When the Nothing Ear 1 launched last year, there was a lot of excitement and hype surrounding the first (monster) true wireless earbuds from OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company. Nothing, led by OnePlus’ Carl Pei, launched the Ear 1 earbuds with much fanfare and hype. The company’s marketing campaign focused on it’s partnership with Teenage Engineering and the product’s transparent design, but how do they sound? I’m here to tell you that they’re pretty darn good.
We should mention that we tested the original white model of the Nothing Ear 1 for almost a month and the special black edition for about two weeks. This review is a summary of the time we spent with both models, as the features and functions are identical. We also tested a total of four different pairs of the Nothing Ear 1. The first two, tested by Cameron Summerson, were flawed. The two units we tested with the latest firmware worked almost flawlessly.
The Nothing ear (1) Truly Wireless are the first headphones from this company. They have a sleek and eye-catching design and come with active noise cancellation and a companion app. They have a relatively neutral sound profile out of the box, which you can adjust to your taste with one of the four EQ presets. The headphones have a comfortable and well-made design that is IPX4 certified, making them splash-proof. However, the continuous battery life of about five hours is not enough to last long days in the office without recharging.
Design
The Nothing Ear (1) is really uniquely designed. If you want headphones that look different than the rest, these are for you. Both the earbuds and the battery charger case are almost completely see-through. The only parts you can’t see through are the body of the earbuds and the bottom of the charging case. It’s possible to see some of the inner workings like the circuit boards and magnets involved and it looks pretty cool. If you want to learn more about how your earbuds work, this is a pretty fun way.
They are also comfortable with a choice of three silicone tips to help with this. Each earbud stem is touch-sensitive with the usual multitude of controls to adjust here. In addition to the standard options, it is possible to customize the settings via the Nothing Ear app. Voice assistant support can also be set up there. The charging case is the less stylish part of the package. Its flip-top design is satisfyingly snappy, but the case itself is much larger than the competition. It doesn’t easily fit in your pocket.
Comfort
The Nothing ear (1) have a comfortable fit, they don’t sit low and don’t put pressure on your ear. Overall, they are lightweight and come with three different sized ear tips to help you find the best fit. Comfort refers to how comfortable and comfortable headphones are to wear for long periods of time. There are different types of headphones: over-ears and on-ears have frames that sit on top of the head and earcups that rest around or on top of the ears, while earbuds and in-ears insert at different depths into the ear and sometimes have Neck strap to keep them in place.
Regardless of the type, comfortable headphones should not cause stress, fatigue or pain even after prolonged wear. Comfort is subjective and tends to vary between individuals; However, there are certain design elements that most people pay attention to. Weight, padding, headband tension, and bezel thickness all affect the comfort of on-ear or over-ear headphones, especially during long listening sessions.
Connectivity
The Nothing Ear 1 has good Bluetooth connectivity. Unfortunately, they don’t support cross-device or NFC pairing. In their default mode, they also have high latency on PCs and iOS and Android devices, which is annoying if you enjoy streaming videos. However, if you use the “Low Latency” mode, the PC latency (SBC) drops to 134ms, iOS to 75ms and Android to 106ms, which is much better.
However, the actual feel may differ because some apps and devices compensate for latency differently. You really can’t use wireless wired headphones. A USB-A to USB-C charging cable is included to fill up the carrying case. These headphones come with a carrying case that can be charged approximately 4 additional times. It has a USB-C port for charging the case and supports wireless charging.
Noise Cancelling
The earphones have a pleasant, everyday sound full of energy. It’s fairly well-rounded with good highs and highs, while the bass is deep and well-controlled. Most genres of music sound good but can struggle a bit with separation on really complex tracks and can be a bit shrill with over-emphasized highs at times. They will not bother the best in the business, but the Ear 1s are comfortable to listen to and sound good for the money.
They also have active noise cancellation, which was able to reduce rumble and low-pitched sounds when set to the maximum, but struggled to cut out higher-pitched sounds and voices. They could reduce road noise but aren’t as effective as slightly more expensive competitors. They also have a fairly natural-sounding Ambient Awareness mode that was good enough for holding conversations or listening for traffic.
Audio Performance
The Ear 1s support Bluetooth 5.2. As for codecs, Android users should note that there is no support for aptX and LDAC, so they have to rely on the inferior SBC codec for transmission. AAC codec is supported, so Apple users can have peace of mind. Unfortunately, there is no support for multipoint connections. Pairing is very quick and the connection is very stable and I’ve noticed almost no random dropouts during my time with it. However, I did notice that the range was a bit worse than other earbuds we have experienced. Latency can also be an issue at times.
This is not a problem, nor is it noticeable when listening to music, but it can be distracting when watching videos as the audio is out of sync with what you’re seeing on the screen. Fortunately, this issue appears to have been resolved with a recent firmware fix. Inside the Ear 1 are fairly large 11.6mm dynamic drivers with graphene diaphragms. Graphene is a popular material because of its rigidity. Chambers in the buds are used to shape the frequency response, which Nothing says was tuned by Teenage Engineering, a Swedish consumer electronics company known for its OP-1 synthesizer.
Call Performance
Another category where the Nothing Ear (1) buds outperform the AirPods Pro is call quality. Not once did we have to go through the tedious routine of switching to my phone’s earpiece. The three mics did a great job isolating my voice both indoors and out. In addition, the use of Bluetooth 5.2 ensures a strong connection. We didn’t experience a single drop out even when testing it up to 30 meters away from my phone.
Battery and Charging
The Nothing ear (1) have a rated battery life of 4 hours with the ANC enabled and 5.7 hours with the ANC disabled. In our testing, we managed about 3.8 hours with the ANC enabled, which is within testing variance with the claimed figure. However, the ANC-off figure wasn’t that close, as I could just about manage about 5.1 hours in our testing. The ANC-on figure is right on the cusp of what is acceptable for a TWS. Most people don’t listen continuously for upwards of four hours and if they aren’t listening to them then that means they are inside the case charging.
So for most practical use-case scenarios, the continuous battery life with the ANC enabled is acceptable. We did have higher expectations from the ANC-off figure, however. A boost of about an hour or so feels quite tame compared to what we usually find on other wireless ANC products. It also fell quite a bit short of the claimed figure. Regardless, it’s still acceptable if a bit underwhelming. Nothing also claims that a 10 minute charge inside the case will allow the earbuds to play for 50 minutes with the ANC enabled and 1.2 hours with the ANC disabled.
Final Words
The Nothing Ear 1 wireless earphones are the first product from Nothing, a new company founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei. With investments from GV, Tony Fadell and influential developers like Casey Neistat, Nothing strives to create an entire family of products that follow the design ethos that debuted with the Nothing Ear 1. Transparency is key: the Nothing Ear 1s have a see-through “stalk” that lets you view their internal components, and the unconventional charging case has a transparent lid to keep the buds in view at all times.
