AceFast AceFit Pro: Two minute review

Having tested several of the best open-ear headphones now, I’ve been waiting for a really affordable pair of earbuds to shake up this burgeoning and relatively new audio market that's perhaps still looking for a reliable budget offering. So when I heard that AceFast had made some open-fit earbuds, I was ready to be excited – however, I was wrong to be.

AceFast isn’t a big player in the game yet, but I tested the AceFast T9 last year, and loved the funky look, low price and emphasis on usability. I was expecting the new AceFit Pro to replicate all three of these traits, then. Sadly, it only actually nails one.

Arguably, the one attribute it does nail is the most important check-box for open earbuds. These designs typically hover just over the ear canal instead of sitting in it, to ensure you can hear your surroundings while listening to music. And AceFast’s have a reliable, comfortable fit that doesn’t wobble in your ear or fall out without warning, issues other open-ears have certainly fallen foul of.

But AceFast drops the ball with the other two traits. The price is one, as not only are they not cheap earbuds, they’re actually more expensive than some impressive mid-range rivals from Honor and Huawei.

And then there’s the design, which initially began as my favorite thing about these earbuds. Not only do they come in a range of colors, all toting see-through cases with LED lights that you can customize the hue of, but they also boast battery displays. This lets you know the battery percentage left for the case, and how close to fully-charged the buds are. And I absolutely love it – it’s incredibly handy in planning your charging and knowing how much listening time you have left (that’s despite the battery life being pretty awful, all things considered).

Unfortunately, the AceFit Pro’s design is its biggest strength but also its biggest weakness, with a few sad and curious design choices. The sad one is that, like many other cheap earbuds, the case is unreliable – just two weeks into my testing, the right earbud developed a problem that meant the case didn’t always recognize its presence. It wouldn’t always charge when in the case, or turned on when removed, and though removing and reinserting the bud several times would generally resolve the issue, it’s not a good sign for the longevity of the AceFast AceFit Pro.

The ‘curious’ decision I spoke of was to put the charging port on the underside of the case. To power it up, you have to flip it on its back like a beached turtle.

Beyond that, the AceFast AceFit Pro don’t do that much to impress. They have a limited range of features (though they do have an equalizer at least, which you can’t say about all open-ears) and the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired.

Most of these issues could be hand-waved with the simple explanation that cheap earbuds aren’t perfect, and that’s what I did a lot of the time during my testing… but the inescapable fact is that the AceFast AceFit Pro aren’t actually that low-cost. They just have all the hallmarks of cheap earbuds – and all in all, that makes them hard to recommend.

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Specifications

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Price and availability

• Kickstarter campaign ran Jan-Feb 2025, now selling via Amazon
• Priced $159.99 (roughly £120, AU$250)
• Cheaper option is AceFit Pro at $79.99 / £79.99 (roughly AU$160)

The AceFast AceFit Pro were launched on Kickstarter, in a campaign which ran from mid-January to late-February 2025. Nowadays, though, you can buy them on Amazon, and I’m going to use this price as a guide instead of the Kickstarter fee, as it’s the only way for new buyers to pick up the buds.

At the time of writing, the AceFast AceFit Pro are on sale in the US and not the UK or Australia, though based on precedent (and the Pro's siblings, which we'll get to) I'd expect them to hit Amazon's UK site at some point soon.

You can pick the buds up for $159.99 (roughly £120, AU$250) so they’re mid-range open earbuds, in the rough price bracket that most rivals inhabit (although towards on the higher end of the spectrum than most contemporaries).

For some context, the also-open-ear AceFast AceFit Air sell for $79.99 / £79.99 (roughly AU$160) so those at least are affordable earbuds.

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Design

• Funky battery display and see-through parts
• Weird-placed charging port
• Earbud recognition/charging issues

It’s unusual to find much to say about the case of headphones; that’s never the case with AceFast products. The case – which you can pick up in white, pink, purple or green, as with the buds – is transparent, letting users pretend they’re putting on gadgets from the noughties instead of the twenties.

That’s not all, as the case also has a digital battery display that shows you the overall power of the case in a percentage, as well as the charge in each bud while they’re enclosed. This isn’t just a funky design element but a really useful way to know that your case is fully charged, to prevent overcharging, and to remind you when it needs charging too. I really appreciated this feature and it deserves being mentioned in the ‘Pros’ list of this review.

The feature came in handy when (and this is where things take a turn for the worse) it showed me that one of the buds wasn’t charging. The AceFit Pro buds weren’t always good at recognizing that they were in their charging case: they wouldn’t begin powering up when inserted, or automatically turn on when taken out, and I’d have to wiggle the buds or remove and re-insert them for it to work. I can’t say whether this was a problem with my review unit or a larger issue with the device but it’s not an uncommon headache among cheap earbuds (and in the case of these buds, it didn’t completely scupper the buds, which isn’t always true).

This feature is potentially disastrous, so if you’re confused why I’m not making a bigger deal about it than I am, it’s because the buds still worked, and because I can’t say with any certainty that it’s not just my review unit. It seems unlikely, but it’s not impossible.

As well as the battery display, the case has an array of LED lights to fully embody that noughties aesthetic. You can change the color of this via the app, and since it only turns on when the case is open there’s no need to turn it off.

The case is quite thin, and it’s light too at just 74g. It looks like it’s made from cheap plastic, as you can probably see from the images, but it actually feels surprisingly premium and solid when you get your mitts on it. It’s also sturdy, as I found out through dropping it repeatedly. This wasn’t my butter-fingers but a symptom of the shape of the case: it’s rounded like a pebble, not even flat on the bottom, and so it had a habit of sliding off things I put it on if they weren’t totally flat.

Another weird quirk of the case is that the charging port is on the bottom, meaning you need to turn the case on its back like a flipped turtle in order to power it up – apparently AceFast didn’t take notes from the Apple Magic Mouse. Functionally it doesn’t have much of an effect but it means you can’t really see the battery display while charging, and it frankly looks pretty silly too.

Finally, we move to the earbuds. These will look pretty standard to people familiar with open earbuds: A large pill that hovers over your ears, and a sports loop that ends in a counterweight ad battery pack behind the ear. Your earbuds will be the same color as your charging case.

The AceFit Pro buds are comfortable and lightweight to wear, at 7.8g each. I only rarely found issues with them wobbling too much during exercise, and they felt pretty flexible to fit different ears too. They’re also protected against sweat with an IP54 rating.

There’s a touch-sensitive area on the buds’ body for gesture controls, but this was less reliable than South London buses and I rapidly gave up any hope of using them.

Something that may impress certain users (and upset others) is that the AceFast logo on each bud lights up, which is a lot more obvious than the simple, single LED that most buds have. I’ll admit I did feel quite self-conscious working out with a giant glowing logo on each ear, but the app does let you turn this off.

• Design score: 2.5/5

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Features

• 6-hour battery life (25 for case) or less
• AceFast app brings few features
• Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity

Even early into my testing for the AceFit Pro, I was surprised by how quickly the battery level dropped. AceFast says the buds have a battery life of 6 hours and the case bumps that to 25 hours, both relatively low figures compared to rivals. But read the fine print and you discover that that’s listening at just 60% volume – I don’t think I ever listened with the volume this quiet.

In my personal testing, I found the AceFit Pro to have a battery life of about five hours, listening at around 80%-90% of their volume (out and about I generally used them one or two volume increments below max volume). That is, frankly, pretty awful battery life – even the AirPods Pro 2 beat that! You know if your product is beaten in battery life by a 2022 Apple option, it’s not quite up to par.

The AceFit Pro can pair to the AceFast phone app, but it doesn’t offer all features that buyers might hope for. No ANC, no find-my-buds feature, no listening tests, but at least there’s an 8-band equalizer and a few presets, as well as the ability to change gesture controls.

It feels like the main point of the app is to customize the LED lights of the bud and case. You can toggle whether the AceFast logo lights up on the buds and change the light color and effect pattern of the case. It’s not exactly a feature which makes the app a must-download, I'd say.

The AceFit Pro connect to your phone with Bluetooth 5.4 and I never had any issues with it during my testing.

• Features score: 3/5

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Sound performance

• 20x8mm driver
• V-shaped audio profile loses mids
• Some peaking

If, like me, you’re used to cheap-and-cheery AceFast buds sounding… well, cheap, then you might be surprised to peruse a little down the AceFit Pro specs list: three-magnet 20x8mm speakers, bass enhancement tech and a special design to reduce sound loss – it's all painting a very pretty picture.

The acoustic design sadly comes to nothing, because these earbuds simply don’t sound amazing, embodying once again AceFast’s modus operandi of ‘cheap and cheerful’. The audio is fine for the budget-conscious end of the market, but the AceFit Pro can't compete with the big dogs they find themselves up against at this price.

The buds have quite dramatic V-shaped audio – bass and treble vocals abound, but at the expense of just about anything else. As I write this, I’m listening to Counting Crows’ Omaha. I can hear the vocals and bass well but the accordion frequently trails off into nothingness and the acoustic guitar is almost totally missing.

It doesn’t help that audio isn’t very detailed, with character and texture missing from instruments and vocals. And this is when I’m listening indoors – as open-ear users will know, buds like this sound much worse when you’re out and about and they’re competing with every passing bus, street busker and annoying fellow human playing social media videos straight out of their phone's speakers instead of using their own headphones.

For what it's worth, audio loss outside isn't as bad on some other buds I've tested. It's still noticeable, but that's hard to avoid due to the nature of open-ears.

There’s some peaking going on here too, though it’s admittedly hidden well by the fact it’s largely happening in the midrange frequencies – which are so lost in the mix themselves that you might not notice!

I can see buyers looking for simple workout buds finding the AceFit Pro acceptable due to the audio profile, but audiophiles – the few of them who’d ever consider open earbuds – won’t love these buds.

• Sound performance score: 3/5

AceFast AceFit Pro review: Value

The AceFast AceFit Pro have all the trappings of the best cheap open-ear buds… except the price.

If these buds had launched for more than a third less (or even better, half the price), I’d be hailing them as a great option for budget-conscious buyers, however the various issues are hard to overlook when you consider the price you’re paying for these earbuds. The low battery life, unimpressive audio and possible longevity concerns all hurt when you’re paying $160 (or equivalent) for earbuds. The competition at this level is fierce – and AceFast simply hasn't aced it.

If you can find the AceFit Pro for below $100 (or equivalent), they could be worth picking up, but it’s hard to recommend them even then, especially when the AceFit Air are still cheaper.

• Value score: 3/5

AceFast AceFit Pro: scorecard

AceFast AceFit Pro: Should you buy them?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Also consider

How I tested

I tested the Acefast AceFit Pro for two weeks in order to write this review, though I continued to test them for an extra week during the writing process.

The use cases match how I tested many rivals: I paired them to an Android smartphone (and, a few times, a Windows laptop) to go on walks, work at home or in the office, go on runs, cycle around my city and work out at the gym.

I have six years of experience testing tech for TechRadar, which includes many earbuds. I've tested five different pairs of open-ear buds in the last four months and have plenty more waiting to be tested...

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: April 2025

Happy Plugs Clip: two minute review

The Happy Plugs Clip are a pair of open ear headphones that really surprised me – but not in the way I'd hoped. These clip-on buds are bizarre in the sense that they don’t really nail anything in particular. They’re a jack of few trades and a master of absolutely none.

Usually I’d start by talking about sound quality, but I want to instead start with design – because these have a quirk I’ve not encountered before. After you open up the admittedly attractive charging case, you’re met with the two open earbuds which are… upside down? Yes, after picking these out of their charging vessel, I realized that the ‘L’ and ‘R’ symbols on the left and right bud were the wrong way up. That means that each time you go to put them on (or go to put them back), you need to mess around a fair bit to get them in your ear – not sure how that one got past the drawing board.

Anyway, the buds themselves look a little cheap – perhaps to be expected given their list price of $49 / £50. They’re also quite large compared to some other clip-style open earbuds I’ve tested, though they only weigh 5g each, which is lighter than even some of the best open ear headphones.

I found them to be fairly comfortable, though a tad loose-fitting, which made it a little challenging to find the perfect fit. On top of that, these things use touch controls, but they activate with a single touch, meaning I often accidentally paused music or adjusted volume by mistake when trying to get them to stay put. However, if your ear shape works with them, said touch controls do let you control a fair amount, including music playback, calls, power status and even your source device’s voice assistant.

And one final point on design – Happy Plugs call the Clip ‘sweat resistant’ but don’t specify their waterproof rating. I wouldn’t expect that it’s any higher than IPX4 with that description, which is a little disappointing when you consider that other budget models like the Huawei FreeArc, are IP57-rated.

But anyway, let’s get onto the main event: audio performance. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst areas for the Happy Plugs Clip. You’re going to get thin, unbalanced, sometimes harsh sound out of these, which is going to be a problem for almost anyone. For instance, when listening to Una canzone d’amore per te by Pino D’Angio, the 80s style percussion sounded tinny – unlistenable at high volumes – with the lead saxophone lacking separation from other instrumental elements.

How Much I Feel by Ambrosia also had an almost muffled tone throughout. The soundstage was cluttered and percussion through the treble frequencies again sounded grating. It’s safe to say I was excited to go back to my usual LG Tone Free T90S earbuds.

You won’t get good bass response out of the Happy Plugs Clip either – and I'm taking into account their open design, where bass clout is always a potential issue. When tuning into Black Eye by Allie X, the deep drum machine was hugely understated, stripping the track of its impact, rhythmic bounce and groove. The only time I really got a serviceable listen out of these open earbuds was when listening at low volumes, when the harsh, muddied nature of its sound was considerably tempered. But who wants to listen to music so quietly in a set of open ear headphones?

So, it’s safe to say that these lack star quality in the sound department, but there’s always an opportunity for a solid feature-set to redeem things, at least slightly. However, that is something that the Happy Plugs Clip don’t possess either.

Firstly, there’s no companion app, so you won’t get dedicated EQ settings, adjustable noise cancelling, customizable touch controls or… anything really. There are a couple of features available to you, though. First of all, these highlight ambient sounds if you’re on the go. For instance, it was easier for me to hear a child screaming in a supermarket, which some open ear fans may be looking for. I wasn't exactly loving that experience, though.

Secondly, these have two inbuilt mics, intended to facilitate “clear calls”. That was something I didn’t experience, however. When making a video call and a standard phone call, I was told that my voice sounded pretty muffled and less clear than when using my phone’s built-in microphone. I also recorded a voice note and heard a whole lot of sibilance, which was pretty unpleasant.

Unfortunately, even the battery life of the Happy Plugs Clip is sub-par. On the front of the box, you’re told you get 20 hours from these. And in a sense, that’s true. If you count the additional battery life supplied by the charging case, you’ll be able to get a total of 20 hours from these. But really, you’re getting 4.5 hours per charge, which is – to be blunt – simply bad. When we reviewed the Honor Earbuds Open, we described their six hour battery life as “limited”, so, yeah… nothing to shout about.

An additional issue worth considering, is that like most open ear headphones, these are pretty prone to sound leakage. So, if you're out in public and have your tunes cranked up a little too loud, expect a few glares to come your way – although you likely won't do that, because of that troublesome treble.

All in all, the Happy Plugs Clip fail to make a splash in the ever-expanding ocean of open ear headphones. They struggle to deliver across the board, with unsatisfying sound quality, a weak feature-set, unimpressive design and restricted playtime. The only real draw of these is, of course, their price. The bulk of the open earbuds market does sit closer to that $100 / £100 mark, it's true – but it’s well worth spending that bit extra, and I hope you'll trust me on this.

Take a step up to the sub £100 Huawei FreeArc, for example, and you’re getting great audio, superior waterproofing and more features – more on those later. Otherwise, I highly recommend checking out some cheaper options in our guide to the best wireless earbuds – if you activate Ambient Sound mode on the ultra-cheap Sony WF-C510, for example, you’ll hear surrounding noise and still get superb audio.

Happy Plugs Clip review: specs

Happy Plugs Clip review: price and availability

• $49 / £50 (about AU$80)
• Launched in January 2025

The Happy Plugs Clip launched in January 2025 alongside a handful of other products, including the Happy Plugs Joy Speaker. They have a list price of $49 / £50 (about AU$80) which is comfortably in budget tech territory, but of course, you’re not getting great quality in return. It’s worth noting that these are available in either Black or White, but the color you pick should have no bearing on the price you pay.

Should you buy the Happy Plugs Clip?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Happy Plugs Clip review: also consider

Happy Plugs Clip review: How I tested

• Tested for one week
• Used in the office and while out and about
• Predominantly tested using Tidal

I tested the Happy Plugs Clip for one week and spent hours listening to music, watching videos and making phone calls. Most of the time, I used these in the office at Future Labs, but I also used them while out and about in busy areas.

When listening to music, I used the Tidal app on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. I also ensured that I ran through the TechRadar testing playlist, which includes tracks from a range of genres and is optimized for judging sound quality across the frequencies. In addition, I played a ton of tunes from my personal library. Where appropriate, I compared these to the Soundcore AeroClip on aspects such as sound quality, battery life and design quirks.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test

Earfun OpenJump: Two minute review

Now that open-ear headphones have evolved from a simple fad to a fully-fledged new kind of headphone (and a hugely competitive one, at that), two rough groups are emerging. On one hand you've got the open-ears designed for fitness use, offering long battery lives and hardy builds so you can run and cycle around traffic; on the other you've got lifestyle open-ears that provide decent music and some useful additional features.

The new Earfun OpenJump seem to want to straddle that divide, landing loosely in the second camp, but offering features which will appeal to the first. Unfortunately, poor timing has hampered what could have been a warm reception.

I associate Earfun with making cheap and cheerful audio tech, but the new OpenJump cost roughly the same as, and came out at the same time as, the Huawei FreeArc. These rival buds trump the Earfuns in myriad ways, with another contemporary (the Honor Earbuds Open) also eclipsing the OpenJump. So it's hard to recommend Earfun's proposition given that you can easily buy those alternatives – and I think, depending on your priorities, you should (although that's a different piece, isn't it? This is about Earfun).

But forgetting its rivals for a second, how do the Earfun OpenJump hold up? Well, they're... decent, but I don't think they'll be remembered for ushering in the new age of open earbuds as much as their H-branded rivals.

The buds are fairly lightweight and comfortable to wear, though some design issues made the fit and gesture controls a little unreliable. There's a decent feature set, particularly with a long-lasting battery life and an in-depth equalizer, and this is almost certainly where the OpenJump stands out.

Unfortunately, the audio quality just isn't there, and I mean that despite some bass tech from Earfun plus the aforementioned equalization options. Until very recently, you couldn't expect top-notch audio from such a design. But times have changed, and although the OpenJump are decent, that isn't quite good enough any more, even for this money.

Something to bear in mind: already in my testing period, Earfun has reduced the OpenJump by a noticeable margin. So there's a good chance that you can find these buds for a significant discount over the price listed below, firmly placing these into cheap earbuds territory. If that's the case, you can ignore a healthy chunk of my criticism here, since you'll be picking up a useful bargain. But at retail price, perhaps it's worth waiting for these to come down.

I really didn't mind using the OpenJump through the testing period, and I see myself continuing to use them until my next pair of open-ears come in. Nothing about them offends or annoys, but also, nothing delights or wows. And in the end, a tech review is meant to be an appraisal of which option is most worthy of your hard-earned cash. It's just too hard to point to the OpenJump as being that, given the competitive state of the market right now.

Earfun OpenJump review: Specifications

Earfun OpenJump review: Price and availability

• Announced in February 2025
• Costs $79.99 / £99.99 / AU$149.99
• Price is variable

The Earfun OpenJump was announced and released in February 2025, ready for everyone who put ‘exercise more’ on their list of New Year’s Resolutions (but didn’t start straight away, for whatever reason).

You can buy the earbuds for $79.99 / £99.99 / AU$149.99 – Earfun’s website has them listed as costing more in certain regions (£129.99 in the UK, for example), and the prices I’m going by are the RRP on Amazon.

In an odd break from Earfun’s modus operandi, that means that these are priced in the mid-range of the open earbuds market, not at the super-cheap cutting edge of it. At that price they’re the same price as the Huawei FreeArc, and there are a fair few open-ear options on Amazon for less – though don’t expect reliability and quality if you don't pay for it.

It’s worth noting that, unlike competitors, Earfun’s open-ear buds are already subject to price cuts and discounts. I found them at $20 off in the US and £40 off in the UK, just one month after their release. So it seems money-saving deals come thick and fast on these buds, however it wouldn't be fair for me to treat these prices as the default, since you may not be so lucky.

Earfun OpenJump review: Design

• Cheap-feeling plastic charging case
• IPX7-protected buds
• Slightly unreliable fit and gestures

From a distance, the Earfun OpenJump’s case looks like most other open-ear buds’: a medium-sized clamshell. And that’s certainly true, but when you get up close and get the thing in your hand, you realise how cheap the plastic material feels. It didn’t feel very robust either, and I’d be curious to see how durable the case is over a longer amount of time. Even over a relatively short testing time of two weeks, it picked up a few scratches.

Of course, the case is simply for holding and charging the buds. It does that, with a USB-C port for powering up and an indicator LED on the front. On to the buds themselves then, and these look how you'd expect for open-ear designs: they have a bud which is held just over your ear by a sport loop, with a counterweight (and a very little battery pack) tucked behind your ear.

They mostly fit well, and I went on several runs and workouts without issue, but now and then there was slight wobble and which made me worry that they'd fly off at any moment. This was nowhere near as bad as with some other rivals I've tested, mind you, but I've also used other buds without issue.

The buds have an IPX7 rating, meaning that they're protected from immersion in water up to a depth of a meter for up to thirty minutes. Given that the new athletically-minded Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 (although these are in-ear, rather than open-ear) only list a splash-proof IPX4 rating, it's good to see that the Earfuns will handle a puddle drop and survive.

Both buds support gesture controls by tapping once, twice, thrice or tapping and holding. They picked up my taps reliably, but the angle of the sensor meant I kept whacking my ear antihelix when trying to tap them. In a telling move, I soon relied on my phone or smartwatch for music control instead of these sensors.

Unlike some rivals, there's only one color option for the Earfun OpenJump: black. They weigh 8g each so they're pretty light, and they never felt a burden to wear.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Features

• Pairing issues
• Versatile EQ
• Long-lasting battery

I had some troubles during my initial pairing with the Earfun OpenJump, in which my phone wouldn't find the buds it'd paired to, and throughout the testing process the Earfun App listed a profile for phantom OpenJumps which were simply a leftover from the first time I had tried to connect. After a while I got them to connect, and didn't have problems after that, but it's worth bearing in mind. I test earbuds constantly, and I rarely have these issues.

Talking of the Earfun app: it's worth downloading, because it brings a plethora of extras. These include various modes for gaming or streaming movies, the ability to customize touch controls and, most importantly, an equalizer.

Earfun fans will know that the company offers a fairly robust (possibly to a fault) equalizer. There are countless presets to pick from plus a 10-band equalizer and also a listening test to provide a custom sound profile.

A slight issue with the latter is that, like most other companies' versions, it requires you to listen to a sound until it fades from your hearing... all well and good except that these are open-ears. So by their very design, it's especially hard to tell when audio is soft, or when the sounds of the world are simply creeping in (unless you own a hermetically sealed subterranean bunker in which to conduct these tests).

The OpenJumps have some of the best battery life of any open earbuds that weren't made by OpenRock. The buds themselves will last for 11 hours according to Earfun, and my testing backed that up. The case itself offers a total of 42 hours of listening time before it needs to be charged and if anything, I'd say that my actual listening time seemed to surpass that slightly, up to nearly 44 hours, meaning stamina is one area where these buds are genuinely competitive.

• Features score: 4/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Sound performance

• 14.2mm driver
• Music is slightly lacking in energy and detail
• Bass redemption tech

The Earfun OpenJump came out at a poor time, released simultaneously alongside the two best-sounding open-ear headphones I've ever used (more on that in the Competition section later), so it was always going to struggle in the sound department. And they certainly do, though not to the extent I was expecting.

That's not a huge surprise given that the open-ear form factor naturally means that the drivers are hanging over your ears with no seal. This form factor still isn't for audiophiles and the OpenJump don't change that.

You're getting a fairly forward sound profile with the OpenJump, but music lacks energy or detail. There's little separation between instruments or any expanse to the soundstage, and it doesn't help that the treble lacks sparkle in a congested, compressed-sounding mix.

I had hoped that the Theater mode, which is meant to improve the soundstage, would help. While it did seem to spread out the music a little more, it also sadly made the overall performance quite tinny.

Earfun has added a feature which it's cryptically calling 'BassSurge Bass' (I wonder what that does?) and this goes some way into providing a little kick in certain songs, but it's hardly a surge of juicy and impactful low-end frequencies. You could argue that bass-heads should still look for over- or in-ears rather than an open-fit design, but other rivals have managed to deliver better bass, despite the inherent shortfalls of a design that doesn't fully cover or go into your ear canal.

The other bit of tech of note is a 14.2mm driver, which is a fairly standard piece of tech for this kind of bud, and I remember the Nothing Ear (open) had the same.

The OpenJump have quite a lot of noise bleed – again an inevitable part of open-ears given the design, but it was a little more pronounced here than on some other buds I've tested.

• Sound performance score: 3/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Value

I'm going to use the Amazon price to judge the Earfun OpenJump's value rating, because it seems that the buds are readily accessibly at that lower cost.

These are reasonably affordable open-ears for this price, undercutting some more expensive rivals though not quite offering the refined design, or sonic prowess.

They're certainly not alone at this price point though...

• Value score: 4/5

Earfun OpenJump review: scorecard

Earfun OpenJump: Should you buy them?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Also consider

How I tested

I tested the Earfun OpenJump for two weeks prior to writing this review, and before them I'd tested two similarly-priced contemporaries: the Honor Earbuds Open and the Huawei FreeArc.

I used the earbuds paired to my Realme phone for listening to music and podcasts, and the testing took place when I was at home, at the office, cycling through the city, going on runs and working out at the gym.

I've been reviewing gadgets for TechRadar since early 2019 and have used a huge range of tech. This includes other open-ear buds as well as audio offerings from Earfun.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: April 2025

Anker Soundcore AeroClip: review

If you’re the athletic type or maybe just a regular gym goer, the Anker Soundcore AeroClip could be the perfect set of open earbuds for you. These clip-on buds have the basics down: solid sound, a secure and comfortable fit plus nifty companion app functionality. And although they’re not perfect, their more-than-fair price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) makes them an option well worth considering.

Generally, my problem with open-ear headphones and open earbuds is that they don’t offer a proper seal and let in a lot of ambient sound. That means you’ll hear all sorts, from squawking gulls to wailing children. As you can imagine, that can make it difficult to indulge in a high-quality listening experience. But after putting my anti-open-ear bias to one side, I discovered that the Anker Soundcore AeroClip pleasantly surprised me in a number of ways – especially in terms of their audio performance.

From the off, I was met with clean, impressively immersive audio and an airy, ear-filling quality brought out the best in Não Tem Nada Não by Marcos Valle. Similarly, when tuning into Remind Me by Patrice Rushen, I was delighted to hear clear, distortion-free vocals, layered with smooth, tonally accurate bass and controlled percussion. Even at higher volumes, vocals didn’t sound muddied in the overall mix and higher pitched percussion didn’t get tinny either. That sort of performance is exactly what I’d expect from a pair of the best open ear headphones.

Sure, there are no fancy audio codecs, like LDAC, for a more detailed sonic experience, but the AeroClip were still pretty well-rounded, considering some similarly priced rivals struggle to even manage clean, balanced sound.

When listening to wyd? by wev, I encountered a couple of sonic shortcomings, though. First up, the track’s deep bass was a little much for the AeroClip to handle at times. I could almost hear the drivers overextending themselves to manage the tune’s low-end, something you’re not going to experience when using a pair of the best earbuds, for instance. Secondly, I felt that the excitable treble was a little understated, meaning the record’s energy was sapped out slightly.

There wasn’t much I could do about that first point, but help was at hand for my treble trouble. I took to the Soundcore app and created my own custom EQ – one which put a bit more emphasis on high-end frequencies, while also bumping bass and slightly lowering mids. That gave the AeroClip a far more colorful, charismatic sound profile than the balanced, yet sometimes slightly unexciting Soundcore Signature tuning.

On top of custom EQ options, you can also pick from a small selection of presets: Bass, Treble, or Volume Booster (all pretty self-explanatory), or Classical (big dips in the mids, large bumps to bass, sub-bass and treble) and Podcast (essentially the opposite of that). With the right tuning, you’re going to get energetic, yet crisp highs, clean mids and relatively rich bass – just don’t expect these to reach into the depths of sub bass with too much skill.

However, one characteristic of the Soundcore AeroClip that will either make or break your listening experience is their open design. As I mentioned earlier, their lack of a proper seal means that a lot of noise from your surroundings will creep through. Now, if you’re someone that loves a good run and you want to keep an ear out for traffic or people around you, that could be ideal.

But personally, I prefer to focus on my tunes and the lack of external noise nixing really did prevent that at times. Chatter in public, wind and even typing in my office were all very much audible – there’s no ANC or anything to counter that either, something the Edifier LolliClip open ears supply. These Soundcore headphones are also prone to leaking sound to those around you, especially above 50% volume.

There might not be any ANC, but what features do these open ear headphones offer? Well, if you head into the very slick Soundcore app, you can mess around with the aforementioned EQ options, toggle multi-point or customize touch controls. And the touch controls were really responsive in my experience. You can double tap to pause or triple tap to skip – the absence of a single tap option means you’re unlikely to make accidental, unwanted adjustments too.

What’s here works very nicely, but I would have liked to see a more fleshed out feature-set, in honesty – even just the addition of auto-pausing media when you remove the buds from your ears. Another aspect that could be better is battery life. You get a respectable eight hours of playtime per charge, which I found to be accurate during my testing. But with the charging case, you only get a maximum of 24 hours – not that much compared to the 40 hours from the Honor Earbuds Open, for instance.

Before I put an end to my moaning, I want to point out a couple of slight design shortcomings. Firstly, these are only IPX4 waterproof rating, meaning there’s no guarantee on dustproofing and you’re only getting resistance against sweat and water droplets. A lot of rivals outdo the AeroClip here – the splendid Huawei FreeArc, for example, are IP57 rated, meaning they can survive submersion under a meter of water for 30 minutes.

Secondly, I’d argue that these aren’t the prettiest buds around. I quite like the look of the batteries and buds, but the clips do appear slightly cheap-looking. On the other hand, these are still highly comfortable and secure on-ear, so you’ll never have to worry about them flinging off mid-workout.

Having said all this, I want to end on a real positive note: mic quality. These open ears claim to deliver AI-enabled clear calls. And I found them to be plenty clear – though I’m not so sure how much of that is thanks to AI. During a phone call, I was told that my voice sounded “crisp”, even at lower volumes – something that I also felt when listening back to a voice recording.

So all in all, are the Soundcore AeroClip worth a $129.99 / £129.99 outlay? I’m not 100% sure. If you’re only after an open design, I’d say yes – you get great sound for this headphone type, as well as impressive calling capabilities. But if you want noise cancelling and a more premium design, I’d suggest pursuing a pair of the best wireless earbuds instead, for awesome audio and ANC.

Edifier LolliClip review: specs

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: price and availability

• $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210)
• Launched in March 2025

The Anker Soundcore AeroClip released in March 2025, marking the manufacturer’s latest foray into the world of open ear headphones. They launched with a list price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) and are available in three colorways: Midnight (black); Rosy Brown (pink and brown) ; and the variant I tested, Champagne Mist (white and gold).

These are very similar in price to the Nothing Ear (open), which launched at the tail-end of 2024. And they’ll set you back far less than a premium option like the wonderful Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which carry a sizeable list price of $299 / £299 / AU$449.95…woah!

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Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: also consider

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: How I tested

• Tested for one week
• Used in the office and while out and about
• Predominantly tested using Tidal

I put the Anker Soundcore AeroClip to the test over a one week period. I predominantly listened in the office, but also made use of them at home and when out and about. I tinkered with each and every feature, engaged in both casual and critical listening and compared them with the Edifier LolliClip for on-ear comfort.

When listening to music, I tapped into Tidal on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. And as per usual, I flicked through the whole TechRadar testing playlist, which includes tracks from a wide range of genres and is optimized for judging sound quality across the frequencies. In addition, I played a bunch of tunes from my personal library.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test