2020 was probably the year of the TWS earbuds. Almost every known smartphone manufacturer released at least one TWS earbuds this year, be it Samsung, Huawei, OPPO, or even OnePlus. And as usual, we got a bunch of premium earbuds from dedicated audio brands too like the new Sennheiser Momentum 2 and the Bose QuietComfort TWS. Overall, we were spoiled for choices in 2020 which made it harder to compile a list of the Best TWS Earbuds released in 2020.

But what you see below are the ones we think stood out for their sound quality and value for money.

Best TWS Earbuds of 2020

Best Value (Android): Samsung Galaxy Buds+

If you are looking for the best non-ANC TWS earbuds with good connectivity, excellent sound quality, comfortable fit, and a good looking design, the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ fits the bill. These AKG tuned earbuds come with a new dual-driver system for clear audio reproduction. Despite its compact form factor, the Buds+ also boasts of excellent call quality, thanks to the three microphones, of which two are situated outside.

But the biggest selling point of the Buds+ is its exceptional battery life. You get over 11 hours of music playback on these earbuds, which is way above average for a pair of TWS earbuds. It doesn’t support the aptX codec but comes with support for Samsung’s proprietary Scalable codec.

The Galaxy Buds+ are usually available for sale for under $110 (under Rs. 9000 in India) which is a steal for the sound quality and features it offers. There are a bunch of color options available too.

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Best Value ANC TWS Earbuds (Android): Huawei Freebuds Pro

If ANC is important to you, Huawei’s TWS earbuds — the Huawei Freebuds Pro offers excellent ANC and sound quality. The earbuds stands out from the crowd which is filled with AirPods Pro’s lookalikes. The shiny Silver Frost color option is particularly unique.

The Freebuds Pro comes with 11mm drivers with excellent ANC and balanced sound quality. In fact, in our review, we found out that it was one of the best sounding earbuds in its price segment. The Huawei earbuds also offer a comfortable fit and a good microphone setup for voice calls.

The battery life with ANC is average at around 4 hours but you should get way more (around 7 hours) without ANC turned on. Also, the provided case will add 15 hours more to your listening time.

The Huawei Freebuds Pro is often cheaper than its launch price and currently can be bought for around £128.35 (around $180) making it a solid ANC TWS option at this price.

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Honorable Mention:

The Jabra Elite Active 75t is also a decent option with ANC around this price tag especially if you want something for workouts that has good sound quality with ANC noise isolation.

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Best Unique Earbuds: Galaxy Buds Live

Most 2020 earbuds either come with a compact Galaxy Buds-like design or Apple Airpods Pro-like design with a stem. But what if you want something that’s so uniquely designed that people will have a hard time realizing you are actually wearing a pair of TWS earbuds?

The Buds Live comes in a shiny metallic finish in a bunch of fancy colors like Blue, Red, and Bronze. It’s an open-ear TWS earbud (usually rare in this product category) which can be its plus point as I personally know some users who hate the traditional in-ear design. It sounds pretty good even though the design doesn’t guarantee good isolation and what’s more, Samsung has also added ANC which works to a pretty decent extent.

Other highlight features of the Buds Live include good and comfortable fit, Qi Wireless Charging, 6 hours of battery life, and a pretty decent set of microphones for voice calls.

The Galaxy Buds Live like the Buds+ can be usually found at discounted prices for under $150.

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Best Overall: Sennheiser Momentum 2

The Sennheiser Momentum TWS 2 is the Best TWS earbuds in the market right now. Building upon the pros of the first-generation model, the new TWS earbuds comes with a fancy fabric covered case, best in class sound quality, and excellent ANC to offer the best TWS earbuds experience in 2020.

The Momentum TWS 2 has a very comfortable fit, comes with aptX support, and is rated IPX4. You get these features at a premium though as it’s very expensive. However, you’ll often find a few dollars off on these, so make sure to keep an eye out for good deals if you are out to get a pair.

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Alternative:

BOSE QuietComfort TWS

Bose’s first pair of noise-canceling earbuds deserves more than an honorable mention. The Bose QuietComfort TWS is often touted as the Best ANC earbuds in the market right now. It has a fancier bulkier design than the Sennheiser pair and sounds exceptional. The only major con is its average battery life and a chunky companion charging case.

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Best Budget TWS: OPPO Enco W11

Budget TWS earbuds are a hard sell mainly because you’ll often get better sound quality on non-TWS models. However, if you want the convenience and comfort of TWS earbuds at an extremely budget price, then you probably are looking for the OPPO Enco W11. Two of our writers on GizmoChina already have a pair of these earbuds and considering its pricing of under Rs. 2000 ($30), they sound pretty balanced with stable connectivity.

The OPPO Enco W11 triumphs the Realme and Redmi options in the budget TWS category by offering good mid-tones, sufficient bass, and a comfortable fit.

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Honorable Mentions:

If you can’t get hold of the OPPO W11, you can also check out the Earfun Free TWS which offers a wireless charging case, good sound quality in its price segment, a comfortable fit and retails for under $35.

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Or if you have a slightly higher budget, you can go for the OPPO Enco W51 which comes with a premium stem design, has a good and balanced sound quality, decent ANC, and a good microphone system.

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OnePlus Buds Z is another great value for money TWS earbuds in its price segment. It’s extremely comfortable to wear all day long, has good sound quality even if it’s a bit bass-heavy, and if you have a OnePlus smartphone, then it’s a solid option under $50.

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Best Open-Ear Type Earbuds: Apple AirPods

As I mentioned above, some users don’t like the in-ear fit of most TWS earbuds in the market and this category is specifically for them. While non-in-ear earbuds don’t sound as great as in-ear ones (thanks to the lack of effective noise isolation), there are still decent options available in the market, with the Apple AirPods being one of the best among them.

If you have an iPhone, there’s no doubt that the new AirPods will be the best companion for your phone with stable connectivity and decent sound quality.

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But if you are on Android and don’t have a large budget, you have decent open-ear TWS options in the market like the OnePlus Buds (not the Z). While the sound quality is not out of the ordinary, it offers pretty decent bass and mid-tones for its design type, and are way cheaper than the AirPods.

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So these were our picks for our Best TWS earbuds in 2020. Which is your favorite TWS earbuds from this year?

The post Best TWS Earbuds of 2020: Samsung, OPPO, Huawei, Sennheiser & More appeared first on Gizmochina.

In the past few weeks, we’ve introduced you all to the Huawei Freebuds Pro (review here) and the Xiaomi Air 2 Pro (review here). They are the latest wireless earbuds with active noise cancelation from two of the top smartphone brands in the world. Today, we’ll pit the popular ANC earbuds in the market against each other including big names like the Huawei Freebuds Pro vs Airpods Pro vs Xiaomi Air 2 Pro.

But recently, we received quite a lot of messages from our viewers asking which one among them was the best choice. So we realized it was necessary to make a special video comparing these popular ANC earbuds to help you to find the best one suitable for you.

To make things interesting, we will introduce you to a new earbuds option in this comparison, which was released just recently — the OPPO ENCO X. The OPPO earbuds is quite popular in China at the moment and is also priced similar to the other earbuds in the comparison. And to add a reference point, we will also bring the good old AirPods Pro. So we have shortlisted four earbuds – Huawei Freebuds Pro, Xiaomi Air 2 Pro, OPPO ENCO X, and finally the AirPods Pro. We’ll go through these four wireless earbuds and do a quick comparison of their strengths and drawbacks. I hope you’ll finally be able to make a decision on the best-suited earbuds for you after seeing this video. 

Given that we haven’t reviewed the OPPO ENCO X on Gizmochina before, let me introduce you to the earbuds first. Instead of the active noise cancellation, the biggest selling point of the OPPO Enco X is the audio quality. OPPO has claimed that the sound tuning work was done in cooperation with Dynaudio. So we are actually pretty excited to check out its sound performance. And it also supports Bluetooth 5.2 connection, which also allows it to connect to two devices at the same time. 

Xiaomi Air 2 Pro vs Huawei Freebuds Pro vs OPPO Enco X vs Airpods Pro: Design

Well, let’s check out their designs first. To be honest, personally, I will pick the Xiaomi Air 2 Pro because of its unique design. The designs of the Enco X and the Freebuds Pro are influenced by the AirPods Pro to some extent. But don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean that the design of the other three earbuds isn’t good enough. On the contrary, we have to admit that so far, the AirPods Pro has designed one of the best TWS earbuds shape for active noise cancellation and great wearing comfort. Although the Xiaomi Air 2 Pro’s design distinguishes itself from the others, the bigger size of the earbuds and the case is really not good for convenience. The size limits the items you can keep in your pocket. We found you could only fit one phone in your pocket at max since the case took up additional space. 

And talking about the wearing comfort, there’s no doubt that the AirPods Pro has a great fit for different shapes of ears. And the wearing experience of the Freebuds Pro and the Enco X was pretty close to what we have with the AirPods Pro. Notably, Xiaomi’s Air 2 Pro has no advantage in this department. You may experience some discomfort when listening to the Air 2 Pro for a long time. 

So if you want the best wearing comfort, the AirPods Pro would be the best choice. But if you don’t want to spend a lot, the Freebuds Pro and Enco X should also be good enough for you in terms of wearing comfort. 

Xiaomi Air 2 Pro vs Huawei Freebuds Pro vs OPPO Enco X vs Airpods Pro: Performance

Talking about their noise cancelation performance, we have to admit that the AirPods Pro still is the best Active Noise-canceling wireless earbuds in the market, especially because of its excellent low-frequency noise control. And surprisingly, Enco X also did well at controlling low frequency noise, though it was not as impressive as what we had on the AirPods Pro. However, compared to the Huawei Freebuds Pro, OPPO’s high-frequency noise canceling work loses the advantage. As for the Air 2 Pro, as mentioned in our review last week, it’s no match for the others in terms of ANC. This isn’t really surprising given its price. 

Editor’s Pick: Xiaomi Air 2 Pro ANC Review: Excellent Battery Life but Average Noise Cancelation

For sound quality, we have to acknowledge that this is going to be very subjective. While we’ve done quite a lot of research, our subjective listening still may have a bias in a comparison featuring earbuds from 4 different brands. 

First, let’s see what kind of Bluetooth codec support they have. The AirPods Pro and the Freebuds pro support SBC and AAC codec, while the Enco X and the Air 2 Pro support SBC and LHDC codec. Theoretically, the LHDC codec is a better codec to deliver higher sound quality for wireless earphones. But we found that the Freebuds Pro is the one that gave us the most exceptional listening experience. Although OPPO’s Enco X is claimed to be tuned by Dynaudio and Xiaomi has emphasized that they are going to release a firmware update for better sound quality on the Air 2 Pro, right now their audio quality is still not as good as the Freebuds Pro. But to be honest, the gap between the Enco X and the Freebuds Pro is not so obvious: the Enco X is a bit too prominent at high frequencies, which may not be preferred by some users, while the Freebuds Pro is pretty balanced in presenting a wide range of frequencies. So does the AirPods Pro. Its sound quality is pretty balanced. As for the Air 2 Pro, so far we can only put it at the bottom of this list. Honestly, we don’t understand why this product was released without complete software optimization, so the earbuds don’t match up to our expectations. 

And now let’s move to the other special features. Except for the Air 2 Pro, all the other three earbuds support the ear tip fit test. Only the Enco X supports customized shortcut mode on the connected phone and both, the Freebuds Pro and the Enco X support volume control on the buds. However, only the Freebuds Pro comes with a smart mode for the ANC, enabling different levels of noise-canceling effect. Enco X also features two levels of noise canceling. While for the AirPods Pro and the Air 2 Pro, there are only On and Off options for ANC. 

But NOTE that unlike the other three earbuds, the Air 2 Pro’s menu only supports the Chinese language. There is no other available language. Even for voice alerts, it’s all in Chinese!

Xiaomi Air 2 Pro vs Huawei Freebuds Pro vs OPPO Enco X vs Airpods Pro: Connectivity

All of them support Bluetooth 5.0 connection or above. Specifically, the Freebuds Pro and Enco X support Bluetooth 5.2 and this allows them to connect to two devices at the same time, regardless of operating systems or brands. 

But compared to the other three earbuds, the connection of the AirPods Pro is the most stable. Especially when connected to Apple devices, the stable signal and low latency perform well during gaming and video play, while for Android devices, the best option among these four is the Freebuds Pro. It could also deliver pretty low-latency and decent sound. No matter for gaming or video play, the sound delay was almost imperceptible. 

On the other hand, although both the Air 2 Pro and the Enco X claimed that they have optimized latency performance for gaming, they both encountered some issues when we tried to access their low-latency mode. For the Air 2 Pro, the latest firmware didn’t include the low-latency mode and all we can do right now is wait for updates. And for the Enco X, the sound delay was more obvious when we applied the LHDC codec. When we changed the Bluetooth codec to the SBC with lower sound quality, then the latency problem finally got fixed，which also enabled lag-free gaming. But it’s still no match to the performance of the Freebuds pro.

Xiaomi Air 2 Pro vs Huawei Freebuds Pro vs OPPO Enco X vs Airpods Pro: Battery Life

As for their battery life, the Air 2 Pro’s battery life was very surprising and exceeded our expectations. The other three were all able to last for around 5 hours under noise-canceling mode in a single charge, but the Air 2 Pro amazingly had 50% power left after 5-hours of usage, which is extremely impressive. 

So that’s what we have on these four popular noise-canceling wireless earbuds in the market right now. No doubt the AirPods Pro is still the best choice for Apple devices, while for Android or other platforms, we’d like to recommend the Freebuds Pro as our first choice. We think that Enco X is another good option thanks to its lower price. However, you really need to be careful with the Air 2 Pro. Although it has the most affordable price, the earbuds feels like a semi-finished product without good software optimization. And it only supports Chinese language. 

So that’s it for today. If you have anything to share about these earbuds, we look forward to hearing from you in the comments down below. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel. We spend a lot of time on these comparisons and your likes and feedback will keep us motivated to do more of these in the coming days. 

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The post Best ANC Earbuds Comparison: Xiaomi Air 2 Pro vs Huawei Freebuds Pro vs OPPO Enco X vs Airpods Pro appeared first on Gizmochina.