After using the Ear (2) for the last year and recently picking up the (Stick) so I can have different listening experiences, I was excited to buy the Ear 2024 as I had thought it would have been an update to everything I wasn’t happy with for ear (2). For the most part, I was right but there are crucial downgrades that makes this a hard recommend for upgrading. Highlights: improved sound quality, slight redesign to bud size (larger) makes these more comfortable, ANC is more consistent, battery life is longer. Negatives: BAD transparency mode, case quality decreased, bud build quality not as refined as Ear (2), case still bulky.
Design: Both the buds and the case look identical to Ear (2) but inherently there are differences. With the buds, the size increased slightly. While I was able to notice a big positive difference in fit, I think the .5mm difference will not be noticeable for a large crowd, with edge cases being the ones to notice it. I found my Ear (2) was just too small and wiggled around in my ear but with the 2024’s that no longer happens. I would only caution those that found Ear (2) to be too large to the point where they could only just fit in their ears to be weary of the size increase, otherwise fit should be mostly the same for those who have experienced Ear (2). The case dimensionally appears to be the exact same but it needs to be pointed out that the quality of finish is not there when comparing to Ear (2)'s case. There are a lot of rough edges on the transparent plastic, most evident is the dimple, where there is a tactile circle where the curve and flat section of the case meets. I’ve attached a photo for those curious. I wish the case was smaller but that will be saved for a future Ear model I presume. Other thing to note was there is a new seam on the bud where I didn’t find it on the Ear (2) before but this isn’t of concern, only note being the glue on my model isn’t as clean as my Ear (2).
Sound Quality: Perhaps the biggest surprise for me from upgrading from Ear (2). My only critique with the Ear (2) sound was that the upper mids and highs to me sounded a little digital, even with the advanced EQ. With Ear 2024, they got rid of that sound and are very pleasant sounding out of the box with the default tuning and bass boost off. They produce a good amount of detail I wasn’t expecting and sound even better with LDAC. I got into the advanced EQ and smoothed out the 7-13k range and now they sound perfect to me, by far my best sounding TWS earbuds. I usually dont turn on bass settings but I did turn on the bass boost to 3 and found it didn’t severely distort the sound so I left it on with my tuning.
ANC: ANC is interesting on these buds. My initial impression was that they didnt sound much better than Ear (2) but now consider it quite a noticeable difference. What makes this so much better now is the smart ANC where it measures noise passing through the ear canal and earbud and cancels that noise out as well. This is a gamechanger as in my experience, ANC buds are ineffective when your bud slightly moves and while this isn’t solved with Ear 2024, the ANC is a lot more consistent than any bud I’ve used. Apart from the more consistent sound reduction the other thing to note is that it is generally quieter, especially for objects like fans. Don’t expect total erasure of noise but rather expect a more consistent ANC on these buds.
Transparency: Transparency mode is AWFUL on these buds. One of the pain-points for Ear (2) was the bad transparency mode that made it hard to hear anything that wasn’t in front of you. These buds perform WORSE than Ear (2) and honestly is the worst pair of ANC buds I’ve tried (Ticpods ANC, Oneplus Buds Pro, Pixel Buds Pro, Ear (2)) with transparency mode from memory. Not only does it feel like a light ANC mode where you cannot hear your surroundings, good luck trying to talk with them on. It sounds like you are underwater with earplugs jammed into your ears and you can barely hear the person in front of you talking to you. Nothing should be embarrassed with this Transparency performance and they really need to push an update out for these buds to make it better. If you wonder why no reviewers talked about transparency mode, its because it was that bad. It makes me feel like Nothing enforced a “no talking about transparency mode in your review” message so it didn’t hurt the sales of the buds, whether that’s true or not IDK but its telling when they didn’t even advertise the feature themselves. If left unfixed, I would not recommend these buds to anyone who cares at all about transparency.
Battery Life: Battery life is an improvement when compared to Ear (2). I havent yet been able to kill them but based on trends it seams LDAC lasts as long as Ear (2), while AAC lasts longer. I didnt find the LDAC to be a big enough difference to sacrifice its battery life. I have yet to be in meetings with them but my battery anxiety isn’t an issue with normal usage. Interesting note, on my devices Ear (2) would only show increments of 10%, whereas Ear 2024 has increments of 5%.
Controls: Controls are unchanged from Ear (2), if you didnt have a problem with those you wont have a problem with these buds. I would like to be able to control all functions with 1 earbud, meaning play, pause, skip track, rewind track, volume up, volume down, ANC switch, and voice assistant. They can solve this on future buds by having a touchpad for volume (either like Ear (1) or Airpods Pro Gen 2), and keep the single squeeze, double squeeze, triple squeeze, hold, double squeeze and hold the same. To partially solve the problem on these buds, they can add a triple squeeze and hold for another control option (sqeeze>squeeze>hold).
Conclusion: Even with all of the positives of Ear 2024, I cannot recommend them until transparency mode is fixed. If an update is pushed out for transparency mode and it fixes the bad performance, jump on these as they will be the best allrounders for the price. Otherwise look elsewhere or wait for the next generation.
Edit: I got a replacement pair because of a screeching noise that developed quickly with ANC. Transparency update makes the transparency mode equal to Pixel Buds Pro based on first impressions. Good job Nothing!
