ALL EYES ON EAR
NOTHING UPS BID TO DISRUPT THE DOMINANCE OF SAMSUNG AND APPLE WITH NEW EARBUDS
IT CAN be hard for even the feistiest of start-ups to get a foothold in a market as mature as smartphones and earbuds. But Nothing is certainly making as decent a fist of it as anyone possibly could.
If you’ve got an iPhone, what buds are you going to get? AirPods of course. And it’s difficult to look beyond the Galaxy Buds if you have the Samsung Galaxy S24.
You shouldn’t limit yourself to taking the easy option, though. Especially when there are alternatives like the all-new new Nothing Ear and Ear (a) out there here begging to be given a chance.
Of course, they can’t match the Apple and Samsung ung offerings for total compatibility ibility and features, but they y are not really trying to.
You could argue ue that features like headtracking and spatial patial audio are nice to have rather than essensentials, and that’s probrobably why neither er of
Nothing’s new buds offer those features.
I’ve had them on the go for over a week of testing now, and I can reassure potential buyers that they can challenge the big boys when it comes to the most important feature – how they sound.
These devices are the fourth and fifth earbuds Nothing has out there (they’re only on their third smartphone, so earbuds are something of a focus, it would se seem). And of course, they work best with Nothing’s own phones. But the they’re also a great-value v option to look at for owners ow of any device. Android or iOS.
Ear is more mor or less an upgra upgraded version of the Ear Ea (2) buds that came out last year. You’d have to stare pretty long and hard at the actual buds to tell them apart – to my aging eyes, they look more or less identical.
The case is a little smaller, but still offers wireless charging – and battery life is pretty decent with around 10 hours playback with the charging case.
But the real update is in the buds themselves – Nothing says it’s developed an allnew ceramic diaphragm for the audio drivers, which makes for solid bass and crisper highs. I’m no audiophile, but I know when something sounds good and these sound incredible.
Ear is not all Nothing has to offer that’s new – there’s a cheaper set of earbuds on the go, too – the Ear (a).
These have a more conventional audio system but still sound decent to my ears. The case doesn’t have wireless charging, either, but adopts a fun new rectangular profile.
There’s ground broken even with the Ear (a), though – it is the first product Nothing has made that comes in a colour that isn’t black or white, and I’m betting the playful yellow on offer, along with the usual monochrome options will be a big hit.
Both sets of buds offer great noise cancellation, which is adaptive to the environment, and they both are set up using the fabulous Nothing X app, which offers all-kinds of customisation of sound, including the noise cancellation controls (which can also be accessed by squeezing the buds’ stems in various combinations), and the equalisation, letting you tweak things to perfection.
It’s here also, that Nothing plays something of a trump card and offers a first of a kind – you can opt, if you have the Nothing Phone (2) and have its app installed, to use ChatGTP as the earbuds’ voice assistant instead of the Android standard Google Assistant.
ChatGTP’s usefulness is variable to say the least, but someone’s got to jump in first, and using a large language model AI system for this kind of interaction with tech seems a perfect fit to me. It’ll only get more useful as time goes on.
ChatGTP integration is coming to Nothing’s other smartphones, too, later this month.
So there we have it – two great sets of earbuds with some great features and the essentials covered – the price is pretty astonishing too. The Ear will set you back £149 with the Ear (a) coming in at £99.
A bargain, I’d say – they sound great, they’re a lot cheaper than most of the comparable competition, and they look very cool.
Find out more at nothing.tech