Design and Build Quality
The Redmi Buds 5C has a compact and comfy in-ear design. The charging case is square with rounded edges, making it easy to hold, and the sturdy lid has a satisfying click when closed. You can choose from three colors: Symphony Blue, Bass White, and Acoustic Black. A small LED light at the front shows the connection status and a USB Type-C port and pairing button at the bottom.
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The earbuds have a stem design, are lightweight, and fit snugly in the ear. They come with three sizes of ear tips (small, medium, and large), so you can find the best fit. The medium ones stay in place for casual walks, though they may feel a bit loose during workouts.
While the case doesn’t have an IP rating, the earbuds have an IP54 rating, making them resistant to light splashes. Each earbud also has touch controls, allowing you to play, pause, change volume, and more with simple taps.
App and Features
The Redmi Buds 5C has a companion app, the Xiaomi Earbuds app, which you can use on both Android and iOS—a big plus! The app has a simple, user-friendly interface that shows key info right on the home screen, like battery level and noise cancellation settings. You can also customize the touch controls on each earbud, setting different actions for single, double, or triple taps. Options include volume control, play/pause, and more while holding down activates or deactivates noise cancellation.
The app even lets you adjust the equalizer, check for firmware updates, and locate your earbuds if needed. Just note, that you’ll need to sign in or create a Xiaomi account to access these features.
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Feature-wise, the Redmi Buds 5C packs some impressive specs. It has:
- 12.4mm drivers
- Supports hybrid active noise cancellation up to 40 dB
- Work with both SBC and AAC codecs
- Include Google Fast Pair
- Can connect to two devices at once
- Bluetooth 5.3
- Custom EQ modes
- Dual mics with AI noise reduction for clearer calls.
Performance and Battery Life
The Redmi Buds 5C delivers solid performance for its price. The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is effective, offering three modes: Noise Cancellation, Transparency, and Off. Indoors, the ANC does a decent job of cutting down background noise, and it also handles outdoor sounds like traffic reasonably well. The earbuds offer multiple EQ modes—Standard, Enhance Treble, Enhance Bass, Enhance Voice, and Custom—which you can adjust in the Xiaomi Earbuds app. The Enhance Bass mode is particularly enjoyable, providing the richest sound quality, though you can also fine-tune frequencies to your liking with the Custom mode.
Sound-wise, the Redmi Buds 5C are bass-focused, which gives songs like “Big Dawg” by Hanumankind a strong, punchy feel. However, the bass sometimes overshadows mids and highs, so in tracks like “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, the bass can dominate the vocals and instruments. At higher volumes, there may be some distortion and less clear sound separation, which can be noticeable.
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Call Quality and Battery Life
The call quality on the Redmi Buds 5C is impressive, with dual mics and AI-based noise reduction (ENC) that help reduce background noise, though they may not fully block out loud surroundings like busy roads. Voices on both ends come through clearly, which is a big plus.
As for battery life, the Redmi Buds 5C offers good playback time. You can get up to 36 hours total with the charging case and around 7 hours on each earbud. In testing, they provided about 4 hours per earbud with ANC on and close to 6 hours with it off. The charging case added around 30 hours of use, which is great for this price range. The earbuds charge fully in about 50 minutes when using the case, though the case itself takes over two hours to recharge completely.
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