SoundPEATS Mini Pro QCC3040 Bluetooth 5.2 Aptx-Adaptive TWS 35dB ANC

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Model: SoundPEATS Mini Pro
Price: MSRP Approx $60
Website: Amazon UK
Review Reference: RC067

Manufacturer Specification:

• Brand: SoundPEATS
• Model: Mini Pro
• Driver: 10mm Bio-Diamphragm Driver
• Chipset: Qualcomm QCC3040
• Mic: Uses cVc 8.0 noise reduction
• ANC: Yes, up to 35dB
• Codecs: AptX-Adaptive, AptX, SBC
• App Support: Yes (April 22)
• Volume Control: Yes
• Gaming Mode: Yes
• Earbud Weight: 4.7g
• Earbud Dimensions: 18mm height, 23.2mm depth with nozzle
• Gross Case & Buds Weight: 36.4g
• Case Dimensions: 59mm (width) x 43mm (height) x 26mm (depth)
• Case Charge Capacity: 300mAh
• Quick Charge: No
• Wireless Charging: No
• Single Use Playtime: Up to 7 hours (ANC off), 5 hours (ANC on)
• Playtime with Charge Case: Up to 21 hours
• Bluetooth Range: 10m advertised
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 5.2
• Bluetooth Protocols: HFP 1.7/ A2DP 1.3/ AVRCP 1.5
• Water Resistance: IPX5

Includes:

1 x Pair Wireless Earbuds
1 x USB Type-C Charge Case
1 x USB Type-C Charge Cable
1 x User Manual: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
3 x Pairs Eartips



Real Life Experience

Welcome to the @regancipher review of SoundPEATS’ update to the popular Mini, the Mini Pro.

SoundPEATS have ritualized the 'professionalisation' of their standard range, fine-tuning releases to add desired functions and features requested by consumers subsequent to a few months on the market and the availability of better chipsets and other associated components. Having successfully performed this lateral movement with the Sonic, they've repeated the process with the Mini, and it looks like will do the same with the Air3 very soon.

Personally, I quite like this approach, as it brings a richer portfolio to the market that accommodates buyers of varying budgets and requirements. The Mini Pro is no exception, taking the successful predecessor and adding some headline features – 35dB ANC, improved single-use battery life, gaming mode and aptx-adaptive codec support.

Having been released in the US for some time, they are now available in the UK, exclusively via Amazon, and with great reviews almost widespread, I was keen to see if they were worthy of the hype - and they don't disappoint, but there's still room for improvement.

The Unboxing - 8/10

SoundPEATS have finally upscaled their unboxing experience, adopting a gift box-style design which requires the lid to be lifted off (and long nails!), moving away from the inlay around a black box approach which has served them reliably over the past umpteen releases. Rather than adding unnecessary plastic, a carton inlay holds the case, charge cable and tips, and the manual is held inside a sleek SoundPEATS branded envelope. Kudos to SoundPEATS that the box is fully recyclable – which many other manufacturers would do well to follow.

Otherwise, it is a familiar experience, with the front side of the case accented in grey – more akin to their recent H2 release. The key features are, as always, listed on the rear – here it is hybrid ANC and aptX-adaptive support. Specifications are listed on the side. The manual is no different to previous iterations, with instructions listed in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese.

Also enclosed are spare silicone tips - relatively flat and wide, to marry up with the narrow, sloped design of the buds, and a USB-A to USB-C cable.

The Case - 8/10

The case is a nice upgrade to the original, and whilst the pictures don’t suggest it, it is immediately obvious the moment you feel it in the palm of your hand. SoundPEATS have seemingly taken every weakness from the original case and improved it. Now, the case material is supported by an additional protective layer. If you’ve ever handled the Elevoc Clear case, you’ll know what I mean – it feels almost rubberised, and this adds a degree of resistance to scratches – always a minefield with matte finish cases.

Just as was the case with the original, there is an intuitive red-amber-green system denoting remaining charge, this time with a tactile LED. Green denotes 50-100% charge, amber is 10-49% and red is below 10%. When you open the case, the buds will hold a red light – telling you they are charging. Once you take them out, a pulsing white light indicates they are going to connect with a device, whereas an intermittent white/red light denotes ‘pairing’. Once connected, the white light will remain on until the earbud detects sound from the source – i.e., you press play on Spotify. This has been the case with pretty much all recent SoundPEATS releases (bar the Sonic Pro) but given the H1 has the option to turn the LED off in the app, I expect this model to follow suit once supported, appeasing those who use earbuds to sleep.

Interestingly there is no ‘hall switch mode’, whereby connection initiates the moment the charge case is opened. Again, this is a response to feedback where users complained buds were draining battery whilst in the case (often due to using third-party tips, which would mean the case wasn’t sufficiently shut to initiate shutdown and charge. It's actually really helpful, as it allows you to pop the case on the desk open whilst in single-mode.



The case, pictured on the right in all of the following images alongside the original Mini to the left, is marginally larger, but retains the sleek look with an improved feel and experience. The case is charged with USB-C (no wireless charging), and this is coloured blue this time around, in-keeping with the USB 3.0 standard.



Another upgrade is the hinged lid. Rather than flimsily snapping shut, as was the case with the Mini, there is considerable resistance. You can pop them on the the desk with the case open, use a single bud and the other one will continue charging - as I mentioned previously - without hall-switch mode getting in the way. Given the battery constraints, this is a really helpful feature that mitigates the relatively low overall battery life (the case is just 300mAh, a sacrifice SoundPEATS made in order to retain the compact size and portability).



It’s a highly portable case, measuring a fraction larger than the original at 59mm wide, 43mm high and 26mm in depth. Weighing 36g, it remains one of the lightest cases I’ve tested so far. Charging takes around 90 minutes for the case, and similar for the buds. This isn’t especially fast, so take this into consideration.

Ergonomics - 7.5/10

Whilst the cases look very similar, this cannot be said about the buds themselves. Sure, the logo is still on the outside (although now it is a dominant silver colour, as opposed to timid grey) with a similarly-sized touch control area, but the fit is completely re-invented.

One of the best things about the Mini was the fit – they combined the curvature of the Sonic with the lower profile of the H1. However, as time has gone on and earbuds have become more and more popular, there is an increasingly prominent move towards less invasive designs – in other words, a shape that doesn’t feel like you’re getting a 4-hour ear lobotomy. Not easy given a large portion of the dB value of hybrid noise cancellation, from any vendor, is achieved by forming a seal with the ear canal.

SoundPEATS have tried to achieve this by adopting a design which isn’t altogether dissimilar to what Tronsmart tried to achieve with the Apollo Bold and 1More with the Pistonbuds Pro. The buds appear 'double-flanged', with a clear ridge in the middle, and flatter, wider tips filling the immediate area of your ear canal rather than moving deeper inside and giving you that invasive feel.



I understand why SoundPEATS have designed them in this way. Instead of the buds just hanging there, the raised area means it rests against the outer edge of your concha and antitragus. This makes for a comfortable, and surprisingly fairly secure fit, negating the feeling of them just ‘hanging there’ or invading your ear canal, both of which was the case with the Sonic. Unfortunately, they jut out a little, and a small design tweak - well, even an accessory tweak, could have remedied this, but for whatever reason neither SoundPEATS nor 1More opted to go with it.....

I discovered whilst playing around with tips that the gap was perfectly sized to fit the QCY T17 wing tips on! Unfortunately, whilst this increases stability, and would be ideal for users with a shallower, less prominent inferior crus (like me), it means you would have to remove them every time you put them in the case. Perhaps SoundPEATS would consider wing tips for future releases, as it would increase the number of potential use cases and make them even more universally applicable - especially since they are IPX5 water resistant, making them ideal for sports.



SoundPEATS have upped the game when it comes to build quality too. They’ve moved from glued-on standard mesh to metallic, and have bevelled the battery connectors so they aren’t in direct contact to the skin - ideal for those with allergies. Whilst the voice mic sits next to the LED at the bottom, the ambient mic resides at the top, and the build quality is noticeable improved from the original all-round.



The short nozzle but steep gradient, combined with fairly lightweight footprint of 4.7g ensures a stable fit. I tried with two different sets of tips, and both styles fit the ear very comfortably.

ANC – 7/10

Despite having to juggle with improving comfort and the associated impact on the ability to form a deep seal, ANC performs fairly well on the Mini Pro, most notably in the lower range of frequencies. You may have to do some tip-rolling (I settled on the Spinfit CP1025 and Tanchjim T-APB-T300) but when worn correctly, they will block the majority of low rumbling sound, such as traffic and wind noise, both nearby and in the distance really effectively.

Like most earbuds, the Achilles heel is in the mid to high frequencies - they only really nullify higher frequency sounds such as chatter and keyboard taps, which are still quite prominent even with ANC on.

For commuting, you will find stronger ANC buds on the market for sure, but at this price point they fare very well, competing with the likes of the Earfun Free Pro and Omthing Airfree 2. Whilst some stem-based buds do tend to perform better, due in no small part to being able to use 4 ambient mics for wave inversion, it should be remembered the Mini Pro don’t have that luxury due to their button design, and considering they don’t invade the ear canal, it’s a good balance of sound reduction and comfort. If ANC is your only criteria, the Mini will not jump out at you - they are all-rounders, with ANC a nice add-on, rather than their raison-d'être.

Transparency mode, initiated by holding down the MFB for a second, is far less accentuated than some of their previous models, which makes for a more natural experience - there is far less ‘lisp’ to people talking close-by. In stereo mode, you can toggle through ANC on/off and ambient, but unfortunately this is not possible in single mode - not a problem for me, but I have seen this registered as a bug-bear to others.

ANC greatly reduces the battery life – more on that later.

Audio - 8/10 (for the price paid), 7/10 (raw score)

The Mini Pro use the Qualcomm QCC3040 chipset, promoting the use of the aptX-adaptive codec, but they also support aptX, AAC and SBC. On Android, it defaulted immediately to aptX-adaptive, and on iOS, I assume, AAC.

The Mini Pro have a dynamic but warm v-shaped sound that offer a tight, fast, beefy bass response, and lift the mids sufficiently to prevent your music sounding hollow, whilst obviating recess and lower-mid bleed.

With the Spinfit CP1025 tips, I found extreme high frequencies levelled off, but high mids can sound a bit 'echoey' where they’ve tried to circumvent the form factor limitations. This is especially noticeable with 'atmospheric' music styles - 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World' by Tears For Fears being a prime example. The same song, however, sounds very different with the Tanchjim tips, where less space is created between your ear canal and the source, bringing a warmer sound. Either way, detail is impressive for the price point and clarity is crisp and clean.

Soundstage, especially with the Tanchjim, is not especially broad. The likes of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Crazy by Seal, which use panning and orchestral arrangement to great effect, feel reigned in compared with good IEM’s. This is a common problem for buds of this style and design – how to create openness when you have no physical room to do so, without using dual-armature drivers, like is the case with the H1 and H2, which capture the essence of those tracks very well.

Overall, for the price, it’s a good audio performance without hitting the heights of the H series. I’ve found on many occasions that ANC usually impacts quite harshly on audio performance but that isn’t the case here. Regardless, you are sacrificing sound for ANC compared with the H1 and H2, so if audio clarity and detail is your primary concern, stick with the H series. By the same token, sound is miles better than the T2 and T3 - pick your poison!

Call Quality - Indoors - 7/10, Outdoors – 6.5/10

The original Mini had an interesting call performance – using the elevoc AI algorithm, they would either be crystal clear or pretty crackly. They’ve dispensed with that feature on this model, preferring to use the cVc 8.0 native to the Qualcomm chip, and we know exactly what that means – good indoor performance, but patchy for calls outside where you’re exposed to the conditions.

The Mini Pro use a dual-mic array, and as per the comments in the ANC section, this is the de facto with button shaped earbuds, and as such puts them at a disadvantage to some stem-based buds, which can use two of the three mics per bud to balance the audio delivered to the voice mic, but also have the advantage of positioning the voice mic closer to your mouth.

Even so, the Mini Pro perform well indoors, booming your voice through pretty clearly. However, loud nearby chatter will be audible to the recipient of your call, it’s just your voice will be elevated. Increase the ambient sound and it struggles far more, and this is especially the case outdoors, where at times your voice will muddy into the competing frequencies around you.

Again, it is pretty good considering the form factor and other constraints – good enough for most, but don’t choose purely on the basis of call performance.

The Mini Pro feature on my 2022 updated YouTube call quality test:



Connectivity, Controls and other Interactive Features - 7.5/10

The Mini Pro use the reliable Qualcomm QCC3040 chip, and SoundPEATS have consistently worked around some of the constraints that this chipset has posed other vendors, such as KZ with their SKS, which suffered a little with disconnections, optimising its performance. Using Bluetooth 5.2, I was able to walk around 15m in my office before disconnecting. At home it was closer to 10m due to more devices operating at similar frequencies in a denser environment.

Controls are excellent with SoundPEATS – single tap is always volume (left = down, right = up), double tap plays or pauses (or answers a call), triple tap left and you have gaming mode, triple tap right and you have voice assistant, and holding down the left bud toggles ANC. Strangely, you can hold the right bud in order to skip to the next track, but you can’t go backwards, and there are no control mapping options from the app, which doesn’t currently support this model, although I understand it will soon.

The main features here are gaming mode, which offers very low latency (as low as around 70ms with aptX-adaptive), good active noise cancellation, decent battery life and good sound, but there’s no wireless charging and no quick charge, and these are features I would have liked to have seen, and I think that’s reflective of what we come to expect now from our TWS.

App support has been added as of April 2022, which is great news!

Battery Life - 8/10

Battery life on the Mini Pro is a big step up from the original from a single use perspective. With ANC off, I would regularly get over the 7 hours advertised on both IOS and Android. However, with ANC on it’s a different story – if you’re taking a lot of calls, it’s possible to drop as low as 4-4.5 hours. Now this is still pretty good as far as ANC buds go, but make sure you read the print, and use ANC when you need it – it’s easy enough to toggle on and off, so don’t waste battery unnecessarily.

The case only gives 2 additional charges – a constraint of its size – taking you up to 21 hours, which is a little on the low side, especially as there is no quick charge function, but even so, it's enough to get you through the working day, and the single-use charge capacity remains impressive for the price.

Final Comments

As with the Air3 and Sonic Pro, the Mini Pro feel like a complement to the portfolio rather than a replacement. For me, though, they fill a gap which the T2 failed to – a button-shaped TWS, with ANC, decent fit and enough functions to satisfy most users.

Like their predecessor they sound good out of the box, have ANC, IPX5 WR, good battery life and perform well enough on calls. They aren’t outstanding in any area, neither are they especially weak. For less than $60 they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, with the added bonus of being available on Amazon and other UK or US sites without having to go through the hassles of Aliexpress.

Audiophiles should probably stick to the outstanding H series, but if you want good all-rounders with a fun sound and strong performance across the board, the Mini Pro are a welcome addition to the SoundPEATS portfolio and I have no doubt will be a big hit, especially now app support has been added as of April 22.

Price Weighted Score: 85%
Raw Score: 82%
2023 Score: 75%

2023 comments:
The Mini Pro were a decent, if slightly bulky, in ear offering from SoundPEATS when they were released, and adding app support retrospectively was a nice touch. However, since SoundPEATS have now added the Mini Pro HS, which have improved sound, LDAC support, improved call quality and retail at around the same price, there is no need to buy this model any more.

YouTube Link:



SoundPEATS Review Inventory:

SoundPEATS H2
SoundPEATS T3
SoundPEATS Mini
SoundPEATS Air3
SoundPEATS TrueAir2+
SoundPEATS TrueAir 2
SoundPEATS H1
SoundPEATS T2
SoundPEATS Sonic

About SoundPEATS:

SoundPEATS seem to have become an overnight sensation, wiping up a large portion of budget TWS earbud market share with a business model that has served them (and Anker before them) exceptionally well - good distribution channels (via Amazon), good support, a catchy name and product that performs well at a very competitive price point. In reality, they have been around a long time - whilst Shenzhen SoundSOUL IT Co LTD is a different trading name to Ginto E-Commerce, they share the same business address (including room number) as them - you may know their brand name better as Dudios. With Dudios not sounding quite so cool as Soundpeats, maybe the brand transition has been instrumental in their success, but having been around since 2010 and patents in Bluetooth tech stretching back to 2015, they are not the plucky upstarts that some may think - they know their stuff, have a great network of contacts, and now a very solid brand in Europe, and deservedly so.

The thing that sets SoundPEATS apart from other vendors, and makes them my favourite budget earbud vendor, is that they are completely transparent over their components. Whether they use Realtek, Qualcomm or Airoha chips in their buds, they are totally open about it, and as a reviewer this really helps, because whilst I have, and do, dismantle buds to check the way that certain things have been implemented (such as the power management, mems mics, etc) and I really don't like having to do it with every set of earbuds, because they then become unusable.