CMF Buds Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds, 42dB Noise Cancelling Earbuds, Dirac HD Audio, 35.5H Playtime, BT5.3, IP54 Waterproof, 4HD Mics Wireless Headphones for iPhone & Android (Dark Grey)

I find myself saying this in every review on audio products, but here it is again. I'm a full time DJ, who produces and consumes a lot of music on the side. Big audiophile. I had the Sony Wh-1000xm3s the first year they were available. They broke. Bought the Nothing Ear 1s to replace them. Crapped out within a month. OK, I need wireless, preferably with ANC, and now after shredding my wallet with the top of the market I thought I'd give a really cheap option a try. If they break, whatever, it's 40 bucks.Pros: they sound really good. I tried them across a whole bunch of genres, from tech house to 60s Stones. They overcompensate on the bass a lot, but that's common with cheaper headphones, make it feel like more is there. However, I compared them with my brother's AirPod Pros and they sounded extremely similar in the high end. A very good overall sound. Another pro is that they use the same awesome app from Nothing. Very intuitive, some great presets. Touch controls and transparency mode is something I had to pay like $400 for 4+ years ago. Seeing that kind of engineering in a pair of $40 buds is beyond impressive. They're made out of plastic, so they feel fine in your ears for extended periods of time. They look great as well, which doesn't hurt. BATTERY LIFE! I haven't charged the case since I bought them less than a week ago and the case is still at 70%Cons: DON'T DROP THEM. I haven't, but I feel like if I did they'd shatter. The charging case feels like 10 times cheaper than the Ear 1s did. I feel like they included a lanyard ring for a reason.All in all, hope they hold up better than Nothing's flagship did, because I really like them. They sound good, they're cheap, comfy and have great battery life. If you're considering I'd say send it! Only 40 bucks, audio has come a LONG way.*edit 6 months later* Earbuds still work as well as when I bought them. No issues I felt with the Nothing Ear 1s, they sound fine and the NC is great. At some point I'm probably gonna upgrade to Sony's earbud or headset line but these have been beyond fantastic budget options. 5/5 for sure, durability, sound and quality. They do it all. Highly recommend.

I ordered these on a complete whim when saw the price was under $30; I had wanted to try “Nothing” Brand for a while now and this seemed like a good entry point.I was excepting $30 earbuds, but if all Nothing Brand products operate like these do, I would easily had paid $100+ for these.Firstly, I have used them almost every day for a week, and have not had to charge the case yet. In fact, the buds themselves are still at full (I haven’t set up the app yet, so not sure about the case itself).The case isn’t just some cheaply made product and neither are the buds. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to break them, but again, shocked at the appeared quality for dollar here. With that, the sound quality is easily comparable to my $200 Sony Headphones, while the Bluetooth connection is easily the fastest and easiest I’ve ever experienced.It’s not heavy in your pocket, while being slightly larger than an AirPods case, it really doesn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. I know there is an app for extra features and such, but I have not used it yet so I cannot speak to its functionality, but it’s really just a happy added bonus.I have used them every day of the work week for a few hours at a time, and a little less on the weekend. It charges via USB-C, but haven’t had to yet! The buds report as full on my phone. I’ve probably had the volume about half most of the time.AND THEY STAY IN MY EARS!!! NEVER BEFORE!!!!!!!!!TLDR;I am beyond impressed with the quality of these earbuds. They actually stay in my ears, have excellent sound quality, have their own app, and the fact that they are under $100 is beyond a steal!

TL;DR: Decent earphones for the price, but not good enough to be a versatile daily driver.I bought this as a spare throwaway set for the gym, because I’m scared of damaging my very expensive Airpods Pro 2 set. I’m using these with my iPhone, and I downloaded the Nothing X app to get full functionality of what is advertised, and I was a bit surprised.Out of the box, the audio curves are very bass heavy. I’m sure most people will love the sound on these, but audiophiles will not have as good of a time using these. I’m more in the middle, I enjoy music with bass but even I know what’s intended to be punchy by the music artist and what’s not. Even with bass turned all the way down in the app, it still feels a bit punchy, but I don’t mind too much. The clarity is good enough, but I wouldn’t use these if you plan on gaming (I’ll explain more in the issues with these earbuds). Noise cancellation is pretty good, almost as close as the Airpods, but for the price it’s really good.The battery life is pretty good, they last just about, if not longer, than my Airpods Pro 2.The case charges them pretty quickly, and the magnets that hold the earbuds are really strong, so there’s no way they can fall out of the case accidentally. However, and this is mainly a preference, while the case ergonomics are fine, I do wish they went with a design that was easily openable with one hand. The Airpods are easily accessible with one hand, but with the CMF Buds case, I have to use both hands to open it. Nothing completely debilitating, but I just happened to notice it a lot more when I go to reach for my earbuds and my other hand is occupied.The volume control can be configured in the app, you can actually ‘rebind’ each of the controls to different tap actions that you can set per earbud, which is a really nice feature, with some caveats.Ok so let’s get to the issues.You cannot bind some controls to other tap actions, like the play/pause control for example. These controls are sectioned off by the different tap actions (Tap & Hold, Double Tap, Triple Tap, etc) and you are limited to what controls are listed under each action. So if I wanted to bind Volume Control to Tap & Hold, I can’t because it’s reserved for Double Tap & Hold only. This makes the control configuration not as free-form as I would’ve liked, but this is an issue that I think is personal to me, so maybe you won’t mind.Now, the app. The app is good, and the first couple weeks into using these earbuds it was working perfectly fine. A weird issue I had with the app was that it wouldn’t detect the earbuds and in order to get the app working again I had to uninstall and reinstall it. It hasn’t happened again, so hopefully that’s just a fluke, but something to mention nonetheless.Okay now the sound clarity, these earbuds don’t get as loud as the airpods, probably for good reason, but I like having my music just a little bit louder than what is the max volume on the CMF Buds, which is around 80% of Airpods max volume. Also, when you pair the CMF Buds to a computer, the audio quality is good when you’re just watching videos or listening to music or in a Discord/Zoom call. However, if you try to play a game or something, the quality just dips significantly. I have no idea what causes it, but in Helldivers 2, it makes it sound like the audio is coming out of a gramaphone or something. So, I wouldn’t really recommend it for gaming. Probably wouldn’t recommend it for video editing either, because of how bass heavy it is even on the lowest level.So, in the end, I’ll keep these for the intended use-case I bought them for, which is as a pair of earbuds to take to the gym, but if you were expecting more out of these, you should look elsewhere.