Digit Zero1 Awards and Digit Best Buy Awards 2022: Budget TWS Earphones (under ₹5K)

The world of TWS earphones has seen exponential growth in the last couple of years. Working and studying from home has become a norm for many in India. This has led to an increase in the number of people looking to buy TWS earbuds. The brands also have taken notice of the change and are making earbuds that are packed with features and offer great performance. Special attention has been paid to the budget segment, which generally caps off at the ₹5,000 mark. You no longer need to break the bank to get features like ANC, great mics for calling, water and dust resistance, and long-lasting batteries that also charge quickly. If you look in the right place at the right time, you can find just the right pair of TWS earphones for yourself. While these earbuds might not appeal to purists and audiophiles, in day-to-day use, they work just fine. If you are worried about the after-sales services of these devices, then you can also stay assured about that as well. Good-name brands, such as realme, Oppo, Blaupunkt, and Redmi, amongst others, are competing to provide the best usage and after-sales experience to consumers. This means that you not only get a great product that works well, but you also get quick and easy resolution of issues that might pop up during your time using your budget TWS earphones. So, we went ahead and found out which TWS earbuds you should go for if you are looking for great performance under ₹5,000 and the one that you should pick up if you are looking for the best value for your money.

All with their own strengths and weaknesses, we put these distinct devices to test and were left with one standing tall as the Digit Zero1 winner. The winner beat the other competitors in terms of pure performance. This year, we also awarded a Digit Best Buy Award for the product in this category that offered the best value proposition.

Here are the winners of Digit Zero1 and Best Buy Awards in the best budget true wireless earphones (under ₹5,000) category.

Digit Zero1 Award 2022 Winner: Realme Buds Air 3 [Buy Here]

The Realme Buds Air 3 are the best-performing earbuds under ₹5,000. They bring a great sound signature to the table, the kind that will get you through a whole day of pleasant music, listening, video watching, and calling. Realme Buds Air 3 sport 10mm LCP dynamic drivers and have a V-shaped sound signature. This means that they sound great when you are listening to the most popular genres of music. Their predecessors, the Realme Buds Air 2, had a different sound signature than these buds, where the mids and highs were subdued compared to the Buds Air 3. This change across generations means that the audio of the Buds Air 3 has the much-needed detail and clarity added to it, especially when it comes to vocals and mid-range instruments. As for the bass, it is pretty refined and punchy, straying away from the muddy and bloated-sounding signature that the buds in this price range tend to have. The Active Noise Cancellation was also a place where we were pleasantly surprised. Realme’s R3 chip did a great job of handling ambient noise and sounded like the humming of the AC. To add to it all, the Realme Link app that comes with these earbuds also works well and allows for a decent level of customisation. When taking calls, the microphone, with its AI noise-cancelling technology works well both indoors and outdoors. All of it is powered by a battery that lasted for a total of 21 hours during our testing.  

Runner-up and Digit Best Buy Award 2022 Winner: Oppo Enco Air 2 Pro [Buy Here]

In our testing, the Oppo Enco Air 2 Pro came pretty close to claiming the top spot but lost to the Realme Buds Air 3 by a very small margin. If you look at the numbers, the price difference between these two buds is just ₹500, which might not seem like as big a difference otherwise. However, in this price range, it could be a deal breaker for many. So, considering that, it made sense for the Oppo Enco Air 2 Pro to be crowned the Runner-up in its category and the winner of the Best Buy Award. The places where the Oppo Enco Air 2 Pro lagged were the bass and mids. In our time of testing the earphones, we found the bass response to be reasonable for the price but too overwhelming for anything other than pop music and day-to-day content consumption. Given the bass response was so overwhelming, the mids were also subdued, which made the sound feel slightly muddy and lacking clarity. We are nit-picking here, but for the price, seeing such a performance was something we did not expect. Where these earphones made up for all the lost ground was the highs. They fared much better in the reproduction of those frequencies. This meant that the overwhelming bass was compensated for. The ANC on these earphones was also something that is great for the price but not as great as the Buds Air 3. It does the job well and makes for a great addition to these earphones. As for the microphone performance, the Oppo fared well. The calls that we made for testing the buds showed that the mic did a great job at putting off most of the ambient noise around us. The battery on the earbuds and the case lasted for 25 hours in total. It was a close race to the top step. The Oppo Enco Air 2 almost missed, but the lesser cost of the buds made them the best contender for our Best Buy award and a spot as the Runner-up in the category. The Oppo Enco Air 2, with their case material and extensive feature set, make for a great buy in this price range.

2nd Runner-up: Blaupunkt BTW-09 Moksha [Buy Here]

Blaupunkt’s BTW-09 MOKSHA TWS earphones also put up a great fight in their bid to clinch the top spot on either of our two podiums. However, some of their shortcomings prevented them from overtaking our winners of the Zero1 and Best Buy awards. In terms of their sound signature, the buds made sure that they stood their ground as well as they could. The place where they struggled the most was the bass response. The sound coming out of the buds due to the overemphasised bass meant that the mids and the high, which were arguably better than the other two earphones in this list, were pulled down. The sound signature overall was decent, with the ANC doing a decent job as well. These earbuds had the strongest battery performance of the lot, with the battery on the buds and the case lasting 55 hours in our testing. The mic was also on par with the other two indoors, but as we stepped out, the kinks in its armour showed up.

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Satvik Pandey

Satvik Pandey, is a self-professed Steve Jobs (not Apple) fanboy, a science & tech writer, and a sports addict. At Digit, he works as a Deputy Features Editor, and manages the daily functioning of the magazine. He also reviews audio-products (speakers, headphones, soundbars, etc.), smartwatches, projectors, and everything else that he can get his hands on. A media and communications graduate, Satvik is also an avid shutterbug, and when he's not working or gaming, he can be found fiddling with any camera he can get his hands on and helping produce videos – which means he spends an awful amount of time in our studio. His game of choice is Counter-Strike, and he's still attempting to turn pro. He can talk your ear off about the game, and we'd strongly advise you to steer clear of the topic unless you too are a CS junkie. View Full Profile