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Nothing Ear and Ear (a) review: Enjoyable listening experience
Summary
While the Nothing Ear (a) does well on app features and battery life, the Nothing Ear TWS earbuds offer a balanced sound signature. Which one should you pick?For all the noise around its whiz-bang smartphones, most would remember that Carl Pei’s Nothing started off as an audio brand, delivering a unique design aesthetic and sound for not a lot of money. The latest Nothing Ear and Ear (a) arrive as successors to the Ear (2) and the Ear (Stick). Confusing, I know.
My gripes with Nothing switching up the nomenclature when previous models were versioned Ear (1) and Ear (2) aside, the Nothing Ear (2024 release) is their flagship offering, while the ‘a’ buds follow the designation Nothing uses on its budget offerings, and are more mainstream and pocket friendly.
Without a doubt, both are mature products befitting a company that has learnt and refined its products over the years. Here’s a closer look at the two TWS earbuds.
Is the Nothing Ear (a) the right fit for you?
The Nothing Ear (a) (priced at ₹7,999) has likely caught your attention on one of two counts – getting what looks almost like a Nothing flagship earbud, signature transparent aesthetic and all, or for a very welcome injection of that striking mustard yellow color to the otherwise monochrome lineup.
The Ear (a) arrives in this smaller, more pocketable charging case with a transparent, clear plastic lid and a bright yellow base that resembles either a mini meal box or a washbasin. The case charges over USB-C, skipping the wireless charging and the higher dust/water resistance of the flagship Ear case. Both the Nothing Ear/Ear(a) buds are IP54 rated against sweat and light rain.
The Ear (a) buds also retain the familiar oval bud shape with the transparent stems that show off the rather pretty insides. The fit and finish are good, although I worry about the long-term scuff marks that the plastic case is likely to pick up.
The stalks have the same squeeze controls for playback, volume and noise cancelling as the previous models, and sit rather comfortably in the ear for their entire 5+ hours of playback with active noise cancellation (ANC) on (the case adds another 3-4 charges, more if you turn ANC off).
One minor but nice attention to detail - the stems on the right and left buds are helpfully labeled with red and white dots, which correspond to dots on the case so that you can place them back into the case in a hurry without having to figure out which one goes where.
Despite its ‘a’ designation, Nothing didn’t scrimp on the features, with Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, SBC, AAC and LDAC audio codec support, in ear-detection, low-latency gaming mode and dual-device pairing, plus ChatGPT integration if you have it connected to a Nothing phone – the very same feature set as the new Ear buds.
Also read: How Nothing CEO Carl Pei is breaking barriers
As an Ear (Stick) successor, you’d almost immediately notice the better noise isolation and deeper bass response simply on account of the shift to a sealed in-ear design. The 11 mm dynamic drivers pump out nicely layered and balanced sound with the right amount of sub-bass and acoustics thrown in, if you keep the equalizer set to the default balanced setting.
The soundstage is sizable and airy, which came as a bit of surprise for a pair of buds at this price. You can dial in more or less of a bass response (More Bass), as well as tweak the mids and highs to taste (More Treble or Voice), but the Ear (a) lacks the typical multi-band graphic equalizer you get with the pricier Ear within the same app – a clear case of Nothing drawing the line to differentiate between the two pairs of buds.
Noise cancellation again is good for the price, though I didn’t think much of modes other than the High (Mid, Low and Adaptive) since it was the most effective in cutting out outside sounds, traffic and the hum of an engine in flight. The Transparency mode sounds quite natural and useful when you want to stay aware of your surroundings without removing the buds.
Now, while it is the cheaper of the two newly launched buds, the ₹7,999 price point isn’t altogether cheap, and the likes of the OnePlus Buds 3 ( ₹4,999) or the Oppo Enco Air 3 Pro ( ₹4,199) offer a lot at a lot less. Leave the fun, yellow design aside for a moment, which I’ll admit is a big draw for the Ear (a).
While the Ear (a) does really well on app features, battery life and active noise cancellation, you’re going to have to overlook the solid (and arguably better) audio quality and the significant difference in pricing among its competition if you decide to choose the Nothing Ear (a). Nothing did run a limited ₹5,999 pricing on the Ear (a), but at its regular pricing, it’s a tougher sell.
Nothing Ear: How does the flagship perform?
Which brings us to the flagship Nothing Ear, which is a dead ringer for its predecessor, the Nothing Ear (2). They’re the tiniest bit larger and heavier at 4.62g (versus 4.5g), but you really can’t tell them apart unless you’re holding both generations at the same time. I wish the dash of color that the Ear (a) enjoyed had been extended to the Ear for 2024 too.
Everything else, from the Type-C charging and wireless charging support, pinch controls on the stems, stays the same as the Ear (2), as does the chunky but very on-brand charging case.
Clearly, it’s what’s inside that counts, with Nothing changing to marginally smaller 11mm driver (from 11.6mm on the Ear (2), but one with a new ceramic diaphragm for increased airflow in each bud and to aid overall clarity. It’s worth noting that the Ear (a) uses a similarly sized driver with comparatively cheaper materials.
With added support for high-res LHDC 5.0, the Ear buds do that little bit extra sonically to somewhat justify the premium tag and the considerably higher pricing over the Ear (a), adding a bit more definition in the low end and slightly brighter vocals.
On its own, the new Nothing Ear buds present an enjoyable listening experience – the sound signature is balanced, with the ability to deliver big on the bass without overpowering the mids and highs. Vocals are well rendered, and acoustic music sessions are a joy to listen to on these buds -- very much a case of “as the artist intended".
The big difference, which I referred to earlier, is the ability to have a slider based advanced equalizer, as opposed to the simplistic Bass/Treble/Voice settings on the Ear (a). This really is intended for the tweakers and advanced users, who enjoy personalizing the sound of the Ear to their very unique preferences via sliders for different frequencies and save them to profiles – maybe one for watching YouTube shows and another for listening to specific genres of music, and yet another for movies.
It makes a very discernible difference to how much more you can appreciate music you love. Like your profile so much you’d want to share it with other Nothing Ear users? The app allows you to share profiles with others and import theirs.
As with the Ear (a), active noise cancellation is good, with the new Smart ANC algorithm aggressively compensating for any noise leakage in your ear canal with boosted noise cancellation.
Battery life is noticeably improved over the Ear (2), up from four hours on noise cancellation to a little past 5 hours on ANC, and the case adds about 4 charges. Across both the Ear and the Ear (a), you continue to get fast charging, with a 10-minute charge adding 10 hours of use
In making all of these improvements across the board, Nothing has hiked the price of the Nothing Ear to ₹11,999, and while the default audio profile of a competitor like the Oppo Enco X2 ( ₹10,999) might be slightly ahead, Nothing runs away with the lead with the amount of advanced equalizer personalization possible within the app. Not to forget, the better ANC, battery life and that still fresh design go a long way in making the Nothing Ear stand out.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, and posts @2shar.
