The PI5 earpieces are small and round on the outside. They come in black or white and are sensitive to touch. The fit in the ear is pretty secure, but you only get three sets of eartips and you might find that the fit gets looser over time. This will be different for each person, but the earpieces don’t have any extra fins or stems to make them more secure.
The key is to make sure they are in your ear correctly—the back end of the earpiece should press against your ear to make it more stable. If this doesn’t happen, the fit can be bad and the touch-sensitive panels can be hard to reach and at an angle.
Both of these true wireless models have the same case, but the PI5 is seven grams lighter than the PI7, and the charging case is three grams lighter, which isn’t much but could be because one or two parts are missing. The PI5s only have two microphones per earpiece, while the PI7s have three.
Specifications
- Drivers 9.2mm dynamic drivers
- Frequency response 10Hz to 20kHz
- Active noise-cancellation Yes, with 2 microphones
- Transparency mode Yes
- Battery life Up to 4.5 hours on a single charge, up to 24 hours with charging case
- Fast charging Yes, provides 2 hours of listening time with a 15-minute charge
- Bluetooth connectivity Yes, Bluetooth 5.0 with support for aptX and AAC codecs
- Voice assistants Built-in support for Google Assistant and Siri
Where to get Bowers & Wilkins PI5 earbuds?
The PI5s also have 9.2 mm dynamic drivers, while the PI7s have a hybrid with an extra balanced-armature driver. With the S, M, and L silicone attachments, a tight seal should be made in the ear canal. With just a little twist, our tester was able to get enough grip on the PI5s to do sports-related moves safely.
The PI5s have Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX, AAC, and SBC codecs and are easy to connect to mobile devices. On both Android and iOS, reconnection happens right away and at the point in the audio where it was paused when the last connection was made. Since Bowers & Wilkins’ PIs don’t have multipoint, you have to disconnect from the first device before you can connect to the second.
Compared to Apple or Beats headphones, this is a big downside in terms of comfort, but the free B&W app makes it easy to do. Other than that, the app only takes care of the most important things, like noise cancellation and transparency mode, pairing and unpairing Bluetooth devices or managing them, turning off the sensors, and getting software updates. It would have been nice to have one or two more user functions, especially since the PI7 has a much bigger set of configuration options for apps.