Belkin SoundForm Play review: Middle-of-the-road budget earbuds

The Belkin SoundForm Play wireless earbuds are part of the brand’s extensive budget audio lineup, and they’ll please those who don’t care much about bass-heavy music. They sport a comfortable design and boast long battery life to keep you listening for up to 38 hours. The earbuds cost £27 in the U.K. and for that price, they offer good value for money — but they cost $59 in the U.S. and I’d expect more for that price.

Vocals-heavy and acoustic tracks sound great, but listeners who enjoy bass more than anything else will be left feeling short-changed. It’s also worth noting that the earbuds keep playing music even when put back into the case… until you shut the lid. There’s also no companion app for fine-tuning the EQ, and the earbuds’ touch controls are laggy.

Read my full Belkin SoundForm Play review to find out if these are the best cheap wireless earbuds for you.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A pair of very cheap wireless earbuds
• Who is it for? For those on a tight budget… and who don’t mind making some compromises
• How much does it cost? $59 / £27
• What do we like? The comfortable design, long battery life, great vocals and acoustics, and the low price
• What don’t we like? Bass sounds muddy, the earbuds keep playing in the case, there’s no companion app, and touch controls are finicky

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Specs

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Price & availability

The Belkin SoundForm Play are extremely cheap earbuds, retailing for $59 / £27 at Amazon. In fact, these might be the cheapest earbuds we’ve reviewed at Tom’s Guide (as the U.K. pricing goes at least). You can buy them in one of four colorways: black, blue, pink or white.

These are priced similarly to the JLab Buds Mini ($39), the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 ($59) and the EarFun Air 2 NC ($69). I would say all three of these offer better value for money than the SoundForm Plays as their sound profiles are better balanced when compared to Belkin’s offering, as proven by our testing.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Design & comfort

• Comfortable design
• IPX5-rated
• Earbuds keep playing unless case is closed

For a pair of budget earbuds, the Belkin SoundForm Plays look good, and they’re comfortable too. Each earbud sports an oval design with a combination of matte and glossy finishes. I tested the subtle and minimalist black model.

Two extra pairs of eartips are included in the box, and I used the biggest pair — they made the SoundForm Plays fit snugly in my ears. Each bud weighs 0.17oz, making them lighter than many more premium earbuds like the Sony WF-C710N (0.18oz each) and the Bose QuietComfort (0.29oz each). They’re so light that there were moments I forgot I even had them in.

The SoundForm Plays’ case is very plasticky, which is fine as these earbuds don’t cost upwards of $100. My issue, though, is that the case’s lid keeps closing when it’s angled even slightly downwards. There’s also another glaring issue here: when the earbuds are popped back into the case, they keep playing unless the case is closed, which we’ve also noticed with the Belkin SoundForm Rhythm ($34) and Belkin SoundForm Bolt ($39) earbuds. I haven’t had this issue with other brands’ earbuds.

The buds are IPX5-rated, similar to the EarFun Air 2 NC. This means that they are protected against splashes, light rain and sweat. The OnePlus Nord Buds 2 and the JLab JBuds Mini, on the other hand, are IP55-rated which means they’re protected from dust too.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Connectivity

• Bluetooth 5.2 with SBC support only
• No multipoint connectivity
• No companion app

The Belkin SoundForm Play earbuds utilize Bluetooth 5.2 to connect to a device within a 9.14m / 30ft range. In my testing, the connection remained stable and there were no drops until I was out of that range.

The earbuds support the most standard SBC codec only, so you’ll need to consider either the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 or the JLab JBuds Mini as alternatives if you want AAC support. The EarFun Air 2 NCs take it one step further with LDAC support too. Also, unlike these three pairs, the SoundForm Plays don’t feature multipoint connectivity, so you can only use them with one device at a time.

There’s also no way to customize the SoundForm Plays’ equalizer. There are three presets available — Flat, Bass Boost, Treble Boost — and you can swap between them via touch controls, but there’s no companion app for fine-tuning the sound. Belkin does have an app called SoundForm but, at the time of writing, it supports only three specific models: Pulse, Immerse and Flow.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Controls

• Touch controls slow to respond

Like many other modern wireless earbuds, the Belkin SoundForm Plays feature touch panels on each bud, so you’ll need to use a combination of tapping and holding to change settings.

Either earbud can be used to change playback settings, while the left bud is responsible for swapping between three EQ presets and the right bud can be used to toggle the voice assistant.

You should be able to pair the SoundForm Plays with your Bluetooth-enabled device the first time you take them out of the case. But if you want to re-pair them, you need to hold down both earbuds’ touch panels for three seconds to initiate pairing mode.

This is all well and good but I found the SoundForm Plays’ touch controls finicky at the best of times. There was a short but very noticeable delay between tapping an earbud and the command actually executing. There were a few instances where I thought my touch hadn’t registered so I tapped the buds again and that made the earbuds freak out.

This isn’t something we haven’t seen before, though. The EarFun Air 2 NCs suffer from the same problem, so if you’re happy to wait a second, this shouldn’t be a major problem.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Sound quality

• Clear vocals
• Muddy bass
• Overall great sound on a budget

For a pair of budget earbuds, the Belkin SoundForm Plays sound… decent. They utilize 6mm dynamic drivers to deliver clear vocals and crisp acoustics, but the earbuds fall short when listening to bass-heavy and electronic tracks, which I’ll get into soon.

I tested the earbuds by listening to a range of genres — rock, indie, electronic, etc. — on Qobuz, one of the best music streaming services, on my Google Pixel 7 Pro.

I’m currently going through a Fleetwood Mac phase so I listened to ‘The Chain’ and ‘Silver Springs’ (the 1997 live version, of course) first. I like that I could clearly hear the tambourine in ‘The Chain’ and the earbuds made the vocals sound clear and crisp across both tracks. The collective vocals in ‘Silver Springs’ harmonized well, and the earbuds did Stevie Nicks’ vocals towards the end justice too.

Roger Waters’ low voice in ‘This the Life We Really Want’ sounds fantastic too, with the husk and low growl in his voice sounding very clear. As for high notes, the vocals in Pink Floyd’s ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ never sounded shrill or piercing, making for an enjoyable listening experience.

My only gripe with the SoundForm Plays’ audio quality is the bass response. I’m not expecting budget earbuds to reproduce powerful basslines that I can feel in my jaw, no, but the bass, in general, sounds muddy and gets lost easily.

I immediately noticed this when listening to ‘The Pines’ by 070 Shake. The song has a consistent bassline through most of the track, but I barely noticed it when listening to the song through the SoundForm Plays.

I noticed this in ‘Navigating’ by Twenty One Pilots too. While the bassline right at the beginning sounds fine with each note distinguishable, it immediately gets overpowered by the other instruments and vocals as soon as everything kicks in.

It’s like the bass takes a backseat when it is, in fact, each songs’ backbone. I selected the Bass Boost preset to see if it made a difference and, to me, it sounded like the music was just playing at a higher volume without affecting the lows much.

The earbuds don’t handle electronic tracks very well either. In ‘Von Dutch’ by Charli XCX, her voice is meant to pop and sound powerful during the chorus, but it gets easily overshadowed by the synth and bass kicking in.

Overall, the SoundForm Plays are a decent-sounding pair of earbuds for vocal-heavy or acoustic tracks, but you may want to consider the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 if you want a satisfying, well-rounded sound profile instead.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Battery life

• 38 hours with charging case
• Better than some rivals

The Belkin SoundForm Plays’ battery life is really good, outclassing even some of its rivals. Belkin claims that the earbuds can last up to eight hours on a single charge, and the charging case can provide an additional 30 hours of playback time — so 38 hours in total. I used the SoundForm Plays for an 8-hour work day, and the earbuds died right before I left the office, which is great.

In comparison, the OnePlus Nord Buds 2 have a maximum playback time of 36 hours and the JLab JBuds Mini offer a comparatively measly 20 hours. The EarFun Air 2 NCs, though, edge out the SoundForm Plays by an extra two hours. All in all, though, the Belkin buds have great battery life given the budget price tag.

Belkin SoundForm Play review: Verdict

The Belkin SoundForm Plays are a decent pair of budget wireless earbuds. If you like acoustic music or tracks where vocals are at the forefront, you’ll be pleased with their performance. They’re very comfortable so you can keep wearing them for hours on end, helped by the long 38-hour battery life.

But if, like me, you enjoy bass-heavy tracks, you’ll be disappointed with the SoundForm Plays. Basslines sound muddy, and the earbuds don’t handle electronics tracks well either as they are easily overwhelmed.

There are other minor annoyances, like the earbuds continuing to play in the case unless the lid is closed, which can be frustrating. The buds’ touch controls aren’t the smoothest either, with some lag between tapping and the command being executed.

If you want best-in-class sound on a budget, it might be worth considering the likes of OnePlus Nord Buds 2 or the EarFun Air 2 NC. If you’re left stranded without your usual earbuds and need a pair in a pinch but also don’t want to spend too much money, then the SoundForm Plays could be worth the (very small) spend.