Nothing’s inaugural Ear (1) earbuds were, let’s face it, sonically a matter of style over substance.
Glossy depictions of Nothing’s futuristic, almost transparent units, with very friendly ladybugs atop the case, suggested quality and detailed craftsmanship – and there’s no denying that a lot of care went into making them. look good.
The feature set – including Nothing’s commendable new app – was even better, and the Nothing Ear (1) Black Edition brought Bluetooth 5.2 and enhanced the ANC to levels rarely seen at that price.
IPX4 splash resistance was also a nice touch, and the little red dot on the right earpiece made me wonder why other manufacturers don’t offer this simple embellishment, but sound quality is ultimately the make or break of a set of wireless headphones and here, Nothing Ear (1) still falls short of the best wireless earbuds in terms of timing and neutrality across the frequencies, as well as bass grip and accuracy.
I tested the original Nothing Ear (1) earbuds and found the sonic performance to be far from perfect. Switch to Cambridge Audio’s Melomania 1 Plus (currently available for much, much less), the bass is more powerful and industrious, leaving the ear (1) feeling totally relaxed and pining in timing. Although the ear (1) is expansive, it suffers from bumping through the lower registers and lacks precision in direct comparison.
That said, I really think Carl Pei’s Nothing is up to something, and if the recently leaked Ear (1) Stick earbuds, launching after the much-hyped Phone (1), are anything to go by, Pei’s could slick startup is finally starting to target Apple’s AirPods – if it can only fix these key areas.
And I’ll leave the aforementioned sound quality aside – we’ve said everything we had to say there. So let’s get started.
1. Multi-desk support
While connectivity has been improved in the most recent Black Edition update, the use of Bluetooth 5.2 still means you can’t count on multipoint support here — and the best noise-cancelling earbuds of 2022 (including Honor’s Earbuds 3 Pro) now offer the function – and your AirPods switch seamlessly between the source Apple device you are currently using.
As the Nothing ecosystem grows, switching seamlessly from music on your Nothing phone to a meeting on your Nothing tablet is sure to be paramount to the busy professional — and to the rest of us, too.
There’s also currently no or aptX/LDAC codec support for better quality streaming over Bluetooth, something we hope will come with the new Nothing earbuds.
2. Better transparency mode
The noise cancellation in the most recent refreshed earbuds from Nothing has improved a lot, although this comes at the cost of battery life, as you now only get about four hours from a single charge with ANC on and the volume at a medium level.
But what needs to be smoother is the transparency profile – because that could be better. Yes, cars and voices from passersby are a little more available to a listener when deploying this mode (and without the disturbing wind tunnel effect, some price-conscious propositions are confused), but there’s certainly still room to bring it up to counter. sniff the class leaders on the level – and here we would point you to the Sony WF-SP800N. (Don’t mention it).
3. Range to adjust the EQ levels
Currently, Nothing’s likeable app only offers you ‘balanced’, ‘more treble’, ‘more bass’ or ‘voice’ EQ presets – and in my own testing, switching between these profiles sometimes caused an earbud to deactivate the Bluetooth lost connection (remember though, I tested the original 2021 release).
In addition, even in the newly updated Nothing Ear (1), these profiles cannot be adjusted manually.
The option to tweak the sound to your liking using a three- or even five-band equalizer tab would likely significantly improve personal audio performance here.
4. Better on-ear touch controls
Ear (1)’s touch controls can be customized in the slick Ear (1) app for iOS or Android devices, which features the same glorious retro digital font printed on the housing and stem of the buttons.
Along with the two visual themes, the option to disable wearer detection and the handy Find My Earbud function (which emits a sound from the earbuds, making it easier to locate if someone has fallen on the back of the couch, for example), you see a picture of the ear (1) above two bubbles: ‘hear’ and ‘touch’ – and it’s the Touch tab that I want to focus on right now, because here you get the option to customize what happens when you tap or long press on either earbud.
I like to customize it so that three taps on the left button jumps back a song, three taps on the right one to jump forward, and long-pressing between noise-canceling profiles. Interestingly, a single tap has no function here, probably to avoid accidentally pausing the song when you put it in your ears, but unfortunately I’ve found that double taps to play and pause songs are wildly hit and miss.
Additionally, volume adjustments can reportedly be made by swiping up and down the stem of both earphones, but again, it’s hard to actually make this happen, especially without removing one of the earphones from my ears.
Okay, at this level it’s hardly a deal-breaker to dig out my phone to change playback, but if on-ear controls are included, it’s reasonable to expect them to at least work most of the time…
If you’re out there, nothing, I can’t wait to test the new Ear (2) earbuds, or whatever they’re called – I feel like we could really be something, you know?