The Sony INZONE Buds have been out for some time now but we have only just managed to get out hands on them. While they may look like your average Bluetooth earbuds, that’s far from the case.
First, let’s look at the packaging. Like other recently Sony devices, the packaging is entirely made out of paper. You get the earbuds, a short charging cable, and four sets of silicone tips in different sizes.
The INZONE Buds are gaming-centric earbuds that work primarily using a USB dongle that plugs into your PC or PS5. It operates on the 2.4GHz band and has a claimed latency of only 30ms. The dongle can also be plugged into tablets and smartphones with a USB-C port for audio.
The INZONE Buds do technically support Bluetooth but in a limited form. There’s only support for Bluetooth LE and the only codec available is LC3. Even though LC3 was to be the successor to SBC, only a handful of devices support it right now, meaning most people won’t actually be able to use these earbuds with Bluetooth.
The INZONE Buds do support ANC, which isn’t a common-place feature in gaming audio gear. They also feature the same 8.4mm drivers as the WF-1000XM5 with Sony’s 360 Reality Audio feature. Sony claims 11 hours of battery life with ANC when using the USB dongle and 18 hours when using Bluetooth. That last figure is especially incredible for a pair of TWS earbuds but as mentioned before, it only uses Bluetooth LE with LC3 so very few devices can actually use it.
But that’s all for now. We are already working on the full review and it should be live shortly.
