Looking to upgrade your wireless earbuds without reaching deep into your wallet? Our favorite earbuds for most people, the Nothing Ear (a) (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are currently marked down to just $79 when you buy them from Nothing directly. They may be cheap when it comes to dollars spent, but they have it where it counts, with great audio quality, an excellent feature set, and awesome battery life.
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Photograph: Parker Hall
While the first-party offerings from both Apple and Google make for compelling options, the Nothing Ear (a) are great for both sides of the aisle. They feature painless pairing with either iOS or Android devices and have great touch controls for managing your music or volume. They’re also among the best for battery life, especially for the price, reaching 5.5 hours of play time even with noise-canceling.
The sound quality is really impressive, with custom-made 11-mm drivers that have a sound profile our reviewer described as “crip, clear, and dynamic,” so they’re perfect for listening to more open and delicate music. Jazz, classical, and acoustic songs all shine on the Nothing Ear (a), but you can use them for pop and rock and be just as happy.
They also feature impressive noise-canceling tech, with a full 45 decibels of sound reduction, which is great if you often find yourself trying to catch up on your podcasts on a busy subway. Our reviewer even appreciated them for traveling, noting that they do a good job of reducing the hum of an airplane engine.
There’s a slightly more expensive option as well, the Nothing Ear, which is currently on sale for just $99 and adds wireless charging to the case, plus a ceramic driver. That may sound appealing, but in practice, WIRED writer Parker Hall didn’t necessarily note a huge difference in performance, and the battery life is a little bit worse as a result, so we think the Nothing Ear (a) are a better value.
For under $100, the Nothing Ear (a) provide a remarkable amount of value, with great audio quality for music, excellent noise-canceling, and a platform-agnostic outlook that’s sure to appeal to anyone with lots of different devices. They easily compete with wireless earbuds at twice the price, earning them the top spot on our favorite wireless earbuds roundup.
