New year, new tech gear. That's how that saying goes, right?
If you're looking to ring in 2023 with a new pair of headphones we're already testing out some new options for you. This time we're checking out the EarFun Air S wireless earbuds, a sleek set of truly wireless earbuds that offer all the usual features you're looking for; we've got noise canceling, sweat resistance, long battery life, and more.
But do they live up to the product description? Let's find out.
Simple design
EarFun takes a pretty simple approach to the design of the Air S earbuds. The earbuds themselves stick to a basic design with a comfortable tip and stem for microphone placement, and the case is easily pocket-sized without too many extra bells and whistles. Everything is a sleek black finish that blends in with whatever phone or fashion you're rocking, too.
The earbuds come with some extra sized tips in the box as well, so you can customize the fit to maximize bass response and noise canceling, and the case uses standard USB-C charging. What else would you expect these days?
However, the case isn't as small as some of the other compact earbuds we've seen. It's not the biggest, either, but it is a little larger than an AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds case. Shouldn't be a deal breaker for most people, but keep it in mind if you're short on pocket space.
Solid sound
At a relatively affordable $69, the EarFun Air S have some extra cushion to offer a better sound than your usual slate of $20 wireless earbuds, but still stay competitive and undercut other popular earbuds that tend to hit around the $99 price point.
Having that breathing room does allow for a better sounding set of headphones, too. The bass response and low end is surprisingly robust here, and I think it'd easily go head-to-head with ton of wireless earbuds 2 – 3x its price and come out on top. They're fairly bright headphones, though, with a very crisp treble and tons of top end.
The good news is that it delivers a great level of clarity, whether that's a YouTube video or vocals on a rock album. The smooth midrange keeps the overall sound signature from sounding too scooped as well, so you get a pretty balanced but pleasant sounding experience.
Just don't underestimate that bright sound profile for long listening sessions. With its default EQ I found that they could be fatiguing to listen to after a while, so I'd recommend setting the EQ in the app to roll back some treble and tweak things just a bit.
Finnicky connection
There's a lot of good stuff in what the Air S buds can do, but they're not perfect. You're getting a solid 30 hours of playback with the included case (drops to 25 with ANC) and that noise canceling is very good, between the actual canceling from the earbuds and the material of the well-fitting ear tips.
They can also be charged wirelessly, which is not common enough these days, and they'll quick charge your earbuds giving you about two hours of playback from just ten minutes sitting in the case.
But if you're a frequent exerciser and need something extra durable, the Air S headphones are only IPX5 certified, which isn't full waterproofing; they'll slack off some sweat and splashes, but you'll need to be careful about extended exposure, swimming, or bad weather. Beaches and sand should also probably force you to keep these in your bag.
I also had some weird issues getting these headphones connected. Once things were up and running I never had problems, but whatever configuration EarFun is doing to allow these to work independently can sometimes cause them to pair, well, independently; you'll only get playback from one or the other, but not both at the same time. I had to unpair and repair every so often to get this fixed, which wasn't a huge deal but was inconvenient enough to mention.
Worth it?
It's hard to not recommend a pair of headphones that deliver great sound quality and wireless charging for $69. Normally the more affordable earbuds we review make a few compromises to stick to a low price point, but EarFun seems to have found a sweet spot of getting in all the features they want to offer without driving the price tag up too far. I really like where they're at in relation to the competition.
They're not perfect, with finnicky connection problems and only IPX5 certification, but those feel like good trade-offs to make if the rest of the experience fits what you're looking for.
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