EarFun’s Air Pro 3 earbuds are surprisingly good for under $100

For the final couple weeks, I’ve been rocking out with EarFun’s Air Pro 3 earbuds. For the value, these earbuds are surprisingly good, providing good, if not the most effective, sound and stable noise cancellation. While not excellent, it’s exhausting to seek out fault with the Air Pro 3’s, particularly at their value of $89.99 in Canada.

Before we get into it, let’s take a fast take a look at the specs. The Air Pro 3 earbuds run on Qualcomm’s QCC3071 chipset, which suggests they assist Bluetooth 5.3 with Low Energy (LE) Audio, in addition to Qualcomm’s aptX adaptive audio codec.

Additionally, EarFun boasts its ‘QuietSmart 2.0 Hybrid’ energetic noise-cancelling (ANC) tech and ‘Ambient Sound’ modes for blocking out the sound round you, or letting it in whenever you want to concentrate on your environment.

The EarFun Air Pro 3 buds sport six microphones for improved voice pickup and to scale back background noise, 11mm drivers, and an IPX5 ranking, which suggests customers don’t want to fret about sweat or rain damaging the buds. On the battery facet, the buds boast as much as seven hours on a share with ANC turned on, or 9 hours with it off. The charging case expands listening time to 45 hours whole and gives each USB-C and wi-fi charging.

Good sound and a number of gadgets

Overall, I’d say the EarFun Air Pro 3s sound good, although not the most effective. Across quite a lot of genres from pop to punk to jazz to steel, I discovered my favorite songs sounded how I anticipated, however I discovered the buds’ bass a tad overbearing. Though in some songs, like Busty and the Bass’ wonderful ‘Baggy Eyed Dopeman,’ the additional bass solely served to raise the tune.

If you utilize the EarFun app, you may tune the earbuds by means of equalizer presets (or customized settings) when you’d somewhat in the reduction of the bass. Ultimately, I’d classify the sound high quality as “good enough” — as with most buds, if high quality is your greatest concern, earbuds gained’t minimize it for you.

On one other notice, I really actually appreciated how good some podcasts sound with these earbuds. I’ve been on an enormous podcast kick currently, however due to the ANC (which I talk about extra beneath) I used to be in a position to hearken to a few of my favorite reveals with out cranking the amount absurdly excessive simply to listen to over my environment.

Another factor that basically impressed me with the Air Pro 3 earbuds was the flexibility to connect with two gadgets on the identical time. While not precisely a brand new function, many different earbuds that enable this have some type of restriction, equivalent to Apple AirPods solely providing seamless connections to Apple gadgets.

I usually use my earbuds with my cellphone, however having the Air Pro 3 buds linked to my laptop computer on the identical time made it tremendous straightforward to swap between listening to music to hopping right into a digital assembly.

Speaking of conferences, the MobileSyrup crew was pleasantly shocked by how good I sounded when utilizing the earbuds in our distant conferences. Those six microphones had been positively placing in work.

ANC makes for a blissful commute, regardless of bugs

I, fortunately, waste considerably much less of my time commuting nowadays than earlier than the pandemic, however I nonetheless often take a GO prepare into the workplace. But due to the Air Pro 3 buds, it’s straightforward to neglect I’m sitting on a prepare.

While you might not contemplate the GO prepare significantly loud, when you’ve tried utilizing ANC-equipped earbuds, it’s stunning how a lot noise the trains make. The earbuds actually made the prepare experience considerably extra stress-free and as a lot as I just like the Surface Buds, I gained’t be dashing again to earbuds with out ANC any time quickly (not less than, not for utilizing on the prepare).

Of course, the ANC isn’t excellent. I discovered the Air Pro’s seal straightforward to interrupt, which considerably diminished the effectiveness of the ANC. Plus, with the AirPods-like stem design, the earbuds had been simpler to knock free. Moreover, whereas the Air Pro 3 buds are snug, I’ve grown accustomed to utilizing earbuds that don’t go into my ears and I discover it troublesome to put on the Air Pro 3 earbuds for lengthy stints for the reason that mixture of the stress on my ears and ANC makes them uncomfortable. If you’re used to earbuds of this model, it probably gained’t be an issue for you.

I additionally discovered that some sounds had been in a position to minimize by means of the Air Pro 3 ANC. Going again to the GO prepare instance, some trains with significantly high-pitched brake squeals appeared to mess with the ANC, inflicting a loud screech in my ears. For some purpose, bulletins on the GO prepare appeared to return by means of clearly as properly, which was particulalry complicated as a result of I typically can barely perceive the bulletins on once I’m not sporting earbuds.

All that’s with out utilizing the Ambient Sound mode to amplify sounds round me, which I usually averted utilizing as a result of I actually don’t desire having earbuds amp up incoming sound.

To be clear, the ANC glitches had been at most inconvenient after they occurred, and customarily weren’t dealbreakers for me.

Parting sound bites

Other than the odd ANC glitches and some different bugs I’ll point out subsequent, the Air Pro 3s had been fairly dependable. I didn’t run into any battery points and was in a position to squeeze out loads of listening time. Though my ears couldn’t tolerate seven hours of listening, I’m assured the buds would get near seven hours as marketed.

I additionally actually preferred that the charging case supplied wi-fi charging. That looks as if a standard function, however my daily-driver earbuds have been the Surface Earbuds for years, they usually don’t assist wi-fi charging.

The greatest reliability subject I encountered whereas testing the Air Pro 3 earbuds was someday the buds inexplicably forgot learn how to pair to my cellphone correctly. Only one of many two buds would pair once I took them out of the case. Ultimately I needed to neglect and restore the buds to my cellphone and I haven’t had a difficulty since.

Finally, the Air Pro 3 buds provide quite a lot of contact controls, although I may by no means hold monitor of which mixture of faucets and presses did what. Controls embrace adjusting quantity, toggling ANC, skipping tracks or going to the earlier monitor, play/pause, answering calls and extra. Unfortunately, the contact controls don’t work with gloves on and even with out gloves, I had a tough time discovering the small touch-sensitive circle when the buds had been in my ears.

All these items thought-about, for $89.99, I feel the EarFun Air Pro 3 buds provide wonderful worth. Solid sound, good noise cancellation, battery life, wonderful name high quality, all for lower than $100 is fairly nice. Comparable buds from huge tech corporations can value anyplace from $150 to over $300 with out providing considerably extra or higher capabilities.

The EarFun Air Pro 3 are accessible on Amazon.ca and from EarFun’s web site, although EarFun costs USD and delivery charges of $3-$10 USD.

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