vivo Unveils Buds Clip, Its First Ear-Clip True Wireless Earbuds

The earbuds ship in a plain white box printed with a product image, a gold vivo Buds Clip logo and two gold certification marks, one from vivo's Golden Ear Lab and one for Hi-Res certification. The earbuds and paperwork sit in the upper half of the packaging, with a short USB-C to USB-A charging cable in the lower half.

The charging case uses a pebble shape and vivo's "Natural Shimmer Aesthetics" design language, with a fine metal matte finish that reflects soft light. It has an angled opening, and the front carries only the vivo logo and a status indicator light. The back is flat, a design the review says was prepared for a wireless charging version. A USB-C port sits on the bottom and the physical pairing button remains on the side. Inside, the case is glossy and the earbuds stand upright in magnetic slots. The two charging slots are not separated for left and right, and the earbuds themselves are not marked by side, so either one can be picked up and worn directly.

Each earbud combines what vivo describes as a sound ball, a connecting bridge and a balance bean, with a matte bridge joining a glossy sound ball and balance bean. The balance bean is the most distinctive element. Rather than the smooth, uniform surface common to ear-clip designs, vivo added a decorative sheet treated with a celluloid process that shows a mother-of-pearl-like sheen and grain. The pattern and colour distribution differ from unit to unit, and a transparent layer covers the sheet, giving the earbuds more of a jewellery feel than a purely colour-and-texture finish.

Controls are concentrated on the connecting bridge, which is relatively wide and soft so that tapping it does not disturb the ear. In wear, the 5.2-gram weight is comparable with true wireless earbuds in the same price band, and the sound ball and balance bean settle against the antitragus and the back of the ear. The bridge is made of memory titanium alloy, which the review describes as light and soft with decent grip, adequate for commuting though not for vigorous activity. The reviewer said the earbuds produce little sense of a foreign object and remain comfortable over long periods, noting that ear-clip models are used mainly for voice assistance and for staying ready for calls and meetings rather than for music listening, which puts a premium on comfort and battery life.

Battery life is listed at 10 hours for the earbuds alone and 42 hours of music playback with the case. A fast-charge mode provides three hours of playback from a ten-minute charge. The reviewer said that is more than a normal working day and that a short top-up at lunch is usually enough.

On connectivity, the Buds Clip uses Bluetooth 5.4, supports three simultaneous device connections and holds latency to 70ms. When paired with vivo and iQOO devices, users can set custom pop-up windows with their own images and stickers, or generate pop-up artwork through the Xiao V drawing engine. The earbuds also work with vivo's translation feature for English, Japanese, Korean and other mainstream languages. Connected to vivo's Blue Heart Xiao V assistant, they read out key reminders such as flight, train and package notifications without the user taking out a phone.

Audio features include LDAC high-specification Bluetooth coding, Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification, high-resolution audio support, spatial audio and DeepX 5.0. Users can adjust the equalizer and listening mode in the phone settings, choosing between a balanced mode, a vocal enhancement mode and an anti-leak mode. An adaptive volume function senses changes in the surrounding environment, adjusts the volume and compensates mid and high frequencies for clarity in noisy restaurants or on the subway.

The Buds Clip uses a 12mm dynamic driver, which the review describes as relatively large for this class. The voice coil adopts a four-layer, four-exit 4L dual-parallel design, lighter than the conventional four-layer, two-exit layout, which lowers the influence of resonance frequency and improves low-frequency performance while keeping mids and highs balanced. The driver uses a dual-magnet design, and the dome is made from a new PU material and a bio-based interpenetrating network composite aimed at clarity, bass, high-frequency detail and vocal tone.

In listening, the reviewer found the sound clean and fast with prominent effects. With LDAC transmission, detail was solid and rich, and the new driver gave bass enough fullness to push back on the stereotype that fully open designs sound thin and lacking in power. The review also noted that open ear-clip models have a clear advantage in spatial presentation, with positioning easy to follow once spatial audio is enabled, and that the experience differs noticeably from in-ear designs. The reviewer's conclusion is that the Buds Clip is a safe pick for users inside the vivo ecosystem: its low weight and long battery life support all-day wear, and it works with both new and older phones.