Written by Maurits
Edited on
7 October 2025
·
10:07
Expert review of the Beats Solo3 Wireless
The Beats Solo3 Wireless are Bluetooth headphones with a long 40-hour battery life. Thanks to the Fast Fuel technology, you only have to charge it for 5 minutes to listen to music for 3 hours. That's great. The on-ear design makes the headphones compact, but less comfortable to wear as well. If you like a powerful bass, we recommend the Solo3. If you prefer listening to a more balanced sound, this isn't the best choice for you.
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- Thanks to spatial audio, you can hear the sound all around you instead of in your ears.
- The active noise canceling ensures you can hardly hear your surroundings, so you can lose yourself in your music.
- The 40-hour battery life allows you to enjoy your favorite music for a long time.
- You can only adjust your audio preferences when you connect the headphones to your smartphone or tablet with a USB-C cable.
First impression
The box contains a protective cover, a manual, a 6.3-millimeter adapter, and 3 audio cables. 2 of those cables are universal, so they don't have a remote. One of the universal cables has a regular length of 1.2 meters; the other is suitable for home use with its 5-meter length. The third audio cable has a remote that you can use to switch between songs and answer incoming phone calls. I don't like the fact that the protective cover is so soft. A hard case would have offered much better protection.
Sound
The sound of the Beats headphones is exactly what I expected it to be: it has a very rich bass. Songs from artists such as Snoop Dogg and Jamie xx sound great. The sound is not very balanced because the bass is so exaggerated. Treble fades into the background and sometimes, the dynamics were nowhere to be found. The heavy bass makes small, intimate fragments from a song sound as loud as a bombastic refrain.
Battery life
The Solo3 has a 40-hour battery life. This is quite long compared to other headphones from the same price range. Most models only last 20 hours. The Fast Fuel technology is very useful. You only have to charge the headphones for 5 minutes to use it for 3 full hours. I tested it, and it really works. Is the battery empty, and are you nowhere near a power source? Connect the included audio cable and keep using the headphones wired.
Wearing comfort
While the ear cushions feel really soft, I still feel a lot of pressure on my ears when I'm wearing the Solo3. I do experience this with nearly all on-ear headphones. Still, I can't listen to music for hours on end with these headphones. The advantage of the design is that it looks small and not bulky. Because the headphones use Bluetooth, you don't have to struggle with a cable in your face. If you don't think on-ear models are very comfortable, you should go for Beats Studio Wireless over-ear headphones.
Controls
Click the Beats logo to switch between songs, pause your music, activate Siri, and answer phone calls. If you click above the logo, the volume of your music will turn up. If you click underneath the logo, the music will turn down. I like the fact that there aren't any visible buttons on the ear cup. Instead, they're integrated in the casing. Being right-handed myself, I do think it's inconvenient that the controls are on the left ear cup. The controls on the ear cup work perfectly with both Apple and Android devices. The controls in the audio cable only fully work with Apple. The headphones automatically connect to all of your Apple devices thanks to the W1 chip.
Article by Maurits
Audio Expert.
