Firstly, I’m sorry about the delay in getting this up! We’ve been moving house the past few weeks and it’s been pretty chaotic so my apologies!
Anyway…
Ever since the Nothing Ear(1) earbuds were announced, I was intrigued. The transparent design, the features, and the fairly low price were all enough to garner my interest. Not to mention, the King of Hype Carl Pei had founded a mysterious company, promising to change the world, and this was his first product. Honestly, I thought it was a bit odd for the first product to be headphones, but hey, what do I know?
Anyway, thanks to the incredible Heyup Tryout Program, I got a chance to try them out and here, are my thoughts.
The Good
Design:
There’s no getting around it – these earbuds look freaking sweet. The transparent design is really one of the most unique designs of pretty much any tech product I’ve ever seen. I think I like the look of the white ones better than the black that I received, but either way, they’re really cool.
The Ear(1) has the ‘stem’ design made famous by Apple’s AirPods which to me makes them much easier to handle. Plus, the touch controls built into the stem make it simpler in my opinion to operate these things than say the simple round ‘bean’ style of the Samsung Galaxy Buds or Google Pixel Buds – more on the controls in a bit.
One nice touch is the red and white dots on the earbuds to help you know the right and left ones (respectively). Without them, the earbuds look exactly identical so it’d be hard to tell them apart.
The carrying case is a bit large I think, especially compared to a lot of other wireless earbuds I’ve used, but it’s certainly not unwieldy. The weird dimple in the top is a bit odd but I think it was mostly designed as a makeshift fidget spinner for college kids so that makes sense lol. It fits just fine everywhere I need to put it, including my pocket and bags.
One last thing about the design is that the earbuds fit quite well in my ears. I never really had a problem with them falling out and they honestly seemed to stay in my ear better than my AirPods. I know others have had issues with them not staying in very well but I never had that problem.
Controls:
The touch controls on the buds are pretty straightforward and work mostly fine for me. It took me a day or so to learn the sensitivity of the controls but after that, I didn’t have any issues. You can tap to do all the normal things you’d expect: pause/play music, skip songs, answer and hang up calls, etc. A simple swipe up or down on the stem controls the volume which I really appreciated and wish other companies would incorporate more often (Apple did on the new AirPods Pro 2 but it’s not as seamless as the Ear(1)).
Pairing and Setup:
This was seamless and straight forward. I downloaded the app and connected through my Bluetooth settings and it worked fine from there. They seamlessly connected to the last device I used with them and let me pick up right where I left off.
The ‘Meh’
Battery Life:
Battery life for me was perfectly fine. Nothing exceptional (pun intended) but certainly not bad. It was fine. I didn’t test to see exactly how much time I got from them, but I never felt like I was having to charge them often enough to be frustrating.
Sound Quality:
Again, sound quality wasn’t overly impressive or unimpressive. It was what I expected from a mid-range set of wireless earbuds. My music and audiobooks sounded great with nothing unusual. It was maybe a tad light on the bass but I don’t listen to music with a lot of bass anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal for me. For the price you’re paying, they sound pretty good.
Smartphone App:
While the app offered quick and easy pairing and some very basic controls, there’s really not a lot you can do in the app. There’s no EQ settings and you can’t even customize the touch controls. It’s really pretty plain and lacking in features which was somewhat disappointing. Again, considering the price, I wasn’t expecting anything too over the top, and it’s not really a dealbreaker (if you want super customizable EQ settings, you shouldn’t be buying these anyway), but something to note.
Noise Cancellation/Transparency Mode:
To be completely honest, I didn’t notice a huge difference between when ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) was on and when it was in Transparency mode. I could tell a difference, but it wasn’t really that noticeable, certainly not as noticeable as on the AirPods Pros or my OnePlus Buds Pros so I wouldn’t recommend these for traveling or loud environments where you really need to drown out the noise. It technically works, I guess, but not really enough to make it a worthy feature.
Also, transparency mode has this weird soft of echo-y, metallic-y sound the whole time. It’s not incredibly distracting, but it’s enough to be noticeable.
The Ugly
Connectivity:
Ok, call me crazy, but in my opinion, seamless, effortless, uninterrupted connectivity is the ONE THING you MUST get right on wireless Bluetooth headphones. I had more connectivity issues with the Ear(1)s than I’ve ever had on any other wireless earbuds, particularly ones at this price point.
My music would just randomly pause whenever I had these in and the only thing that was different about the situation from any other environment was the headphones (I was in the same place, with strong internet, using the same music app on the same device, etc.). It would only be for a second, but it was still really annoying.
Most egregiously, they just randomly disconnect from my MacBook – twice in the span of 48 hours. I was literally just listening to music and they disconnected. It’s almost like they ‘timed out’ or something because it was at least 45 minutes to an hour after I had started listening. They didn’t pause, they just disconnected and reconnected but didn’t continue playing my music. I had to disconnect and reconnect them to continue the music. This is quite distracting when you’re focused on a task and it’s something that should never happen in a pair of Bluetooth headphones, particularly ones that cost $100.
I even noticed the random pausing when on my Apple Watch and I’d have to switch out of the app I was using and back to it in order to continue playing the music.
In-ear Detection:
I also had issues with in-ear detection. Almost every time when I took them out of my ears, they would just keep playing. I took them out, set them on a table and could hear the music and see that it was still playing in the app on my phone. This would happen for several minutes and then continue playing as I put them back in. I just don’t think it works.
Packaging:
I normally don’t talk much about the packaging, but I do want to make a note of it here. It’s certainly cool and ties well into the “modern tech” vibe they’re going for. But the company makes a big deal about being carbon neutral on their website and this packaging is certainly not that. It’s actually got quite a lot of disposable components which doesn’t really mesh with the ‘we’re so economical’ thing.
Final Thoughts
I could go, but I’ll stop here. Overall, I’m somewhat disappointed with the Ear(1). Sure, they’re cool to look at, but they get a lot of the basics just ok or downright wrong. Truthfully though, we can’t be all that surprised. Carl Pei’s (founder and CEO of Nothing) MO is all about hyping things up like crazy without actually delivering on the hype. He did it at OnePlus and now he’s doing it again at Nothing. He’s a marketing guy, not a product guy.
What’s really disappointing is how the Ear(1)s seem to have just been abandoned because these issues are all still happening more than a year after launch. But again, this is taken from the OnePlus playbook too where they literally launch a product and immediately stop caring about it (I’ve been intimately involved with a lot of different OnePlus product launches and events so I can say first-hand this is absolutely true).
My only hope is that when version 2 comes around, they’ll improve. My advice would be to spend the extra $50 and get the OnePlus Buds Pro or something similar, but if you want a really cool design and some earbuds that work ok, the Ear(1)s aren’t the worst you can buy.
**Note: The OnePlus Buds Pro are on sale right now for $99. At that price, there’s no way I can recommend the Nothing Ear(1)s over a much better set of headphones for the same price.
