Nothing Ear (1)
Nothing to write home about
The noise cancellation left a lot to be desired, and we could hear every clickclack of our keyboard
£99 FROM Nothing, nothing.tech FEATURES Bluetooth 5.2, Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling, touch controls, up to 34 hours battery life (headphones and case, ANC off), wireless charging car (QI wireless charging compatible), USB-C port, splashproof to IPX4, needs iOS 11 or later
The Nothing Ear (1) burst onto the market after months of hype as the first true wireless earbuds from OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company (with backing from iPod creator Tony Fadell). What’s more they’ve been pitted as a more affordable rival for the Apple AirPods Pro.
Sadly, the Ear (1) haven’t quite lived up to the hype. While they boast a transparent design that shows off the inner workings of the earbuds and charging case, Nothing hasn’t taken the concept far enough for the wireless earbuds to really make an aesthetic impact.
However, these earbuds are immensely comfortable to wear, and their touch controls are reliable and responsive. But when it comes to audio performance, we found the buds to be tinny and quiet – although we appreciated the detail in the higher frequencies.
The noise cancellation leaves a lot to be desired, too. With the Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) on its highest setting and our music playing at full volume, we were still able to hold a conversation with someone in the same room, and we could hear every click-clack of our laptop’s keyboard.
Power up
The battery life is pretty good. You get about 34 hours in total with ANC switched off (24 hours with ANC on) and you can easily see how much battery you have left via the accompanying app. The app also lets you toggle through the noise-cancellation modes and equaliser presets, and assign the touch controls to different actions. Plus, you can also use it to ‘ring’ your earbuds if you’ve lost them, as well as download firmware updates.
The Connectivity with these earbuds could be better. While the earbuds come with Bluetooth 5.2 support, we encountered lots of issues with pairing and experienced some (infrequent but annoying) bouts of dropout.
Control-wise the earbuds’ stems are touch sensitive, allowing you to access music playback and settings without digging out your phone. It’s a double tap to play/pause, a triple tap to go to the next track, tap and hold to switch between the noise-cancellation modes, and you can slide your finger up or down the stem to adjust the volume of your content, too. Saying that, executing this action was a little fiddly, and it sometimes felt like it would make the earbuds fall out. But overall the controls worked well, and were responsive – and there’s also an auto-pause feature, so taking out your earbuds will stop your music automatically.
The charging case is square and flat, with a flip-top design that closes with a satisfying snap. It’s much larger than the Apple AirPods case, but the top come with a handy indent to fit your thumb into. Each earbud slot features a dot (red or silver) that corresponds to the dots on the back of each earbud’s stem, while on the side of the case is a pairing button and a USB-C charging slot.
While comfortable to wear, and with excellent battery life too, we do wish these Nothing Ear (1) were something greater – but then we all know it’s true that you can’t create something from nothing…
Olivia Tambini