When a company releases a new 'Pro' version of What Hi-Fi? Award-winning budget true wireless earbuds, we take notice. That's why we're telling you that the EarFun Air – currently our favourite cheap wireless headphones – now have 'Pro'-suffixed siblings with noise-cancelling.
Although there's a passing family resemblance, the actual design of the new EarFun Air Pro buds looks slightly altered from the images we're presented with. They still share the same toothbrush-head design, but to our eyes the Air Pros actually resemble the Libratone Track Air+ more closely than their EarFun Air namesakes.
A quick glance at the spec-sheet reveals several changes, too, the most notable of which is of course the inclusion of active noise-cancelling.
There's no Qi wireless charging support and you only get IPX5 water resistance (versus IPX7 in the originals), but the prize catch here is EarFun's "QuietSmart Hybrid" noise-cancelling technology. There's also a transparency mode to actively filter in external noise whenever you need to briefly hear your surroundings.
The EarFun Air Pro buds still support Bluetooth 5.0 and USB-C quick-charge, but the 10mm composite dynamic driver in each earpiece is a big switch up from the 6mm composite cellulose driver found in each EarFun Air driver housing. There's an extra mic in each earpiece, too, bringing the total to six (rather than four), and in-ear detection is now infrared, not capacitive – i.e. handled via an LED rather than an electrical charge.
Battery life is a claimed 32 hours – nine from the buds themselves, plus 23 hours from the charging case – which is comparable to the 35 hours from the EarFun Air, although it's unclear whether these figures were clocked with ANC deployed or not.
And the price? They are available now at Amazon, priced at £70 ($80, AU$80).
We have yet to test this new Pro model from the little-know Hong Kong audio brand, but considering the strength of the plucky originals, we can't help but be intrigued. Watch this space.
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