It’s been a busy 12 months for Nothing. After debuting its Ear 1 wi-fi headphones final 12 months, it adopted up with its first smartphone, the Phone 1, daring to compete in an enviornment that’s really shed some extra established opponents. Now, it’s tackling wi-fi buds once more with the $99 Ear Stick. It’s not a terrific identify, but it surely’s a minimum of descriptive. Instead of the slim, squarish case of the Ear 1, Nothing has pulled inspiration from beauty product design, making a charging case for the buds impressed by tubes of lipstick. It’s not the primary set of wi-fi headphones to characteristic a twisting cylinder, but it surely ensures the Ear Stick received’t be confused with rival earbuds.

At $99, the Ear Stick in all fairness priced however lacks a few of the vital options of Nothing’s first wi-fi buds – most crucially, lively noise cancellation (ANC). There are loads of enhancements right here, although, particularly regarding connectivity.

The {hardware}

It’s laborious to cease twisting and pawing on the Ear Stick’s eye-catching case. The micro-dotted floor of the charger, uncovered when the buds are locked in and charging, feels good. At the highest of the charger, there’s a USB-C charging port and a chrome button for pairing the buds to gadgets. Given the shape issue, there’s no wi-fi charging this time round, but it surely additionally ensures the Ear Stick is cheaper to make. (As it’s, Nothing lately raised the value on its Ear One buds.) There is a sliver of house on the case, although, so pocket lint can simply get trapped and rolled into the crevice, which is annoying. Judging by my different clear devices, this would possibly solely worsen.

The Ear Stick buds themselves proceed that Nothing design language, with clear casing across the ideas and a dot-matrix font labeling every stem. There’s a purple dot on the proper bud to assist customers guarantee they go in the proper ears. However, in comparison with the Ear 1, they don’t have silicone ideas, so that they relaxation loosely contained in the ear. This implies that, no matter any noise cancellation know-how, an excellent quantity of noise will seep in.

Nothing says the buds went by means of over 200 rounds of modifications, and I feel it was price it: They’re snug. Weighing in at 4.4 grams (0.15 ounces) every, they’re additionally lighter than the Ear 1 buds. I do know that many individuals (and a number of other Engadget editors) choose this type of looser match, as AirPods Pro, Galaxy Buds and plenty of others put a little bit an excessive amount of strain on their ear canals. The Ear Stick is geared toward these folks – however are there sufficient of them?

In noisy environments – say, when touring on public transport or figuring out – I’m pressured to crank the quantity as much as max to compete with all of the ambient noise. That mentioned, they’re snug and, for buds with out detachable ideas, cosy sufficient to not worry dropping them when on the transfer. I nonetheless wasn’t utterly comfortable working or leaping in them, however they didn’t fall out throughout common use.

I haven’t extensively examined the battery life but, however Nothing’s seven-hour ranking appears roughly correct. Expect to get 29 hours of complete playback with the case, which is nearly per week of intermittent listening for me. There’s a fast-charge operate that may juice the buds with two hours of playback with solely 10 minutes of cost time, which has already been handy throughout lengthy journeys throughout London, the place I’m primarily based.

Nothing additionally made a brand new custom-designed dynamic driver on this era of buds. The firm claims it’s probably the most delicate one discovered on wi-fi buds out there, and whereas I can’t vouch for that, I did discover that the Ear Stick performs greatest after I’m listening to spoken phrase or on cellphone calls; they’re notably clearer and crisper sounding than the Ear 1. Additionally, Nothing says it’s packed in a Bass Lock characteristic that tries to gauge sound leaking from the half-open design, however I battle to listen to it make sufficient for all the sound loss.

However, there’s not a lot Nothing can do with a half-ear design like this to keep up bass ranges compared to the competitors. There’s a tinniness to music and sounds that I don’t assume any algorithm can repair, given the half-open bud design.

The software program

You can ameliorate this a little bit with the customizable equalizer from the companion app, and should you’re already a Nothing Phone 1 consumer, you’ll get helpful shortcuts from the Android drop-down menu. It’s a pleasant contact, matching the slickness you get when utilizing Samsung buds with a Galaxy cellphone, and many others.

Nothing has additionally addressed a few of the connectivity points that marred the Ear 1. It’s moved the antenna additional down the buds, which it says minimizes sign blockage. In use, the Ear Stick connects and pairs extra persistently than Nothing’s different headphones. They’re much less more likely to drop connection after I transfer round my condominium and get farther away from my cellphone. The Stick can also be a lot much less fussy about pairing with telephones, laptops and different gadgets. While I used to be initially impressed with the Ear 1, its inconsistency pairing to iPhones, laptops and even Android telephones meant I finally modified again to my AirPods Pro. Nothing has fortuitously realized that lesson with its second pair of wi-fi buds.

I’d fortunately take the audio and sign enhancements of the Stick, however sadly, I’m simply not as enamored with the Ear Stick as I used to be with the Ear 1. I want my noise cancellation and silicone ideas. However, I’m trying ahead to Ear 2, or no matter Nothing decides to name its third try, when it hopefully combines the most effective of each buds.