It’s not hard to make a pair of wireless earbuds that work fine these days. The Shenzhen manufacturing lines have become so skilled at producing them that Chinese brands literally give them away as freebie gifts in so called “swag bags” at tech events, and one search on Amazon for wireless buds bring up hundreds, if not thousands, of results.
And so there’s something to be said when a pair of wireless earbuds still manage to stand out from the crowd.
I’ve been testing for the past week a pair of the Ear 2, from Nothing, the much-hyped startup from OnePlus cofounder Carl Pei, and its stylish design has piqued the interest of several friends and family members.
The Ear 2, as the name implies, is the second generation of the line, and it brings back mostly the same semi-transparent design language. I think it looks great, and it definitely attracts attention. But the case is smaller, the earbuds lighter, and yet, the earbuds have longer battery life and stronger active noise cancellation.
The earbuds are rated IP54 for water and dust resistance, and they pack new 11.6mm drives along with a trio of microphones in each bud. It supports LHDC and AAC codecs, which are the two most commonly used formats in digital music.
The audio is noticeably improved from the first generation—they sound fuller, livelier, with more crisp high end. The bass is still a bit overly strong as the first pair, but some people like that type of audio output.
I find the fit comfortable out of the box, but Nothing includes two other sizes eartips so you should be able to find one that fits.
The controls got a major revamp, with the touch panels moved to the front of the stems (like Apple’s AirPods Pro) and they offer solid haptic feedback when pressed. However, they do not support swipe controls (which the AirPods Pro do), so adjusting volume will require exchanging one of the existing controls for that ability.
The active noise cancellation (ANC) is better than the first generation, but still lag behind the AirPods Pro or Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2. However, Nothing’s $149 price tag is much lower than both of those earbuds. I think at this price range, the ANC can be considered very good. New this year is adaptive ANC, which means the earbuds’ brains will analyze ambient sound around you and adjust the level of noise cancelation as required.
Battery life has been bumped up to four hours of playtime on a single charge with ANC on, with the case adding another five and half charges. The entire package is easy to carry and lightweight (the case weighs 51g, each earbud 4.5g).
You can use the earbuds with any smart device via bluetooth, but Nothing has a companion app that you may want to consider downloading. It offers control customization, along with adjusting EQ to get an audio profile that suits your taste.
You can do all the usual earbud things with the Nothing Ear 2, like make phone calls (the other party said she heard me fine, though on windy days she said she heard a lot of wind noise). The buds can also trigger Google Assistant or Siri depending on your phone platform. The earbuds can be charged via USB-C or wirelessly.
Overall, there’s not much missing here, and the $149 price is fair. But ultimately, I think the selling point of the Nothing Ear 2 will be its looks, because as I said at the beginning, most earbuds sound pretty good, and most can connect well with your phone. Instead, the differentiating factor is how they look. And the Nothing Ear 2 look great.