The Nothing Ear (1) buds came out a little more than a year ago to a buzz of hype and anticipation. The buds were the first product released by the Nothing company, with Carl Pei (of OnePlus fame) at the helm. With all the hype, it was hard to tell what to expect from the phone. Now that I’ve gotten a chance to test them out myself, I can see what people were so excited about.
I’ll start first with easily the most appealing aspect of the Nothing Ear (1). When you unbox the buds, the first thing that strikes you is that you just unboxed a set of earbuds that you can see through! Well, kind of. Nothing partnered with a Swedish company called Teenage Engineering to design the most interesting earbuds I’ve ever seen. The case itself is completely clear except for the middle section that holds the electronics and battery. The buds themselves are transparent as well, allowing you to see into the guts of the earbuds in the stem. Whenever I take the buds out to use them, I always take a second to admire the amazing design. The case and buds have a more square-ish design than most other wireless earbuds, and have a somewhat retro feel to them. I absolutely love it, and I can’t get enough.
The setup for these earbuds was much smoother than other earbuds I’ve tried before, and rivals the seamless pairing between Airpods and iPhones. Once I had the app downloaded, my phone recognized the Ear (1)'s ass soon as I opened the case. From there, connection was established just by pressing a button, and I was good to go. So easy!
For the app, Nothing continues its trend of very clean looking design. The app is fairly minimalist, with tabs to control gesture controls and sound profile. The gesture controls do not have much flexibility, and you’re pretty much limited to the gestures they already have. The sound profile has some more options, and actually allows you to change noise cancellation levels within the app. Overall, looks nice but could use some more customization.
Lastly, and perhaps most important, is the functionality of the buds themselves. The buds feel very light and comfortable in my ears, and stay in my ears even when I’m exercising. Definitely some of the most comfortable earbuds I’ve ever used before. The buds have in ear detection, and will pause your music and automatically turn on transparency mode if it detects that you take an earbud out. The transparency and noise cancellation modes certainly are pretty impressive, but fall short of the levels achieved on high end buds such as the Airpod pros. However, they are miles ahead of the noise cancellation that you would find on sub $50 earbuds, so definitely don’t count them out. As for the gestures, it’s pretty easy to get used to and memorize the different gestures, though once again they are fairly limited. The battery life is fairly standard for a good pair of earbuds, and I’ve never had an issue with the buds running out of battery or having to charge frequently. The sound profile is not very bass heavy, and reflects the true sound of music fairly well in my opinion.
I have not used many other competitors in the $100 earbud range, but I have used plenty of budget earbuds as well as Airpod pros. These fall very comfortably inbetween those two levels of earbuds, and I would say closer to Airpod pros. The sound profile, noise cancellation, and other features are all very solid on the Nothing Ear (1), and I would say that the maximum price range I would pay for these would be $100-150. They punch above their weight class slightly, but any more expensive than that and I would rather get Airpods. However, I feel like they are a very fair price considering they are almost as good as Airpod pros while being less than half the price. Moreover, I don’t feel like the device has any glaring flaws. Obviously it would be nice to have better hardware, but that would certainly make the buds more expensive. I would like to see some software/firmware upgrades though, such as the ability to customize gestures more, and perhaps a stronger noise cancellation mode at the cost of most battery consumption.
I’ve learned that while nothing lives up to its hype, Nothing comes close. It delivers a very solid product wrapped in a super attractive looking exterior. While the hype may have misled consumers slightly, I don’t think that anyone would be disappointed with the product itself. It is a strong competitor in the $100 earbud space. My rating for the Nothing Ear (1) is a strong 4.5 stars out of 5, and a perfect 5/5 if they made the improvements I suggested.
