Nothing Ear (stick) – wireless earbuds, comfortable
Nothing Ear (stick) – wireless earbuds, comfortable ergonomic design, 4.4g ultra lightweight, custom dynamic driver, Clear Voice Technology, press controls, up to 29 hrs of listening time
| Weight: | 140 g |
| Size: | One Size |
| Dimensions: | 8.71 x 2.98 x 2.98 cm; 140 Grams |
| Model: | B157 |
| Colour: | White (stick) |
| Batteries Included: | 1 Lithium Ion batteries required. (included) |
| Dimensions: | 8.71 x 2.98 x 2.98 cm; 140 Grams |
| Size: | One Size |
I bought this primarily to make calls and after reading several reviews and watching several comparisons I decided to buy these and so gas it hasn’t let me down!! Massive upgrade from the TOYO T12’s.
This does have good music quality & good ANC. It’s not quite as good as the latest Bose but not too far off.
The bluetooth connectivity is excellent, easy & reliable, & it works with 2 devices.
The voice call quality is very good, better than all the other high end headphones I’ve tried.
The mobile app is fine & the case is easy to use & not too bulky. Battery charge/longevity appears good too.
All in all an excellent pair of headphones & my favourite to date.
First thing i noticed about the ear 2 is how comfortable they are. Unlike my airpods pro’s, these actually stay in my ear and don’t fall out after 10 mins of wearing them. They’re much more comfortable than I expected them to be that i’m actually using them more than my airpods.
Sound quality is right up there too, if you’re like me and prefer your headphones to sound more bassy, the ear 2’s won’t disappoint you one bit. The Nothing X app has an equaliser with a bass boost option and it really works wonders. Definitely recommend these for EDM or hip hop listeners.
Overall I think they’re excellent value for money really happy with them.
I have owned airpods in the past, and a lot of different earphones, none of them really hit me as much as this one, those earphones have such a PERFECT balance between sound, base and vocals that it’s mindblowing, I never something so tiny was capable of that much, to the point even airpods looked like cheap knock-offs compared to it, I would definitely recommend this product for any king of listener, hip-hop, pop, rap, jazz and much more literally everything. 5 Stars witouth a second thought. Amazing quality amazing design amazing product.
Great product for price easy set up and quality sound would highly recommend
Excellent quality – brilliant App – build quality amazing – Sound perfect and can be adjusted via the app
Great for the price and comfortable too.
The sound quality is really good, with a good range and improved bass since the software update.
I have them just for fev days then that will base on my short experience. I use tidal for music and Spotify for podcasts and quality is great find bass better like my iPods pro as well they fit and stay in ear like crazy that’s absolutely spot because I use them for work and move a lot . Calls decent and so far my favourite, match with nothing phone beautiful. Just one thing maybe my hear is bad or not I use volume on maximum mostly or almost… Battery hold like for 3 hours + then I need charge , charging is fast and I think I will be recharge multi times that’s in total can maybe make 30 hours to drain complete? I was going to buy Sony because I got good experience but …. Price difference between as well is not possible to check how they fit no one let u what’s s. Then I got choice new one matching with phone or use one unknown fit , I’m happy with them wish have like my nura silence from world maybe one day …. Overall happy with .
Works with all my devices extremely well. The controls are really good and responsive, and I never accidentally pause or play something.
Can wear all day with no issues, extremely comfortable and awesome battery life.
Looks really interesting, such a beautiful pair of headphones.
In the past I have found that more Android compatible ear buds lack any bass and tend to have a very tinny and empty sound. However, these Nothing buds are a game changer, they have great sound quality (which can be easily modified to your liking with the very intuitive app) and are very compatible with Android.
I also think it is worth mentioning the physical design of the Nothing buds. The case is a novel design, which feels sturdy (but I would still recomend getting a case) and has a very satisfying mechanism. The case is larger than most ear buds, however, you can still easily fit them comfortably into a pocket. The buds themselves also look good, both in the case and in the ear.
The only downside is the size of the buds, they can make your ears hurt after a long period of wearing and probably aren’t suited to smaller ears.
It’s a pretty simple product but overall I think these outperform the AirPod Pro’s first generation in almost every way and they’re half the price.
Only thing I would say is the touch controls are quite fiddly and I found them a bit difficult to control.
Sound quality is far better than my AirPods 3rd gen earphones, there’s more bass (it’s more customisable via the app) and I find I hear parts of the song that I’ve never picked up when using the AirPods.
The play/pause features also work the same as the AirPods so didn’t take any time to get use to, just a single squeeze to pause and double to go to the next track.
The case is interesting, like others have said I do worry about dust/debris getting caught inside of the tube itself, I suppose you could open the case half way and use an air compressor to blow any dust out. I will be putting a silicone case on the stick to prevent scratches.
Thinking about getting a Nothing Phone (1) as a secondary device.
– Sound quality is on point! (no distorted sound, good balance of treble and mids)
– Solid build quality (dropped a few times and still works and held itself together, both the case and earphones)
– Noise cancelling is good (some higher frequency sound can penetrate, but I’m okay with that because of the price point)
Cons:
– Sometimes does lose connection between earbuds in busier areas because lots of people use bluetooth (train stations, buses, airports)
– Connection can be unstable RARELY where sound quality becomes bad (fixed this by putting them back in the case and reconnecting)
– Touch controls kind of sensitive when I try to touch my hair or face (slightly touching the earphones may activate some controls)
Overall, I’d highly recommend these earphones to anyone who doesn’t mind spending low/mid-range money on some high quality sound on a relatively new brand. I put trust and care into my pair, the best wireless earphones at this price point!
For the price, these are decent headphones. The noise cancellation definitely isnt the best, but I’ve used on several flights and it does a decent job of getting rid of constant background noise like aircon.
Build wise, they’re OK. The case feels a bit delicate but the headphones themselves seem good.
Audio is generally decent. I’m no audiophile and for me they seem perfectly fine.
The touch functions can be a bit temperamental, but features such as auto turning off when removing them from your ears.
Overall, I think these are decent at the price point and good for an audience looking for decent but not mind-blowing performance
They look tiny and stunning and sit comfortably in my ears. Because they are so small and light they don’t fall off easily no matter how I shake my head.
When put into the ear they recognise they are in and play a satisfying sound.
The sound quality is remarkably good for non-isolating earbuds. Because they are non-isolating you have full spatial awareness and can avoid weird feeling when eating or drinking while using these.
There is a good amount of base to be heard once you tweak the EQ, which works really well. The EQ can be adjusted once through the app, the setting is then remembered by the ‘ear (stick)’ for any other device. There is a new firmware update, which seems to improve the sounds a bit.
It has touch controls on the stems to adjust volume, answer calls and navigate playlists. These controls are also customisable in the app!
Call quality is no different from other top products in this category. And battery life is superb.
Really can’t fault this product in any way. Ear (sick) look really cool in the ear and people notice I am wearing something unique and start asking where to get one.
The design is gorgeous, and the case works better than I expected, although I have concerns about it’s longevity and protection from dust. These are buds I could happily wear all day and I love the ‘clicky’ touch controls, similar to apple’s approach.
My only potential negative is that I think they may be too large for some ears. They fit mine perfectly but they’re quite tight on me, so if you have smaller ears you may find these unsuitable. The in ear part looks about the same size as apple’s offering but somehow feels a bit larger.
Tldr – Great sounding, well thought out, affordable and unique looking buds – if they fit your ears.
After using Air Pod Pros for two years, I can say Nothings earbuds compare favourably. Great sound quality, & the transparency/noise cancelling works okay, only minor issue is some noises produce an uncomfortable static. For example when I am opening my front door, the rattling keys causes a terrible static. Rarely an issue, but it’s there.
The main problem with ear buds is the constant disconnecting. Once or twice every ten minutes or so they will stutter, stop playing for 2-3 seconds, then resume. This has happened since I opened the box. It isn’t product breaking, but for the price I’d expect better. Solid 4/5
1) For wireless buds, these sound really quite good, and don’t seem so suffer the fate of bluetooth compression as much as buds like the Galaxy Buds do.
2) They look awesome, and so does the case
3) Battery is pretty good and I am yet to go flat during the day.
4) Fairly comfortable to wear, but I do wish they had a smaller set of tips for the buds.
But. Theres a few… issues with them. Ranging from annoying to serious flaws that can leave me put off using them.
1) The noise cancellation is nortorious for turning its self off.
2) The touch controls are god awful and way too sensitive, even just adjusting the fitting can make them pause your music, skip songs or turn noise canelling off (bring back buttons.) It gets so annoying that it often leaves me just putting them away and not bothering with them.
3) The buds often just pause my music for no reason or cut out for a few second, desipite me not touching them. However this happens rare enough for me to just.. deal with it. Its not common at all.
So.. overall. Sound great, fit great, look geeat, battery is great and the noise cancelling when it works is pretty great. But the little technical issues can make them a bit of a pain to use at times. So… I do recommend them but, only if your temper isn’t short when it comes to the touch controls and bugs.
The sound quality is great and almost competes with headphones way more expensive than these, although the mixer options on the app don’t add a great deal of control and I usually just stick to the balanced mode.
My only reason for 4 stars rather than 5 is the connectivity issues people seem to mention. Sometimes the sound will drop out for a few seconds. I’ve updated to the latest firmware, but this hasn’t completely resolved the issue. Hoping that this can be solved with further updates though.
As soon as they arrived on my doorstep, I was impressed by the packaging. The box and the overall brand is plastered with a very unique visual style, very clean and minimal, something you’d expect from a much more established brand. Clearly a lot of work has gone into this brand identity.
The unboxing experience was very pleasant, everything was packaged very cleanly, with minimal text or unnecessary extras. The box contains; the earphones nested within their charging case with pre-applied medium size ear-tips, some minimal paperwork – printed atop some very nice quality black card, a small cardboard insert containing some additional silicon ear-tips (Small and Large) and a very nice quality USB-C to USB-A cable.
Upon taking the earphones out of the packaging, I was shocked with how nice the charging case feels in the hand. The photos make it look like thin clear plastic, but it’s surprisingly substantial and very nice quality. It has some weight to it, although is on the bigger side where charging cases are concerned. It still fits just fine into a pocket. The earphones themselves also feel extremely well-built and click perfectly into the charging case with no force. The hinge is very solid with no wobble and shuts with a satisfying ‘click’. I have rather small ear canals and found the small tips fit perfectly into my ears. I can swing my head as hard as I like with no risk of them falling out.
So… How do they sound?
Simply put? I was blown away. In many cases, better than my old trusty XM4’s at less than half the price. I primarily listen to metal, classical a bit of rap and podcasts, but found they are extremely well-balanced for all genres. The bass is solid, but the accuracy of the mids and highs is what struck me. They are considerably better than my Sony’s. They sound every bit as good, and better in some ways. Ear fatigue was non-existent even after an extended listening session. While I absolutely do own IEMs that sound better, they are significantly more expensive (250 – 300) and I would argue that these wireless earphones beat just about anything in their price range.
Overall the Nothing Ear (1) is a fantastic product. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a great listening experience without breaking the bank. You can not do better in this price range, and they have the build / sound quality of much more established, expensive brands.
ANR: It does a great job but don’t expect 100% noise cancellation, it’s an 80 pair of airbuds. (Sony’s flagship ANR buds are +250..). That being said, taking a flight with these changed my initial opinion drastically. It does an amazing job with constant buzzing sounds, to the point I don’t think I’ll be able to fly or take a train again without these. I fly at least 3-4 times a year so a massive game changer for me.
Battery: They charge super fast! If I take a 4:20h flight they last with ANR on around 3h30, probably more without it. Then I just put them on the case 5-10 min and can use them the rest of the flight. I think for most users this should be more than ok.
Connectivity: Instant pairing, that says it all. The only thing missing is multidevice support (having it connected to two devices simultaneously). That’s a bummer for me but I knew that when I bought them. It doesn’t automatically forget devices when you pair them to a new one though, so you don’t need to set them up everytime. They just can’t connect at the same time.
I have to note something here though. The airbuds turn on/connect the moment you open the case, not when you pull them out. It’s happened to me a few times that I pulled them out too quick (before the green light of the case turns on) and I’d be left with one of the airbuds unpaired. It takes half a second for the light to turn on, so not a big a deal at all, just be aware.
Sound: I’ve used Sony earphones in the same price range most of my life and I found these quite comparable in sound quality. So perfect:). Volume-wise, like most earphones nowadays, I depends on the device. I’ve had no issue at all with my Pixel phone and MacBook air, they are pretty loud. I had on my old android tablet, but if you physically turn the volume on sliding your finger on the airbud it overrides the volume output of your device (that’s the common solution for low volume on most airbuds with physical volume control btw).
All in all I don’t regret the purchase at all and can’t wait for a second iteration with multi device support. Just by how often they’ve been updating these to refine the product gives me some faith.
Fast forward to May 2022 and I decided to give them another go since the firmware had been updated. Sorted! At least mine are. They had the same issues out of the box so my heart sank, but once I updated the firmware they have been faultless for a couple of weeks. I use them daily on multiple calls for work. In and out the box, connecting and then put away again. Perfect every time.
The reason for four stars is the ANC. Not as good as AirPod Pros. The best I’ve tried are Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pros and they don’t come close but I like the fit in my ear which is the main reason I’m pleased with these and the fact they have addressed the issues.
I’ll be keeping them this time.
I reviewed these on YouTube as part of a ‘best earbuds under $100’ video, and they performed really well. Since I bought them on here I decided to share with you all the review and also the clip from that video featuring the ear(1)s. So that’s what the video is and below is the written form of the review in case you’d rather read instead:
[Review below]:
What the tech world has reached a consensus on is the design, with many (including myself) calling these the best looking earbuds on the market. This transparent design looks awesome – the craftsmanship is second to none, and I personally love this minimal design that, as they say, highlights the beauty of tech.
It’s not just for the earbuds, but the charging case tooand I think these look especially good in this new black colour. You’re not gonna be mistaking this unique design for any other earbuds.
The touch controls here are great, they’re responsive and the contact area is surprisingly wide. They’re one of only a few earbuds to support a swipe gesture for volume – and this timeit actually works. I had close control over each volume increment, and the glossy outer surface meant I could swipe without knocking these from my ears (though this is still possible if you aren’t careful). These also have wearing detection and customisation in the app – so the controls are almost perfect. But customisation is limited and there’s sadly no single tap option.
Comfort is another thing they’ve nailed, I’m talkingforget you’re wearing them, kind of comfortable. They’re lightweight and form a gentle seal in the ear, so I can easily wear these all day. I can just about run with them as well, and they have IPX4 protection, but I wouldn’t trust them to stay in place for most other workouts.
The gentle seal means the passive noise isolation isn’t amazing, even with the larger eartips. However the active noise cancellation was surprisingly good. Obviously it’s not flagship level performance, but you can clearly hear the reduction in noise turning this on. The transparency mode though, is very good, clearly amplifying your surroundings. There’s still a bug here though where there’s a faint hiss that seems to fade in and out sometimes in transparency mode. Inaudible with music playing, but still a bug – so for all the firmware update improvements we’ve seen since their launch, that minor annoyance still exists.
The main improvements have been to connectivity, these are now very reliable, offer single earbud use, fast pairing and show no noticeable latency with videos. There is a dedicated low-latency mode here as well, which gamers may be interested in, but otherwise it’s not really necessary. On one day I did have one earbud randomly disconnect – but a quick power off and on with the case seemed to fix it. So maybe not 100% of the issues are fixed, but on the wholemy experience has been pretty consistent.
Battery life is a big weakness though, you only get 5 hours on a single charge with up to 34 in the case. They do support wireless charging though, which is nice, and actually these are the only earbuds in this video to offer ANC, transparency, wearing detection and wireless charging – so these actually have the most complete feature set.
The mic quality was really decent as well. My voice sounded really clear and the earbuds isolate my voice well from the background noise – so phone call performance was very good.
As for the audio qualityit’s good, better than I expected actually. These have good clarity, are well-detailed and are leaning slightly towards a bright sound signature. The bass is tight and punchy, but I’m sure some will find this lacking. EQ options unfortunately are very limited – you’ve only got these 4 options. There’s a distinct difference with each mode, but I’d love to be able to customise this myself.
The overall sound quality should be good enough to please most – but some of our other entries like Lypertek and Sennheiser’s are a step up.
Having tested these throughly myself, I can understand why the initial reviews were so underwhelming. As the flagship killing phenomenon these earbuds were touted to be, sure, they leave a lot to be desired. But as a $99 pair of earbuds, as they should be viewed, they’re actually exceptional value for money. I was left genuinely shocked by just how good these turned out to be for the price.
Noise cancelling – Overall a fair experince. Perfectly cancels continuous sounds and works well in a car or beside a fan. However, in an environment with many sudden loud noises, such as a bus with vibrations or walking down a windy street the noise cancelling will turn off for a short peroid, i assume in an effort to not damage user hearing by outputting a loud sound. Its annoying, and you can’t turn it off, but it is a very specific scenario where this happens.
Sound- Great clarity at low and medium volumes, and the volume at which sound begins to distort is painfuk to listen to, so there is no worry about distortion. Voices are clear with crisp bass and treble, and there is 4 built-in EQ profiles in the app. However there is no custom EQ settings. The microhpone is good and about what you expect from a high-end pair of in ear headphones.
Comfort- I personally usually ahve problems with in-ear headphones slipping out, but this is not the case with thse. I use the pre-installed medium tips, and they fit perfeclty and i can do exercise and extreme head movements with them not moving at all.
User interaction- The intuitive slide up or down for volume control works amazing, and the touch bars overall almost always detect the action i am doing, with no ghost presses or anything else. Furthermore, over my 5 months of use they have never died. I use them every day for around 3 hours, and charge the case once a week, and they are perfect. The case charges from near dea to full in under an hour too.
These are really good headphones for the money. Really good. They sound amazing, fit in my ear easily and the battery life is good (not amazing).
But the problem is they feel like a beta product. Occasionally…. note, occasionally, they may lose connection to my OnePlus phone or not connect properly when removed from the case.
Another thing I dislike if the fact you can’t buy a replacement case. If anything was to happen to my case, such as it being lost, I’d have to buy another pair. Not an issue with standard wired Bluetooth headphones.
Apart from that, great product.
Update: May 2022.
I still love them, but still feels like a beta product.
For the money, the sound is very, very good. I love the design, though wish the black version was released along with the white version. I would have gone for that, though that is.a personal design choice.
The issue I have is that it when I remove both buds from the case, there is a 50/50 chance both will understand they have been removed from the cade. This lead me to have to put the one that is not responding back in the case and remove it again in the hope it understands I want it to be active.
As a company that is trying to establish itself in the market, I want it to do it’s best. I’m excited for it’s upcoming phone, but for the fact I can’t rely on it to work on time, every time, is making me feel that I should go for more established brands (a la Google Pixel Bud and a Pixel Phone).
I would say, yes, these are great headphones, but it still feels like a beta.
Update: October 2022
Still having connection issues to my devices. If I touch the headphones even slightly in a WhatsApp call they hang up. No software updates in a good few months. Long and short of it, I wish I went for the Pixel Buds A series.
I think most people will be purchasing these as an intro to ANC, and I think it does an ok job at that but you need to set your expectations correctly. The Nothings do a good job at knocking down the sounds around you by a few notches, which depending on the scenario could be plenty for what you want or disappointing. I find that car sounds in particular are not filtered well by the noise cancelling, although I wonder if this is a product of the relatively poor passive noise cancelling. The plus side of this is that the ambient sound passthrough is very good, I would say it’s the best out of the 3 buds in terms of how natural conversations feel when you have the buds in.
In particular regarding these being an intro to ANC, the pressure they exert with ANC on is quite strong compared to the XM4s and can take a little bit of getting used to so 1) take it easy on first try by not having ANC on for too long and switching to ambient or no noise cancelling before taking them out, and 2) if the pressure is still too much don’t be too discouraged from buying other higher end or next gen ANC earbuds.
Sound quality is better than the buds+, which were already fairly good, but it’s clearly held back by the bluetooth codec used and it would be much better if they supported up to date aptx codecs or LDAC. It’s not as good as the XM4s (as expected) but unless you’re used to high quality headphones you probably won’t notice much difference.
In terms of comfort they’re very comfortable in most circumstances. I wouldn’t wear them to bed because the stalk gets in the way, but otherwise the fit and light weight compared to other earbuds means you barely notice the feeling of them being in your ear once you’re used to them.
The control scheme is very intuitive compared to other buds. Often you need to choose between being able to control volume on the buds and doing something else, but the swipe control along the stem means that isn’t an issue on the Nothings. They don’t have a voice assistance control so if that is something you want then you will need to choose another earbud.
Battery life is alright for most purposes, you can’t get away with falling asleep with them in like other buds but they should last you through a day of work if you use your lunch break to put them back in the case.
Overall I think these are really good earbuds for the price point but you should be aware that you are making sacrifices somewhere. They’re more akin to buying a mid range phone than a flagship killer.
I used to used the Galaxy buds Pro which were good, but due to the design they would never stay in my ears. I then moved to the cheaper Ticpods ANC which were EXTREMELY good for the price, but not the best ANC experience I’ve ever had – the fit was decent too. I then moved onto the Pixel Buds (Gen 2) which I loved, however they didn’t have any ANC whatsoever.
Now I’ve seen these Ear(1) earphones around the Internet for a bit and they’ve been surrounded by hype as they were made made by one of the ex Co founders of Oneplus.
Hype is very dangerous around New products… – do these live up to the hype?!
UNBOXING & Presentation:
Phenomenal, really adds to they hype of the product. Easily able to gift this to someone. You can easily tell that this is a premium product. The transparent design is very classy and it feels somewhat retro as well as brand new. The design is almost like its a product in beta or testing – deffo for a tech enthusiast.
Build quality and feel:
PREMIUM AF! Lol literally some of the most premium earphones I’ve held. They don’t feel too heavy or cumbersome. The hinge on the case feels extremely sturdy and makes a satisfying clap when closed.
CONNECTION:
I opened the earphones case and a prompt to connect came up automatically on phone to connect. Boom. That was it it. It said it was downloading an app – which I couldn’t find on my phone. So I went to the Google play store and manually downloaded the nothing Ear App. The app automatically recognised the earphones.
APP:
Quite decent actually – very simple.
Has a section for sound where you can adjust the ANC or EQ profile and also a section for touch where you can adjust what touch shortcuts you have by tapping the Earbuds.
Active Noise Cancellation:
Wow. Just wow. It’s cringe to say this – but I think it’s the best ANC on a wireless pair of Earbuds I’ve ever tested. Hands down. On the highest mode of ANC. These literally block out alot!
SOUND:
now the sound is very decent – it’s comparable with the pixel buds and the galaxy buds Pro for sure. The rubber tip helps to lock the bass in too.
Haven’t had them long enough to discuss battery yet but my phone is still telling me the earphones have 100% battery. They have wireless charging too which really kool.
Honestly… Its been 48 hours for me so far… But I think these are KEEPERS FOR SURE!
The mids are crisp and clear (probably more than even the airpods pro). The low end had a presence although it wasn’t too overpowering in the normal setting. After the ‘more bass’ mode was selected, the bass was perfect for rap songs. They just hit differently. The only slight issue I had with the sound was with the higher range. At maximum volume, the higher range felt like it was a bit soft. Overall, the sound performed brilliantly across a wide range of genres. In my opinion, these earphones are slightly better in terms of mids than the airpods pro and nearly as good as the depth of the galaxy buds pro.
Touching on the other features, the touch sensitive stalk of the earphone was good and on par with the original airpods in terms of sensitivity. The noise cancelling was good and I couldn’t hear people speak around a meter away from me. All background noises were pretty much non existent too. I haven’t gotten a chance to review the battery life but in the short time that I used the earbuds, the charge went from 100% to around 98%. So not too bad I guess. The app of the earbuds are very easy to use and setup was simple. Comfort was also good and I was perfectly happy with the medium sized eartips. They did not fall out during walking or jumping.
Just one more thing regarding the whole pre-order situation. I set in a pre-order on the 14th of September (when the re-stock came) and amazon said I should get them by the 24th. On the 19th, I saw an alert saying that it would be delivered on the 20th. And that’s it, it was delivered in less than a week. I’ve just heard from a lot of people that ordered around a month ago and still haven’t got it. I just wanted you to know of my situation.
Overall, I am very, very impressed with these pair of earbuds. At 99 these are hard to beat.
Thanks or taking the time to read my review. this is all my honest opinion and yh, I’m just happy I made the purchase.