If you're in the market for a pair of wireless earbuds and you're keen to spend as little as possible, the Sony WF-C500 would be an undeniably superb pick. The Award-winners are down from £55 to just £38 at Amazon if you get the best price possible, and that's close to the lowest we've ever seen. Tempted? You should be.
Hold your horses, though. While we're very keen indeed on the C500, they're not the cheapest five-star earbuds you can buy this Prime Day. The original EarFun Air have plummeted to £26 at Amazon, a drop of around 50 per cent from their original £50 asking price. They're not quite in the Sony buds' league, but as an even more affordable alternative, we certainly wouldn't steer you clear.
Best Sony WF-C500 and EarFun Air deals
In terms of pure sound-per-pound quality, the Sony WF-C500 are still the wireless earbuds to beat at this level. Originally priced at £89 before dropping to around the £50 mark and then falling again to £38 for Prime Day, they've collapsed in price to become arguably the best-value buds on the market (apart from the Sony WF-C700N, perhaps). The EarFun Air, meanwhile, started life at just £55, but they've dropped to £26, undercutting the Sonys and giving you a bit of a headache if you're after the best deal possible.
So which should you go for? Sonically, it's a relatively close-run thing, but we're keener on the depth and musicality of the Award-winning WF-C500 than we are on the pep and spark of the EarFun Air. The latter are fun and genuinely spirited (they're still five-star picks), but it's the overall sonic breadth and dimensionality of the Sony that gives them the edge.
Both pairs are nicely made, with the Air buds opting for a surprisingly classy long stem design in contrast with the handsome bean form of the WF-C500. The Air offer an outstanding waterproof rating of IPX7, so they can be submerged in water up to a depth of one metre for up to 30 minutes. The C500, meanwhile, only offer an acceptable IPX4 certificate.
In terms of features, it's a similarly close-run thing. You'll get 20 hours of total playtime from the Sony Award-winners but a whopping 35 hours total from the EarFuns, with both pairs offering touch controls, voice calls and bespoke app support. You do get Sony's proprietary DSEE sound upscaling engine with the C500, and even 360 spatial Reality Audio if you go for the established Award-winners, two winning features the cheaper rivals can't quite match.
You might expect us, then, to recommend the Sonys over the EarFuns, but it isn't quite as simple as that. The Sonys are objectively better and still grant you more value for money considering how significant their overall discount is, but for the lowest price possible, the Earfun Air are bargain belters. Five-star wireless earbuds at just over £20 are very, very thin on the ground, so if you're looking to get the lowest price possible from a product we'd still recommend, they'd be the ones to pick.
Check out the Sony WF-C500 at Amazon and the EarFun Air, also at Amazon UK.
MORE:
Read our Sony WF-C500 review and Earfun Air review
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