Description
The most honest battery figure in this catalog
The Skullcandy Dime 2 is a small sealed in-ear true wireless earbud, model S2DBW-P740, listed since January 2022 with roughly 8,031 ratings at a 4.0 star average. It ranks 1,434th in Electronics and 220th among earbud and in-ear headphones. Skullcandy describes it as the little earbud with the big attitude, and the size is the point: this is a compact, unfussy pair aimed at everyday use rather than critical listening.
Start with the battery, because Skullcandy does something here that almost nobody else in this catalog does. The second bullet states plainly that the Dime 2 “delivers 3.5 hours of listening time in the bud and 2 full charges in the case for a full 12 hours of battery life.” Three point five hours. Not a headline number hiding a short runtime behind repeated case refills, but the actual figure a single charge gives you, printed alongside the total.
That transparency deserves credit and it also sets expectations correctly. Three and a half hours is short. It covers a commute, a gym session or a dog walk. It does not cover a transatlantic flight, a workday of calls or a long train journey without a return to the case. The specification table agrees with the copy exactly: Battery Life 3.5 hours, carrying case battery average life 8.5 hours, which sums to the quoted 12. Charging takes about an hour. Every figure on this page is internally consistent, which is rare enough here to be worth stating.
Skullcandy attaches an environmental claim to the small cell, saying it cuts the carbon footprint to “less than half that of other earbuds.” No comparison product is named and no methodology is described, so that one is a marketing statement rather than a measurement.
Tile tracking, and the single bud feature that matters more
The Dime 2 includes Tile finding technology, which lets you locate either earbud through the Tile app. On a pair this small that is a genuinely useful inclusion rather than a gimmick, because the most common way people lose budget earbuds is one bud at a time. It does require downloading the Tile app and activating the feature, so it is not something that works out of the box without setup.
The more interesting feature is buried in the first bullet. Skullcandy puts a microphone in each bud, which means either side works alone: you can wear one, leave the other in the case, and take calls while keeping one ear completely open to the room. That is the closest a sealed earbud gets to preserving situational awareness, and for anyone who needs to hear a colleague, a doorbell or a road, single bud use is the sensible way to run these. Used as a pair they seal the canal and reduce your awareness of traffic like any other closed earbud, and they should not be worn on both sides for cycling or road running.
Connection: Bluetooth 5.2, and nothing about codecs
The specification table lists Bluetooth 5.2 with a 10 meter range. Version 5.2 governs connection stability and power behavior. It does not raise sound quality on its own, and 10 meters is a line of sight figure that walls and bodies cut down sharply.
No Bluetooth audio codec is named anywhere on this listing. SBC, the baseline every Bluetooth device supports, is all you can assume. There is no published evidence of AAC, which is the codec Apple devices use, and none of aptX or LDAC, which only work when the phone and the earbuds both support the same one. The first bullet is headed “Supreme Audio” and invites you to let the bass “blow UP,” which is Skullcandy’s house voice rather than a specification. No driver size, frequency response or sensitivity figure is published, so there is nothing measurable to evaluate.
The specification field for noise control reads “Sound Isolation,” which is accurate. There is no active noise cancellation on the Dime 2 and none is claimed. Whatever quiet you get comes from the ear gel blocking the canal, which is why tip size matters. Multipoint pairing, transparency mode and wear detection are not mentioned, so assume none exist. Controls are described as media control with an app based control method, which in this case refers to the Tile app rather than a Skullcandy equalizer.
Fit, and the rating that is not published
Three sizes of rubber ear gel are included, small, medium and large. On a sealed earbud that is the specification that decides how much bass you hear, because a leaking seal thins the low end regardless of what the driver can do. If the Dime 2 sounds thin, change the gel before concluding anything else.
Skullcandy’s fit claim is absolute in a way no manufacturer can support: “no matter how hard you’re running, shredding in the snow or sleeping the Dime 2 will stay in your ear.” Ear shape varies too much for that to hold universally, and a stemless bud held only by canal friction is the shape most likely to work loose during hard movement.
The bigger gap is water. No IP rating appears anywhere on this listing. The specification table records the water resistance level as “Water Resistant,” which is a phrase rather than a code, and the bullets never mention sweat, rain or moisture at all despite recommending the product for running, cycling, workouts and snow sports. There is no way to tell from this page whether the Dime 2 survives a sweaty session. A phrase without a code is not a rating, and the safe assumption is no tested protection. Even where a code exists it never covers seawater or high pressure water, and IP protection degrades as seals age. A one year US warranty is included, which is the only durability commitment on the page.
What else to consider
The specification table claims the product requires “3 Lithium Polymer batteries,” which in this case is plausibly literal, two buds plus the case, rather than the impossible entries seen on other listings in this catalog. Country of origin is listed as Vietnam. Weight is given as 1.13 ounces, roughly 32 grams, which covers the buds and the case together.
Within Skullcandy’s own range the Dime 3 is the direct successor and the Jib True 2 sits alongside it at a similar level, so check the model code rather than the name. If 3.5 hours per charge is the sticking point, the Soundcore Life P2 Mini from Anker and the JLab JBuds Mini are the compact alternatives to weigh. The rest of the format sits in our true wireless earbud reviews and our earbud headphone reviews.
Buy it, or skip it
Buy the Dime 2 if you want a small, cheap pair from a known brand, with Tile tracking, a microphone in each bud so either side works alone, three gel sizes and a battery figure stated honestly enough that you know exactly what you are getting. Skip it if 3.5 hours per charge is not enough, if you need a published water rating for training, or if you want a named codec or active noise cancellation. The 4.0 star average is the lowest in this group and is worth reading alongside the specification.
