vivo Buds Launch in India at $20 With 50-Hour Battery, but Skip Active Noise Cancellation

vivo has introduced the vivo Buds wireless earbuds in India at a price of roughly $20. For that money, the company promises up to 50 hours of playback with the charging case, Bluetooth 6.1, simultaneous connection to two devices, and four microphones for calls. The launch lands alongside Apple’s announcement of the AirPods 5, which start at $129 and are being positioned as an “affordable” entry into active noise cancellation. vivo is asking more than five times less, and on paper the Buds keep pace in several areas. There is, however, a major omission that separates the two products, covered below.

The new vivo Buds and what comes in the box

Battery life: 50 hours versus Apple’s 20

The headline feature of the vivo Buds is battery life. Each earbud carries a 53 mAh cell, which vivo says is enough for 12 hours of music on a single charge. The 525 mAh case extends total listening time to 50 hours, and phone calls are rated at up to seven hours per charge. The original article notes that this matches the endurance figures of the realme Buds Air8 Pro.

All figures here are manufacturer claims from launch materials; independent testing has not yet been published.

For comparison, Apple rates the base $129 AirPods 5 at 4 hours with noise cancellation enabled and 20 hours including the case. The $149 version is rated at 5 and 22 hours respectively. The gap is measured in multiples rather than percentages: on paper, the vivo Buds could go a week without needing a cable. Fast charging is also included, with ten minutes in the case yielding up to four hours of playback. That is not unusual on its own, but it is a feature that budget earbuds often drop.

Bluetooth 6.1, dual-device pairing, and a gaming mode

The vivo Buds are among the first earbuds to ship with Bluetooth 6.1. In practice, the version number alone changes little; the more useful capability is multipoint connectivity, allowing the earbuds to stay connected to two devices at the same time. You could listen to music from a tablet and take an incoming phone call without manually re-pairing.

The charging case of the new vivo Buds

A gaming mode with 42 ms latency is advertised, but with a caveat: it works only with compatible vivo and iQOO smartphones. The same restriction applies to spatial audio and its presets (Theater, Concert Hall, Studio, and Live Concert). On a Samsung, Xiaomi, or Pixel phone these features are unavailable, which is a common approach among manufacturers that reserve their best extras for owners of their own handsets.

Sound: 10 mm drivers and a 10-band equalizer

Audio comes from 10 mm dynamic drivers with a diaphragm made of polyurethane and PEEK plastic, a material chosen for rigidity and reduced distortion. vivo’s DeepX 4.0 processing layer offers Mega Bass, Clear Voice, and Clear High Pitch modes, along with a dedicated audiobook mode. For those who want more control than the presets provide, there is a manual 10-band equalizer.

Calls are handled by four microphones with AI-based voice noise reduction and separate wind protection. How this performs in real life cannot be judged from a press release: no reviews are available yet, and the original article cautions against drawing conclusions about sound quality until they appear. Its author points out that experience with budget models shows specifications and actual sound often differ, citing the Nothing Ear (3a) as a case where the listening impression turned out better than the specs suggested.

What the vivo Buds lack compared with AirPods 5

The main catch is that vivo does not advertise active noise cancellation anywhere. The four microphones are there to clean up your voice during calls, not to suppress subway noise while you listen. The AirPods 5, by contrast, make ANC standard even in the base model for the first time, and Apple claims noise suppression 50% stronger than the AirPods 4 with ANC.

AirPods 5 and their official price

The second difference is ecosystem. Apple offers real-time speech translation, hands-free Siri, and adaptive audio, but these features are fully realized only with an iPhone. vivo’s equivalents are spatial audio, the gaming mode, and the ability to control the phone camera from the earbuds, all of which are limited to vivo and iQOO devices.

vivo TWS 5 Hi-Fi: the step-up option with noise cancellation

For buyers willing to spend more than $20 but reluctant to pay $129, vivo has a more capable model that has been on sale for several months: the vivo TWS 5 Hi-Fi. The original article lists it at roughly 6,500 rubles on AliExpress, placing it well below the AirPods 5 in price.

The feature-rich vivo TWS 5 Hi-Fi earbuds

This is a different class of product. It advertises active noise cancellation of up to 60 dB, 11 mm drivers with a ceramic diaphragm, support for the LDAC and LHDC high-resolution codecs, Bluetooth 5.4, and 48 hours of battery life with the case. According to the original article, its noise cancellation competes with models priced up to $200, and its codec and tuning options exceed those of the AirPods Pro, which support neither LDAC nor a manual equalizer of this depth. The same caveat applies, though: some features, such as LHDC, work only with recent vivo smartphones and will not activate on a Pixel.

The bottom line

If you want everyday earbuds with exceptional battery life for minimal money, the vivo Buds fit the brief, assuming they reach your market; for now, the launch is confirmed only for India. If noise cancellation and sound quality matter, the original article argues that the vivo TWS 5 Hi-Fi is a more compelling option than the $129 AirPods 5, particularly for Android users, for whom many of Apple’s ecosystem features will not work anyway. Until independent reviews arrive, performance claims for both vivo models remain manufacturer promises.