I wanted to recommend Google's Pixel Buds, but I can't — they fall short on too many promises (GOOG, GOOGL)

Google Pixel Buds

When Google unveiled its Pixel Buds in October, they promised to be a futuristic take on wireless headphones.

But in real life, Pixel Buds fall short.

The buds, which cost $159, aren't terrible headphones by any means. They sound good, they look good, and they do most of the things Google promised they would.

But a handful of issues make the buds uncomfortable, annoying, and a little disappointing to use. The buds don't feel like a forward-looking product, but a product that's just barely keeping up with its competitors.

I tried the Pixel Buds for about a week. Here's what I thought:

An uncomfortable — and sometimes downright painful — fit

There are a lot of things I like about Pixel Buds. Unfortunately, the fit isn't one of them.

The buds don't come with varying sizes of rubber tips, so you're stuck with a one-size-fits-all situation. Except the buds don't fit all ears, at least not comfortably.

Trying to jam the Pixel Buds into relatively small ear canals is nothing short of painful. They're simply too big, and they chafed a bit in the process of getting them in.

I will say that once the buds are in your ears, they stay there. The band can be pulled through the buds to form an adjustable loop, which you can use to then sort of anchor them in your ears. This really helped them stay put, and made me feel like Google was at least acknowledging that not every ear is exactly the same size.

I suppose that over time, you'd get used to the fit. And if you have larger ears — as in, you always need the largest rubber tip on earbuds for a snug fit — you'll probably be just fine. But do you really want to spend $160 for headphones that may or may not physically hurt you? I'm not so sure.

Solid sound

I appreciate audio quality and can recognize the difference between $20 headphones and $200 headphones, but I'm not an audiophile. I was testing the Pixel Buds to determine if they'd be great headphones for the majority of people.

In that case, they succeeded.

Like a lot of earbuds, the Pixel Buds aren't great at handling bass. I listen to a lot of hip-hop and R&B, and I didn't get the deep bass I was accustomed to. But it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, since the buds still sound great. Everything sounded clear and crisp, and there wasn't any of the tinniness you'd get with cheaper headphones.

The noise canceling on the Pixel Buds is just OK. They don't claim to be fully noise canceling, which is good because in a lot of situations, they're nowhere close. But I did find that while walking down the street — a busy New York City sidewalk, no less — the buds filtered out a good deal of outside noise. I suspect that if the Pixel Buds fit me better, the noise canceling would be vastly improved.

Clever, useful touch controls — with one glaring issue

What makes the Pixel Buds different from standard wireless earbuds is the touch controls on the side of the right ear bud. You can use this to adjust the volume, bring up Google Assistant, and translate different languages (which I'll get to in a minute).

The touch controls are very cool. Swiping left or right on the ear bud changes the volume, double tapping will announce all your notifications, and pressing and holding will bring up Google Assistant. (Assistant is handy, but not worth getting into. It works the same as ever, and unless you're a hardcore fan of digital assistants, most people won't find themselves using it very much.)

I have one major gripe with the touch controls, though: You can't change, or re-map, those controls. That's fine until you realize there's no way to skip to the next song. It's incredibly frustrating. You feel like you're in the future, bopping along to your music, until a song you hate comes on and you have to dig through your bag to find your phone in order to skip it. A first-world problem, to be sure, but a problem nonetheless.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider