The mid-range TWS segment has become incredibly crowded over the last few years. Almost every pair of earbuds around ₹5,000 to ₹7,000 now promises flagship-level ANC, high-resolution audio, gaming modes, long battery life, and feature-heavy companion apps.
The realme Buds Air8 Pro build on the Buds Air8 foundation with a noticeably more refined approach. realme has improved the overall usability, cleaned up parts of the design, added swipe controls, and polished several smaller details that improve the day-to-day experience.
After spending time using them for music, calls, commuting, workouts, gaming, and switching between multiple devices throughout the day, here’s what I think of the realme Buds Air8 Pro.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Price & Availability
The realme Buds Air8 Pro are priced at ₹6,999 in India and come in two color options: Master Black and Master White. It is available on Flipkart, realme Store, other e-commerce platforms, and offline stores.
Pros
- More refined design than Buds Air8
- Swipe controls for volume
- Triple device connection
- Strong microphone quality
- Very good ANC performance
- Comfortable fit for long listening sessions
- Stable Bluetooth 6.1 connectivity
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- realme Link app still forces sign-in
- Ads inside the app hurt the overall experience
- Default sound tuning could be better
- No LDAC support
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Sound
The realme Buds Air8 Pro use an 11 mm + 6 mm dual-driver setup consisting of a dynamic bass driver and a micro-planar tweeter.
Out of the box, the earbuds sound decent enough for casual listeners, but they don’t immediately stand out the way something like the OPPO Enco Air5 Pro does. The default profile (Clear Bass) sounds bassy and the mid-bass particularly has a lot of emphasis.
Tip: Make sure to turn off “volume enhancer” in the realme Link app before adjusting any frequencies.
The app also includes three other presets: Clear Vocals, Natural Balance, and Bass Boost. If you don’t like any of the presets, you can create and save your own custom preset using the 6-band equalizer available in the realme Link app. You can also try playing with the Dynamic Audio settings to adjust the frequencies.
The earbuds support LHDC 5.0, AAC, and SBC codecs, though there is no support for LDAC here. Switching to LHDC 5.0 improves the overall clarity quite a bit, and enabling EQ adjustments can help tighten the bass response while bringing vocals slightly forward.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Design and Fit
The design is one of the biggest improvements over the regular Buds Air8. The charging case still follows that makeup-box style opening mechanism, so visually the overall shape remains familiar, but realme has refined the actual usability significantly.
On the Buds Air8, opening the case with one hand often became annoying because the groove area was too small and harder to grip properly.
This time, realme enlarged the entire opening section where your finger rests while opening the case. This helps open the case much more naturally with one hand.
realme also moved the LED indicator inside the case this time. It now sits towards the far left side internally instead of the center. Personally, centered placement would have looked better, though functionally it works perfectly fine.
The top lid now carries a glossy finish, and the earbuds themselves also feature glossy accents around the stems, though the overall appearance feels cleaner and more premium now. And yes, it still retains the pairing button, which sits inside the case.
Each pair of realme Buds Air8 Pro comes with designer Naoto Fukasawa’s signature engraved inside the case. He is also the person behind the overall design of the TWS.
In terms of comfort, the earbuds weigh around 4.8 grams each and remain comfortable during long listening sessions, workouts, commuting, and outdoor usage. The fit stays secure enough that I rarely needed to adjust them while walking or exercising.
realme includes IP55 dust and water resistance here, though the rating only applies to the earbuds themselves and not the charging case. The charging case itself measures 60 x 48 x 24.2 mm and weighs 53 grams.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: App and Features
The Buds Air8 Pro continue relying heavily on the realme Link app for customization and controls, and unfortunately, this still remains one of the weaker parts of the overall experience.
The app forces users to sign in before accessing core features, which immediately adds friction during setup. Whether you want to enable LHDC, switch ANC modes, customize touch gestures, adjust EQ settings, or activate Game Mode, the app becomes mandatory almost immediately.
realme Link also still includes ads, which honestly hurts the overall software experience quite a bit. Seeing ads while changing audio settings simply makes the app feel less polished than several competitors around this price range.
However, once you move past those frustrations, though, the actual feature set is really good.
One of the biggest additions this time is swipe controls for volume adjustment. You swipe up on any of the earbuds to increase or decrease the volume level. These work extremely well and immediately improve convenience.
The earbuds support double tap, triple tap, long press gestures, and swipe controls, all of which can be customized for playback controls, ANC switching, voice assistant access, and other functions.
Triple device connection is another standout feature here. Being connected to three devices simultaneously massively improves day-to-day convenience. This is one of the only earbuds on the market supporting this feature.
The earbuds also support wear detection for automatic play and pause functionality, personalized pairing popups on supported realme devices, Google Fast Pair support, Golden Sound, Spatial Audio, and voice assistant integration called Ask AI.
MindFlow Mode lets you play different kinds of background sounds to help you relax. Game Mode supports latency as low as 45 ms, and while the overall gaming performance is decent, I’d still suggest using wired earphones for a better experience.
The realme Buds Air8 Pro also come with AI Translate. Face-to-face Translation lets you translate a conversation on your phone and hear the translated audio directly through the earbuds. More useful, though, is Live Translation, which can translate a speaker in real time while you’re in a meeting or even watching a YouTube video.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Microphones and Calling
Call quality on the Buds Air8 Pro is quite solid for the segment. Each earbud uses a triple-microphone setup along with a dedicated VPU (Voice Processing Unit) and bone conduction tech for better voice pickup. realme claims up to 90 dB noise reduction during calls.
I found the audio quality to be quite good, and calls stay clear and fairly natural during both indoor and outdoor calls. Of course, in extremely noisy environments, the call quality still needs improvement.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Connectivity
The Buds Air8 Pro support Bluetooth 6.1, and overall connection stability was reliable for me throughout testing. Pairing is quick, reconnection happens almost instantly after opening the case, and I didn’t face any major random disconnections during usage.
The earbuds also support A2DP, AVRCP, and HFP transmission protocols along with AAC, SBC, and LHDC 5.0 codecs. Unfortunately, there’s no support for LDAC. Overall connectivity performance is still solid for the category.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Noise Cancellation
ANC is one of the strongest parts of the Buds Air8 Pro. realme claims up to 55 dB Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation, and the earbuds reduce lower-frequency sounds like AC hum, traffic, fan noise, and engine rumble very effectively.
It cannot completely block every sound though. You can still hear certain voices and some fan noise in quieter environments. The earbuds stay comfortable during longer listening sessions without creating noticeable ear pressure.
The adaptive ANC system automatically adjusts based on your surroundings, but you can adjust it manually as well by choosing between Max, Moderate, and Mild ANC modes.
Transparency mode supports enhanced voice pickup, and there’s also AI smart wind noise reduction that detects wind and blocks any wind noise. It cuts surrounding noise effectively, though voices can sound slightly processed and not fully natural at times.
realme Buds Air8 Pro Review: Battery and Charging
Battery life on the Buds Air8 Pro is quite solid for daily usage. The earbuds pack 62 mAh batteries individually, while the charging case includes a larger 590 mAh cell. realme claims up to 12 hours of playback on the earbuds alone in normal mode and up to 50 hours combined with the charging case.
With ANC, gaming, calls, music streaming, and multiple device switching in the mix, the battery easily lasts several days without frequent charging.
Fast charging support is also included. realme claims a quick 10-minute charge can provide up to 11 hours of playback combined with the charging case, which comes in handy during travel or busy workdays.
Charging the earbuds and case together takes roughly two hours, while charging the earbuds inside the case takes around one hour. The case uses a USB Type-C port. Overall, battery life is another strong part of the package.
Review Verdict: Should You Buy the realme Buds Air8 Pro?
The realme Buds Air8 Pro improve several of the smaller frustrations from the regular Buds Air8 while keeping the feature-heavy experience the lineup is known for. The refined case design, swipe controls, triple device connection, strong microphone quality, stable connectivity, and very good ANC make the overall experience feel far more polished this time.
The sound quality also becomes much better once you enable LHDC and tweak the EQ manually. The realme Link app still gets annoying though because of the forced sign-in requirement and ads.
At the same time, the Buds Air8 Pro do not create a massive gap over options like the OPPO Enco Air5 Pro at around ₹5,000, the OnePlus Nord Buds 4 Pro at around ₹4,000, or even realme’s own T500 Pro for ₹2,800 that already deliver a very strong overall experience for less money.
Still, if features like triple device connectivity, enhanced voice transparency mode, and strong ANC matter to you, the Buds Air8 Pro make a strong case for themselves, especially when available around ₹6,700 during sales and offers.
Smartprix ⭐ Rating: 8.9/10
- Sound: 8.7/10
- Design and Fit: 9/10
- Apps and Features: 9/10
- Microphones: 8/10
- Connectivity: 9/10
- Noise Cancellation: 9/10
- Battery and Charging: 9/10
First reviewed in May 2026.
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