A couple of days back, leaked renders of Sony's LinkBuds S surfaced on the internet, giving us our first look at the earbuds and highlighting some features. Now that the cat's out of the bag, Sony has decided to announce the earbuds officially. The new Sony LinkBuds S is now available to pre-order for $200 in the US. You can get it in black, white, and a Best-Buy exclusive "Desert Sand" colorway, all of which have a color-matched charging case.

While the new LinkBuds S earbuds share the same official branding as the LinkBuds from earlier this year, it has a more conventional design. The earbuds are compact and weigh 4.8 grams each. But Sony has managed to pack a ton of features in the earbuds, despite their tiny footprint.

One of the highlights of the LinkBuds S is that it features an ambient mode, a.k.a transparency mode, that will let you hear your surroundings, thereby allowing you to "link" your digital life with the sound of reality. Additionally, the LinkBuds S also supports active noise cancellation and the company’s LDAC Bluetooth codec.

Sony says you can wear the LinkBuds S earbuds throughout the day as you go about your daily life. The earbuds can play automated audio, meaning they'll automatically pick up your preferred Spotify playlist after you put them in. Alternatively, there are settings that you can tweak to make the earbuds play a relaxing audio track right after your work meeting. Sony's usual set of features, like adaptive sound control, are also available with the LinkBuds S. It lets you customize things like ambient sound, the level of noise cancellation based on the activity, and more. It's also worth mentioning that the LinkBuds S is IPX4 certified for water resistance.

The Sony LinkBuds S offer six hours of listening time on a single charge with ANC on. And if you account for the charging case's battery life, then Sony says the earbuds can last up to 20 hours. Sadly, the charging case doesn't support wireless charging, which is quite surprising considering how many earbuds in this price range offer wireless charging support. We suggest you take a look at our collection of the best true wireless earbuds for some great alternatives (even cheaper ones) that support wireless charging.

Sony's new LinkBuds S will go on sale starting May 20 for $200. You can use the link below to beat the queue and pre-order your unit right away.