SoundPEATS has been making budget wireless earbuds since 2010. They started as one of many Chinese audio brands nobody talked about, but over the years they built a reputation for packing serious hardware into affordable products. The Air5 is their newest semi in-ear true wireless model, and it costs between $80 and $110 depending on where you pick it up.
Semi in-ear earbuds sit in the outer part of your ear. They don’t go into the ear canal like traditional in-ear models with silicone tips. Think standard Apple AirPods. Some people love this because it feels more natural and there is no plugged-up sensation. Others stay away from it because the fit is never fully secure and sound isolation takes a hit. The Air5 is built for the first group, and what makes it interesting is the hardware SoundPEATS crammed inside. The kind of specs you find here were reserved for $150 to $200 earbuds not that long ago.
We put the Air5 through several weeks of daily use. Office work, phone calls, public transport, light exercise, music at home. Here is what we found.
Key Specifications
The hardware is where SoundPEATS spent the money on this one.
Inside each earbud sits the Qualcomm QCC3091 chipset, part of the S3 audio platform. You find this chip in earbuds that cost twice as much, and it opens the door to features that budget true wireless earbuds almost never offered until recently. The driver is a 13mm unit with a composite diaphragm made from Japanese imported paper pulp, biofiber, and PU material.
Codec support is wide. SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Lossless are all there. The Air5 carries both Hi-Res Audio and Snapdragon Sound certification. Bluetooth runs on version 5.4, and multipoint pairing keeps you connected to two devices at once.
Additional specs: IPX5 water resistance, rated battery life of 6 hours per charge with 30 hours total from the charging case, touch controls on both earbuds, active noise cancellation, transparency mode, game mode, and full support through the PeatsAudio companion app.
Weight per earbud is just 3.8 grams. That is among the lightest you will find in any category of true wireless earbuds.
Check SoundPEATS Air5 on Amazon
Design and Build Quality
The Air5 follows the stem design that has become standard for semi in-ear true wireless earbuds. The shape resembles the Apple AirPods, which is true for most products in this category, but SoundPEATS added some visual details to give it a bit more personality. A polished metal accent runs along each stem, and the SoundPEATS logo sits on a slightly raised section that also works as the touch control zone.
You get four color choices: black, white, beige gold, and a purple that is exclusive to SoundPEATS. The black version uses a combination of matte and glossy plastic across the body. The beige gold model has a shinier finish that looks nice in hand but picks up fingerprints within minutes.
No silicone ear tips come in the box since this is a semi in-ear design. Each earpiece has a smooth plastic shell with a small sound opening that rests against the outer portion of your ear. Build quality is solid for what you pay. Nothing flexes or creaks, and the plastic does not feel cheap to the touch.
The charging case improved compared to older SoundPEATS Air models. The hinge is tighter, the lid opens smoothly, and the magnets keep the earbuds firmly in place. There is a single LED inside the lid that changes from green to red as the case battery drops. Charging happens over USB-C. Wireless charging is not available.
One note on the beige gold and lighter color cases: the glossy surface shows fingerprints and smudges easily. It ends up looking used even when it is brand new.
Comfort and Fit
At 3.8 grams per earbud, the Air5 barely registers when you put them in. You can wear them for hours and forget they are there. Ear fatigue is not a factor. This is one of the real advantages the semi in-ear form has over in-ear earbuds that push silicone tips into the canal.
The other side of that coin is fit security. Without tips anchoring the earbud in your ear canal, the Air5 just rests in the bowl of your outer ear. How well it stays depends on the shape of your ears. During our testing, the fit was fine for desk work, walking around, and light daily activity. When things got more active, like jogging or quick head movements, the earbuds felt like they could slide out at any moment. They never actually fell during our testing period, but the feeling was there.
Every semi in-ear earbud has this same tradeoff to some degree. Models like the Apple AirPods 4, Xiaomi Buds 5, and Oppo Enco Air3 use slightly different shell shapes that grip certain ear types better. If your main use case involves physical activity, this is worth thinking about before buying.
People tend to have strong opinions about the semi in-ear form factor. If silicone tips bother you or you dislike the sealed-in feeling of canal earbuds, the Air5 will feel like a relief. If isolation and a locked fit are what you need, no semi in-ear earbud will give you that.
Sound Quality
This is the section that matters most, and it is where the Air5 makes its strongest case.
The stock tuning is lively and engaging. There is warmth in the low end with a solid thump in the mid-bass region that gives music body without drowning out everything else. The midrange sits slightly forward, putting voices and acoustic instruments clearly in the mix. Treble carries good detail and a bit of brightness, but it turns fatiguing when you push the volume past moderate levels. On Android phones, that threshold kicks in around the halfway point on the volume slider.
The overall sound signature lands in a spot between neutral and a mild V-shape with a warm tilt. Not a bass monster, not a clinical studio monitor. It just sounds fun and musical, which is what most people shopping in this price bracket want to hear.
What actually surprised us is how dynamic and spacious the Air5 sounds compared to other semi in-ear earbuds. This form factor usually produces a thin, shallow sound that cannot keep up with the punch and presence of in-ear models. The Air5 narrows that gap more than any previous SoundPEATS semi in-ear product. Bass notes carry real weight, vocals fill out instead of sounding hollow, and the soundstage has enough width that individual instruments don’t pile on top of each other.
There is one significant problem with the PeatsAudio app that you should know about before you start tweaking anything. Simply opening the equalizer page in the app changes the default sound profile of the earbuds. You do not need to move a slider or pick a preset. Just visiting that page is enough. Once that happens, the only way to restore the factory tuning is a full reset of the earbuds. If you enjoy the stock sound, which we think most people will, leave the EQ section alone until you have made a deliberate decision to change things.
For Android users, the aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless codec support is a real selling point. Playing music from Tidal, Apple Music lossless, or local FLAC files through aptX Lossless results in a clear improvement in resolution and fine detail compared to standard AAC or SBC. iPhone users are stuck on AAC, which still sounds decent but does not use the full capability of what the hardware can deliver.
Active Noise Cancellation
Putting active noise cancellation on a semi in-ear earbud is always going to be a compromise. Physics gets in the way. Without a proper seal inside the ear canal, there is a limit to how much noise the ANC system can actually cancel.
SoundPEATS includes ANC on the Air5, and it does function. What it manages to do: soften mid-frequency background sounds like people chatting, keyboard clicks, and general office noise. Distant traffic and light ambient sounds get a mild reduction too. What it cannot do: low-frequency rumble from air conditioning, bus engines, or refrigerators passes through with barely any change. In a truly noisy environment, the gap between ANC on and ANC off is small enough that you might not notice it at all.
This is not a SoundPEATS problem. It is a semi in-ear problem. Every earbud in this form factor that advertises ANC runs into the same wall. The Xiaomi Buds 5, QCY AilyBuds Pro, and previous SoundPEATS Air models all share this limitation. If cancelling outside noise is the main reason you are shopping for earbuds, in-ear models with silicone tips and a sealed fit will always do a better job.
Transparency mode turned out to be more useful in everyday life than the ANC. It lets external sound through clearly enough to hold a conversation or catch an announcement without taking the earbuds out. Switching between listening modes takes a 1.5 second press on either earbud.
Battery Life
SoundPEATS lists 6 hours of playback per charge and 30 hours total with the case. Both numbers are possible, but the conditions have to be right.
With ANC off and the AAC codec, we got close to the 6 hour mark on a single charge. Turn on ANC and let the aptX codec activate, which happens automatically on compatible Android devices, and that number falls to somewhere around 3.5 to 4.5 hours. For a pair of wireless earbuds in 2025, that is a below-average result.
The charging case stores enough power for three to four complete refills. A full case charge from empty takes roughly two hours over USB-C. There is no fast charge option for the earbuds, and no wireless charging option for the case.
If battery endurance matters to you, the practical move is to keep ANC off and use AAC. The ANC is not strong enough on this form factor to be a significant loss, and you gain a noticeable amount of extra listening time.
Touch Controls
The Air5 handles input through a touch-sensitive zone on each stem. The factory mapping: single tap left for volume down, single tap right for volume up, double tap either side for play and pause, triple tap for voice assistant, long press left to cycle through ANC modes, long press right to skip forward.
Response is reliable and the slightly raised logo area on the stem makes it easy to find the right spot by touch. The issue that keeps coming up: adjusting the earbuds when they shift in your ear almost always triggers an unintended command. A song pauses, or the volume jumps. It happens more often than it should, especially during any kind of movement.
Most controls can be remapped through the PeatsAudio app if the default layout does not suit how you use the earbuds.
Connectivity and Multipoint
Bluetooth 5.4 delivers a stable, reliable connection. During our testing, the Air5 maintained a clean signal at more than 10 meters from the source device. No dropouts, no stuttering during regular use.
Multipoint pairing lets you stay connected to two devices at the same time. Pause on your laptop, start playback on your phone, and audio switches over. Incoming calls interrupt whatever is playing and route through the earbuds automatically. For anyone who bounces between a phone and a computer during the day, this feature alone makes daily life easier.
Google Fast Pair on Android gives you a quick popup for first-time pairing when you open the case near your phone.
One feature that is not here: in-ear detection. There is no sensor to notice when you take an earbud out, so music keeps playing. You have to pause manually every time.
PeatsAudio Companion App
The app covers everything. Main screen gives you battery status, ANC mode selection, and game mode toggle. The audio section has a 10-band graphic equalizer, several presets including Bass Boost, Rock, Pop, Classical, and Electronic, plus an Adaptive EQ feature that tests your hearing at different frequencies and creates a custom profile.
Beyond sound, the app includes Find Earbuds with a last-known-location map and the option to trigger a loud alert from each earbud. There is also an eartip fit test, firmware update capability, and full control customization for the touch zones.
The app runs faster and crashes less than older versions. It can still occasionally lose connection to the earbuds and need a restart, but that does not happen frequently.
One more time on the EQ bug: opening the equalizer page permanently alters the stock sound profile. There is no undo button. Factory reset is the only fix.
Call Quality
Voice calls are a strong point for the Air5. The CVC 8.0 noise reduction for calls does its job well.
In quiet indoor settings, your voice comes through clean and natural on the other end. None of the thin, compressed quality that is common with budget earbuds. Steady background noise like air conditioning and distant traffic gets filtered out effectively.
Outdoors is a tougher test. Wind noise reaches the caller, and they can tell when you are walking. Your voice remains clear enough to understand, but the environment bleeds through more. This is standard for earbuds at this price.
For work, the Air5 handles Zoom and Teams calls without complaints from the other side. It does not replace a proper headset, but for everyday meetings and phone calls, it gets the job done.
Game Mode
Game mode drops the audio latency for tighter sync between what you see and what you hear. For streaming video on YouTube, Netflix, and similar platforms, lip sync feels accurate with this mode turned on.
Casual mobile games and single-player titles play well with it too. For competitive multiplayer where every millisecond counts, there is still a small delay that serious gamers will notice. But for Bluetooth audio at this price point, the performance is more than acceptable.
SoundPEATS Air5 vs Apple AirPods 4
The design similarity makes this comparison impossible to skip, even though the price gap is wide. The Air5 runs about half the cost of an AirPods 4 with ANC.
On audio quality, the Air5 holds its ground. The tuning is better balanced across the frequency range, midrange detail is stronger, and the soundstage has more width. The AirPods 4 pushes lower frequencies harder, which can sometimes bury vocals and make the overall sound feel less open. Android users get an additional win through aptX Lossless, a codec the AirPods cannot touch.
The AirPods 4 takes the lead on noise cancellation by a wide margin, battery life, fit security for most ear shapes, call quality in windy conditions, and Apple ecosystem features like Spatial Audio, automatic device switching, and Find My. If you live inside the Apple world, the AirPods 4 is worth the extra money just for how tightly everything connects. If you are on Android and sound quality matters more to you than noise cancellation, the Air5 is a harder to ignore at its price.
Who Should Buy the SoundPEATS Air5?
The Air5 is built for people who already know they want a semi in-ear earbud. If that describes you and you use an Android phone, this is one of the most complete packages you can get for under $100. The QCC3091 chipset, aptX Lossless support, Snapdragon Sound certification, and a tuning that actually sounds good for this form factor add up to something that is hard to match at the price.
Daily commuting, desk work, phone calls, and relaxed listening at home are all great use cases. Intense workouts are not, because of the fit. Heavy noise environments are not, because the ANC cannot keep up.
iPhone users can still enjoy the Air5, but without the high-res codec support, the main advantage of this particular hardware setup goes unused. If you are on iOS and want semi in-ear earbuds, the AirPods 4 is probably the smarter call even though it costs more.
Pros and Cons
What works well:
- Best sound quality SoundPEATS has achieved in a semi in-ear earbud
- 3.8 grams per earbud makes them nearly weightless, comfortable for all-day use
- Full codec lineup with aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, and Snapdragon Sound
- Touch controls are precise and customizable through the app
- Clean, natural voice quality on calls with CVC 8.0
- Reliable multipoint pairing for dual-device use
- Well-built companion app with 10-band EQ and practical features
What needs improvement:
- ANC barely makes a difference because of the semi in-ear design
- Battery drops to 3.5 to 4.5 hours when ANC and aptX are both active
- No in-ear detection means no auto-pause when you remove an earbud
- EQ bug in the app permanently changes the factory sound profile
- Fit security varies by ear shape and can feel unstable
- No wireless charging on the case
Final Verdict
The Air5 does what it is supposed to do and does it well. Sound quality took a real step forward for SoundPEATS in the semi in-ear category. The Qualcomm chipset brings features that did not exist at this price two years ago. The overall package is put together well for what it costs.
ANC and battery life with aptX enabled are the weak spots, but both are tied to the nature of the semi in-ear form factor rather than bad engineering. If you accept that this type of earbud will never seal out noise like an in-ear model, and if you plan to keep ANC off most of the time, the Air5 gives you solid performance for the money.
For Android users looking for comfortable semi in-ear earbuds with good sound and proper codec support under $100, the SoundPEATS Air5 is one of the simplest recommendations in its class right now.
