EarFun Air
In 2020, we have been impressed with a bunch of true wireless earbuds. Just when we thought the list of 2020 recommended wireless budget earbuds should come to a close, EarFun Air changed our mind, completely. The EarFun Air is the latest Earbuds product designed by EarFun HK. The company has brought quite a few budget audio products with impressive industrial design and high-quality sound.
Compared with other budget earbuds, the $59.99 EarFun Air offers a variety of improvements, from in-ear comfort design to a 4-way microphone for clear ambient-sound-canceling calls; from IPX7 waterproof to longer battery life.
Design
Whether you are a design enthusiast who’s interested in the good looking electronic products or an audiophile seeking convenient high-quality audio devices, the EarFun Air could probably catch your eyes in both aspects.
Comparing the EarFun Air with many well-known brands’ earbuds, the biggest highlight at first glance should be the industrial design. Many of these accessory-type earbuds present a highly recognizable identity to the brand but share poor design as an independent audio device. And design seems to be its specialty as the EarFun Air has won the IF Design Award 2020 and CES 2020 Innovation Award. Even as a common consumer, we also can feel the refinement in use.
EarFun Air’s in-ear design has the best fit that we’ve ever experienced. It’s comfortable and secure as we tried most ears in the office with 4 pairs of silicone tips in various sizes and did not hear any complaints about the fit.
However, when compared to other earbuds, the Air’s controls are much more complicated. But if you can get past the learning curve, the touch controls offer a wider range of hands-free audio controls. The round sensitive panels on both ears work as follows:
Playing music:
|
Play/Pause |
Tap twice (L/R) |
|
Next track |
Tap triple (R) |
|
Volume up |
Tap & hold (R) |
|
Volume down |
Tap & hold (L) |
Hands-free conversation:
| Answer/End a call | Tap twice (L/R) |
| Reject a call | Tap & hold for 2s (L/R) |
| Answer the second call and hold current call
Transfer two calls |
Tap triple (L/R) |
| Reject the second call | Tap & hold for 2s (L/R) |
Wake the Voice assistant (Phone):
| Voice assistant | Tap triple (L) |
So make sure that you could remember all the above so well if you are having a lot of calls. Otherwise, for music play, it’s much easier to just use the basic L/R bud controls.
The charging case is well-designed and it is not just shaped like a boring cube. Although it’s made of plastic, the smooth surface with a matte finish leads to a mismatch of elegant design and inexpensive pricing. Another surprise is that the case not only can be charged with the included USB-C cable but also supports wireless charging, which is really not a necessary feature for a pair of inexpensive earbuds. An LED on the front face roughly indicates the battery state in different colors: Green for a full charge, orange for halfway, red for empty.
Connection
The EarFun Air supports Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity (No AptX codecs). The connecting process is intuitive and simple for various devices. No matter you are going to use it for PC, Android, or iOS devices, the Air has stable signals with clear audio within around 15M distance. But in different uses, a slight latency (about 0.2s) sometimes could be perceived, which may lead to an uncomfortable feeling for someone who requires accurate Sound & Picture sync during gaming.
Performance
The Air’s sound quality and music performance are also not bad at all. Especially on the lows such as tracks with strong bass, the Air covered good bass depth, and presented a better feeling of its general sound signature, which emphasizes strong bass.
On tracks like songs, the Air delivered the singing part clearly and naturally without pushing instrumentation too far forward. However, the treble is still not as outstanding as the bass. At high-volume listening levels, the bass sometimes may run over the mids and highs but it’s still far away from being muffled.
IPX7 waterproof
Another highlight should be the excellent IPX7-rating waterproof. It means that the earbuds are able to work well with sweat, rain, and getting completely submerged under shallow water.
But pay attention here: the charging case, however, is not waterproof.
Battery and charge
There is a 55mAh battery in each earbud, which in daily use, could last for around 5-7 hours. Putting the Earbuds back to the charging case, a full-charge requires 1.5 hours. The 500mAh charging case is estimated to provide around 4 full-charges for the earbuds. so generally, if you prefer to use dual-buds at the same time, you can squeeze out a day’s usage.
The case can be fully charged with the USB-C cable in 2 hours, while it needs 4 hours if you charge it in a wireless way.
4-microphone Noise-canceling call
The 4-microphone offers great ambient sounds canceling when we have phone calls. Recording with the 4 microphones, it did sound much better than I’ve experienced on other budget earbuds. And I eventually got positive feedback from my call partner since he used to complain about the sound of my microphone. But it’s still not able to guarantee a perfect conversation quality because of poor phone or Bluetooth signals.
Conclusion
We’ve tested a lot of inexpensive earbuds and decided not to give full reviews for some of them. The reason is pretty simple: they did not bring a lot of value for their pricing. On the contrary, the reason that we admired EarFun Air is simple: the product value exceeds its price. Besides good sound quality and excellent waterproof, we are more impressed by its identifiable industrial design, which is really a rare attempt for budget earbuds.
BUY EarFun Air on Amazon
The EarFun Air regular price is $59.99, but there is a $10 coupon if you buy it from the official website.
