "make a sound", vivo, which has an unremitting pursuit of sound, has also simultaneously promoted the sound quality of vivo TWS Neo.

In terms of hardware, the vivo TWS Neo uses a 14.2mm super-large unit, combined with the upper bio-fiber composite diaphragm and the Japanese Daikoku pure copper voice coil, so it can present an extremely wide dynamic range. In terms of software, vivo has also equipped the vivo TWS Neo with DeepX stereo sound effects, which include three sound styles: "super bass", "clear vocals", and "clear treble".

As mentioned earlier, vivo TWS Neo supports aptX Adaptive, and therefore supports the transmission of audio files up to 24-bit 48kHz - which is almost CD-level sound quality.

When playing Tsai Chin's version of "Forgotten Time", which is famous for its "clear vocals", the performance of vivo TWS Neo is unexpectedly good. It not only gives great thrust to the high-pitched part of the female voice, but also separates the vocals and background sounds, creating a very vital listening experience.

When listening to folk or pop music in "Super Bass" mode, vivo TWS Neo can in turn highlight the background sound and push the low-frequency and mid-frequency sounds to the extreme. Therefore, from the actual experience, the sound quality of vivo TWS Neo is basically comparable to that of traditional wired headphones, and even in special scenarios such as high frequencies, vivo TWS Neo has surpassed some traditional wired headphones.

For a long time, due to technological limitations, most true wireless Bluetooth headsets have only focused on portability, making consumers think that true wireless Bluetooth headsets will never have "sound quality". However, vivo TWS Neo tells us: true wireless Bluetooth headsets can not only have beautiful sound quality, but also have sound quality comparable to traditional wired headsets.

Bucket-shaped products bought blindly

As the process of removing headphone holes intensifies, more and more manufacturers are beginning to explore true wireless Bluetooth headsets. However, from the market perspective, most products only focus on "true wireless" without taking into account other dimensions including sound quality and battery life.

vivo obviously knows that these are pain points in actual use, and this product is its precise exploration of the dilemma between "wireless" and performance of true wireless Bluetooth headsets.

Considering that the first product is already good enough, I thought vivo would only make routine upgrades to the second product. Unexpectedly, the appearance of vivo TWS Neo is shocking. On the one hand, the price is cut in half, and on the other hand, it focuses on sound quality while simultaneously building up performance, latency, reliability and other dimensions to form a comprehensive and balanced bucket-type product situation. It can be said to be a true wireless headset product that you can "buy with your eyes closed" at the moment.

Looking at the entire industry, with the advantages of both low price and high performance, vivo TWS Neo will inevitably receive positive praise and pursuit from the market. At the same time, because of its own advantages, it will also promote the orderly development of the entire true wireless Bluetooth headset industry to a higher dimension.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.