The Nothing Ear are actually the third-gen version of the company’s flagship earbuds line. If you're not up-to-date on your Nothing history, this should be enough to make you aware aware that Nothing cares, well, nothing about naming conventions. In many ways, the shiny new Nothing Ear are really great earbuds for the price and among my favorite of all the in-ears I’ve tested for TechRadar.
Having said that, I’d much rather be using whatever Nothing comes up with next than these new-for-2024 models. Might that be the Nothing Ear (4)? Who can say. For now, the Nothing Ear have a few glaring issues that – potentially ironed out in a future version – could be some of the best noise-cancelling earbuds out there.
My biggest issue with the Nothing Ear, something which plagued testing, was their surprisingly low maximum volume. When outdoors, the buds don’t reach even the quietest volume I like to listen to – even with decent noise cancellation, it was hard to enjoy music in noisy areas. Next up is the battery life.
Earbuds makers really need to understand that five hours of listening just doesn’t cut it in this day and age, when people spend more time with headphones on than off. I had to keep pausing my testing in order to let the buds charge – that isn’t a good sign, even if the case does hold quite a bit more juice. Talking of the case, it’s made of a really cheap-feeling plastic is a contender for the least-nice-to-hold earbuds holder I’ve ever used.
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