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Skullcandy Dime 3
While there are lots of affordable wireless earbuds on the market, few come as cheap as the Skullcandy Dime 3. Can earbuds that cost less than the price of a night out perform well enough to meet your needs? Find out in our Skullcandy Dime 3 review.
Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.
These earbuds are for those that aim to stretch their dollar as far as possible. If you want some cheap wireless earbuds that you can toss in your gym bag or let your kids use, the Skullcandy Dime 3 is a good option.
What’s it like to use the Skullcandy Dime 3?
Made from plastic, the Skullcandy Dime 3 earbuds are extremely lightweight and portable. The charging case is one of the smallest I’ve ever seen for earbuds, which makes it easy to slot the Dime 3 into tiny pockets. The earbuds have a similar shape and fit as the Apple AirPods Pro 2, and I didn’t experience any comfort issues when listening for a few hours at a time.
A nice perk to the design of the Skullcandy Dime 3 is an IPX4 sweat and water-resistance rating. You can’t fully submerge these earbuds in water, but you can take them running in the rain without worry. Color options are limited to either True Black or Bone White. You get three ear tip sizes ranging from 11mm to 14mm.
How do you control the Skullcandy Dime 3?
Learning to control the Skullcandy Dime 3 feels like solving a Rubik’s cube. Each earbud features a pressable button, and you can press either earbud several times to activate different controls. The problem with this system is that you need to memorize eight different combinations of taps. Since there is no companion app for the Skullcandy Dime 3, you can’t customize these controls either. You will probably need to continuously reference the user manual to solve this puzzle that Skullcandy has created.
| Action | Left or Right Earbud |
|---|---|
Press and hold for 1s | Power on earbuds, reject call, activate assistant |
Single press | Play/pause, answer/hang up call |
Press twice, and then press and hold for 1s | Power off earbuds |
Press twice | Volume up |
Press three times | Volume down |
Press once, and then press and hold for 1s | Activate stay aware mode |
Press four times | Switch EQ modes |
Press and hold for 3s | Enter pairing mode |
Do the Skullcandy Dime 3 have an app?
Skullcandy does not offer a supported app experience for the Dime 3 earbuds. You miss premium features such as firmware updates, customizing controls, or a visual equalizer. That said, Skullcandy has partnered with Tile, so you can use the Tile App to track your lost earbuds. You can see where one or both earbuds are located using the GPS, and have them play a noise to help you find the earbuds under a pile of clothes in your room.
How do the Skullcandy Dime 3 connect?
The Skullcandy Dime 3 use Bluetooth 5.3 to connect to your devices. There’s no fancy codec support, but the connection worked fine in our everyday use with a variety of devices. The earbuds support Bluetooth Multipoint, which means you can pair your earbuds to your phone and laptop (or any other two devices ) simultaneously.
Pairing the Skullcandy Dime 3 to one or more devices is a straightforward process:
- First, ensure the earbuds and charging case are both charged. You may need to remove the stickers from the charging ports on the earbuds to charge them in the case.
- Once the earbuds are charged up, remove them from the case. If you hear the voice prompt say, “Ready to pair,” you can proceed to step 4.
- If the earbuds don’t automatically enter pairing mode, press and hold the button on either earbud for three seconds.
- Select Dime 3 from the Bluetooth settings on your device. The voice prompt will say “Connected” once the pairing is successful.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 to connect to more devices.
How long does the Skullcandy Dime 3 battery last?
In our battery testing, the Skullcandy Dime 3 earbuds lasted 6 hours and 48 minutes on a single charge. This is slightly worse than the 8-hours Skullcandy promises but is in line with other true wireless earbuds. The charging case gives you another full charge plus a bit more, so you can easily make it through a full day or even multiple days using the Dime 3 with its charging case. The case charges via USB-C.
Yes, Skullcandy has rapid charge, which provides multiple hours of playback time from only 10 minutes of charging the earbuds. It takes one hour to charge the earbuds and 2.5 hours to charge the case from empty to full.
How well do the Skullcandy Dime 3 block out noise?
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The amount of environmental noise passively isolated while wearing these earbuds will primarily depend on the fit you achieve with the Dime 3. However, these earbuds struggled to block out much noise in our testing. There’s also no active noise canceling, which means these earbuds aren’t great for listening in loud environments.
One of the main upgrades with the Dime 3 compared to the older Dime 2 is the inclusion of a transparency mode, which Skullcandy calls Stay-Aware Mode. Activating this pumps the sound of your surroundings through the earbuds, which is nice for conversing with other people or staying aware while jogging.
How do the Skullcandy Dime 3 sound?
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The Skullcandy Dime 3 sound good. Most cheap earbuds either go way overboard with bass or fail to reproduce it. The Skullcandy Dime 3 finds the perfect middle ground, with a neutral sound that most people will enjoy. In fact, the frequency response of these earbuds pretty much exactly follows our headphone preference curve.
When listening to When The Summer Ends – RAC Mix by Savoir Adore, the bass doesn’t overpower the vocals, with a relatively even balance across all of the instruments. That said, the snap of the snare drum sounds a bit louder than I expect, resulting from the Skullcandy Dime 3 over-amplifying frequencies from 5-9kHz. That’s just a nitpick, though, as these earbuds perform exceptionally well, especially given their price.
If you don’t like the sound of the earbuds out of the box, you can try two other onboard EQ presets. One is a bass boost mode, which, as you can imagine, gives you some more oomph in the low-end. The other is podcast mode, which cuts a lot of low frequencies to amplify voice frequencies.
Can you use the Skullcandy Dime 3 for phone calls?
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The Skullcandy Dime 3 has what the company calls Clear Voice Smart Mic. Essentially, this means the microphones block out background noise and focus on the speaker’s voice. The Dime 3 does this pretty well, so you shouldn’t have too many problems answering calls on these earbuds, even with some noise in the background. That said, the microphones struggle to reproduce high frequencies, making your voice a bit muffled.
Skullcandy Dime 3 microphone demo (Ideal conditions):
How does the microphone sound to you?
Skullcandy Dime 3 microphone demo (Office conditions):
Skullcandy Dime 3 microphone demo (Street conditions):
Skullcandy Dime 3 microphone demo (Windy conditions):
Skullcandy Dime 3 microphone demo (Reverberant space):
As you can hear in the street and office environments, the microphones effectively suppress background noise. However, you shouldn’t use these microphones in a windy environment as the microphones struggle to block out wind noise.
Should you buy the Skullcandy Dime 3?
If your earbud budget is limited to $30 or even $50, the Skullcandy Dime 3 is a great option. These earbuds are lightweight, portable, water-resistant, and sound good. At this price, what more could you ask for?
Sure, these earbuds aren’t perfect; they struggle to block out environmental noise, and there’s no companion app for customization. We’ve seen these earbuds on sale for as low as $18 during major sale events such as Black Friday. You won’t find better value for your money at that price in any earbuds.
What should you get instead of the Skullcandy Dime 3?
The sub-$50 range of wireless earbuds is filled with duds. You can still find some good options if you look hard enough. The Edifier TWS1 Pro 2 are packed with features, including active noise canceling to block out noise, $49.99 at Amazon. The JLab GO Air POP are ultra-affordable earbuds with great battery life, $24 at Amazon. If you want to stick with the Skullcandy brand but are willing to spend more, you should check out the Skullcandy Mod XT. For a few extra dollars, you get improved durability, access to the Skullcandy app, and improved isolation, $48 at Amazon.
Frequently asked questions
The Skullcandy Dime 3 are IPX4 rated, which means the earbuds can handle some minor splashes of water, but you shouldn’t fully submerge them in water.
Yes, the Skullcandy Dime 3 supports Bluetooth Multipoint so that you can connect to multiple devices at the same time.
Yes, these earbuds have a microphone that you can use for answering calls on the go.
No, the Dime 3 does not have active noise canceling (ANC).
Yes, you can use the Tile app to find your lost Dime 3 earbuds once you have set them up inside the app.