The Pixel Buds Google would like for you to forget and most likely have

 

I received my Pixel Buds A this week and have been enjoying much more than I thought I would. More on my experience in a future blog post. Having the new Buds A made me want to revisit the OG Pixel Buds from 2017. For what it's worth the OG buds was an underrated and a solid product for me. 

There were some design cues borrowed from the OG buds that are alive and well with the 2020 and 2021 Pixel Buds and Buds A. The outer circular design of the earbuds is genius along with the swipe gestures for volume and taps for play and pause. The OG buds also featured the fast pair capability that it later improved and enhanced. Then there was the headlining translation feature that I never used but it was there.

It wasn’t all good though. The case was somewhat of a nightmare. Wrapping the cord around the inner part of the case was not ideal and proved not to be reliable. There was also the issue of having to push down the buds into the case to make sure the leads on the case and the buds touched. So many times I found my Pixel to be connected to the earbuds when they were in the case.

Through all that the OG buds were my earbuds of choice for a couple of years and only replaced them in 2020 with the 2nd gen Pixel Buds. They were my earbuds of choice because of the solid connectivity, sound quality and found them to work best with my Pixel devices. The OG buds were also comfortable to wear and did not go into the ear. I prefer that design, however, sound quality does suffer a bit.

I would not recommend anyone go out and purchase the OG Pixel Buds but if you already have them (like me) I can see them being a nice back-up to your main earbuds of choice. The OG Pixel Buds have served me well and I plan on keeping them around, for sure.