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The main reason I am looking at the Realme Buds T500 Pro is because a friend of mine told me that Realme earbuds in game mode have the lowest latency, 45ms! Even lower than the AirPods Pro 3!

But from my testing on both the iPhone 17 Pro and the Nothing Phone 3, even in game mode, the T500 Pro’s latency isn’t as low as the AirPods Pro 3. And the difference is very obvious. Even with game mode, the T500 Pro averaged 333ms of latency on the iPhone 17 Pro, and 500ms on the Nothng Phone (3). 👉🏻 View latency test samples

That being said, as a whole, I have to say, the T500 Pro is much better than I thought. Considering that these are not expensive they’re quite feature rich. Although their Hi-Res codec support is only with phones that support LHDC V5, and those tend to be chinese devices, they support 3-way multipoint pairing which not many products support.

The only ones I’ve tested with multipoint that connect to three different devices at once are the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro series and the latest earbuds from Technics like the AZ100. They’re also quite full-featured with app support on both Android and iOS through the Realme Link app, Spatial audio, customizable controls, and EQ presets with a 5-band EQ.

So they’re very customizable and that’s great, but how do they perform in terms of microphone pickup, noise canceling and sound quality? We’re going to find out, so buckle up!

Microphone Quality

In terms of microphone quality, voice pickup sounds robotic, but its background noise reduction is pretty good. There’s also little to no hint of wind noise through the microphones. This was tested in both quiet and noisy conditions using really loud cafe noise and wind noise from a fan.

👉🏻 Have a listen to the mic quality samples

Active Noise Cancelling

In terms of active noise canceling, these are decent, but even in its Max noise canceling setting, it’s not that powerful because while you’ll get a good degree of canceling of everyday noises like noises from traffic, air conditioning and public transport, as you can see from this frequency sweep, they do not cancel much of the midrange, which means voices and background human chatter will get through.

👉🏻 Have a listen to the ANC quality samples

Transparency Mode

Their transparent mode is very usable. Although it doesn’t have that super clear, transparent feeling like you’re not wearing earbuds, it does a pretty good job of passing through ambient sounds both near and far. I definitely have no problems using it for general awareness and face to face conversations.

Sound Quality

As for their sound quality, I find them to be pretty enjoyable. Even on their default setting labeled ‘Original Sound’, they’re hitting all the right spots with crisp vocals, and punchy, tactile bass response. And this is while avoiding certain pitfalls like sibilance and bloatiness, so out of the box, they’re going to please a lot of people who just want a fun, exciting sound signature.

But if I’m nitpicking as an audiophile, where they aren’t on the level of the best sounding earbuds is in terms of detail retrieval, soundstage airiness and layering, and their track separation can be a little cleaner. That being said, for casual listeners, these have a straight up enjoyable and fun sound signature.

Spatial Audio

Yes, it does have spatial audio, but it sounds terrible. There’s too much diffusion in the center stage, and left and right channels are muddy, like spreading too little peanut butter on too much bread. And if you’re wondering about the Dynamic audio setting, it feels just like a simplified 3-band graphic EQ, just tweaking bass mids and treble and not exactly dynamic range compression.

Conclusion

Nonetheless, I have to say the T500 Pro exceeds my expectations. It’s not the best at everything, but for what it costs, it does feel like pretty good value. It also looks very nice and unique, it’s even got a lanyard! (See below) Just don’t expect super low latency from them in spite of what their marketing says. But if you do need super low latency for gaming, there are other choices like the AirPods Pro 3, and the Razer Hammerhead V3 Hyperspeed, which I reviewed over here.

That one has a purpose built dongle for gaming and voice chat. What annoys me a little about the Realme is that you must create an account to access any of the Realme’s custom settings. Now, I don’t mind giving up my email details if it’s for a feature that needs some sort of tracking across devices, like remembering settings and user data, even seamless device switching like how Samsung does it.

But putting that in front of any settings just feels like data farming by force without getting anything back. That’s not such a big deal for me but some people might be very uncomfortable about that. Otherwise, like I said, these are great budget earbuds for the price. If you want to check its latest price in case they’re on promo.

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