Price & Availability
Design & Build Quality
Coming in a compact charging-case with matt-grey livery, the Vervebuds 200 are a bit lacking in terms of style when compared to the Redmi Airdots or Tronsmart Spunky Pro, although they definitely have a better name than the latter.
The main chambers have large, plastic clickable buttons on-top emblazoned with the Motorola logo surrounded by a circle of little dots. It’s not the most attractive look we’ve come across. This theme continues with grey silicone bumpers that help make the buds more comfortable when in your ears. Motorola includes three different sizes of these in the box so you can choose which one fits you the best and there’s also three sizes of bud covers for the same purpose. The manual suggests twisting the buds gently to get them seated in your ears and while this works, they do seem to reach down the canal slightly further than some others we’ve tested. This can be uncomfortable at first, but the lightness of the Vervebuds mean you soon get used to the feeling. The buttons allow control over playback, answering phone calls, activating the voice assistant on your phone, but not volume, so you’ll still need your main device nearby if you want to make any level adjustments.
An IPX5 waterproof rating means you’ll be safe to wear them while running in the rain, and the included neck-strap should ensure that you won’t lose one if it pops out while you’re going for that personal best. It’s an unusual inclusion.
Sound Quality & Performance
While the looks might be nothing to write home about, the audio is surprisingly good. Tracks are clear, bright and have enough bass to stop things sounding too tinny. Spoken word content is particularly enjoyable, but the Vervebuds 200 acquit themselves well with pretty much all content. Video syncing is excellent, with no noticeable delay when streaming content from Netflix, YouTube or other services. This is a bonus as it means you can catch up on your favourite shows or movies while travelling, all without developing a twitch from lip-sync aberrations. Connecting via Bluetooth, the buds were reasonably consistent on automatically connecting when taking them out of the case. There were a few times when we had to trigger this manually on our phone or tablet though, with occasions where they didn’t show up on the available device list at all. Putting them back in the charging case and then removing them again seemed to kick start things.
The controls worked consistently, although there a few combinations of clicks to remember and it can be hard to get the timing right for the triple clicks at times. If you stick to one click for play/pause/answer phone and two clicks for skipping forward on tracks, then things should be dandy. Call quality was a let-down, as the recipient reported that audio was distorted, crackly, and dropped out regularly. In a pinch you could take a call, but we wouldn’t advise using these for anything more than that. Battery life is par for the course, with the buds lasting for just shy of four hours on a single charge. The case can replenish them two to three times, but you’ll need to wait the best part of three hours for the buds to get back to 100 percent.
Verdict
First impressions don’t flatter the Vervebuds 200 as the plasticky and boring aesthetic fail to impress. This changes when audio is played and the results are very pleasing for most music and spoken word content, plus the video-syncing is excellent. Call quality is frankly awful and there’s no volume controls on the buttons, but if you want pair of true wireless earbuds for sport or general use, and don’t mind how they look, then the Vervebuds are certainly worth investigating. Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews for Macworld and its sister site Tech Advisor.
