Nothing Ear 2 Review – IGN

The Nothing Ear 1 earbuds were a success, but not a tough act to follow. Their see-through design was stylish and original and they offered features normally found for earbuds twice as expensive. At the same time, their experience was marred by one too many bugs – a constant reminder that they were a first-gen product from a nascent brand.

Two years later, the London-based startup Nothing is back with a successor, the Ear 2, which not only fixes all that ailed its predecessor but also adds a series of meaningful upgrades, including better sound, multi-device connectivity, and noise cancellation that can adapt to your hearing.

These improvements have come at a hefty cost, however. At $149, the Nothing Ear 2 earbuds are 50% costlier than the Ear 1 were at launch. Yet, after carrying them around for two weeks everywhere, from airplanes to gyms, Nothing has made it worth it: the Ear 2 offer a far superior experience than the Ear 1 with improved sound, a sturdier see-through build, and multi-device connectivity.

Nothing Ear 2 – Design and Features

You’ll be hard-pressed to tell the new Nothing Ear 2 apart from the Ear 1 on the outside. They inherit the same look as their predecessors, and frankly, I’m not complaining. Though the all-white buds that go into your ears themselves are similar to others, like Apple’s AirPods, their stems are transparent, giving you a peek into the circuitry and components inside.

The boxy charging case is made out of clear plastic as well, exposing the earbuds they house as if they’re a public art exhibit. It has two color-coded slots where you can slip the earbuds for charging. They’re magnetic, so you don’t have to fuss around with aligning them properly, but I’m still not convinced if their horizontal setup is the best path forward. It’s not just not as convenient as dropping earbuds into a vertical holster-esque case, as you get with the AirPods.

The Nothing Ear 2’s design still feels refreshing among all the similar-looking earbuds out there. They’re a head-turner for sure, and I’ve lost count of the times someone has asked me about them. They’re comfortable too; I’ve had no problems wearing them for hours on end, and the three sizes of ear tips in the box mean I could find a fit that stayed snug even when I was on the treadmill.

While there are no cosmetic differences from their predecessor, Nothing has made a handful of practical changes to the build. The case is now smaller and lighter, and easier to open with one hand. Much of that can be credited to the plastic housing inside that holds the charging tech. Its bottom now protrudes out of the transparent case, which offers a better grip on the base.

The Ear 2’s case is also constructed out of more durable plastic and no longer picks up as many scratches as the Ear 1’s. In fact, in the few weeks I’ve used it, there are barely any, compared to my experience with Ear 1, of which their case had collected so many by the time I wrote their review that its clear plastic had lost its original sheen and smoothness.

In addition, the Ear 2 have better water-dust protection, but you still can’t submerge them in water. So while they can handle your workout sweat or a little spill on your desk, you can’t go running with them in the rain.

One of the Ear 2’s most significant overhauls is in how you control them. On the Ear 1, you paused your music and controlled the volume by tapping and sliding on the bud’s stems. For the Ear 2, however, Nothing has swapped out that mechanism for an AirPods-like pinch system. There’s a new sensor at the ends of each earbud you can squeeze or long-press to access controls such as skipping tracks, disabling noise cancellation, and summoning your phone’s voice assistant.

I’ve found the new control mechanism to be both an improvement and not. On one hand, it works well and is far more accurate at detecting input, especially when I have to tap in quick succession. Plus, they aren’t prone to accidental activations, unlike their predecessor, which I used to inadvertently trigger at least once a day mainly because it was in an area I touched to adjust the earbud’s fit.

On the other hand, there’s no longer an easy way to control the volume. In the Ear 1’s case, I could just slide my finger on the earbud to tune the level exactly to where I want it without lifting my hand. On the Ear 2s, however, I have to allocate a gesture individually to turn the volume up and down, and even then, you have to hold down for a few seconds if you’re trying to increase or decrease it by a few notches. After a while, I simply resorted to pressing the volume buttons on my phone instead. In comparison, even though Apple offers the squeeze mechanism on the AirPods, it still includes a slide gesture for altering the volume.

Nothing Ear 2 – Software

Nothing wants to tailor its earbuds’ experience to each user, and to do so, it has bundled a host of new options on the Ear 2’s companion app that personalize the listening experience to your hearing. You can take an ear test and build your sound profile, for example, which allows the app to understand which frequencies you struggle with and tune the audio so that you don’t have to raise the volume to hear them. It also claims to calibrate its noise cancellation to your hearing, and tells you whether the tip size you’re using is the right fit for you.

Though these software features are nice to have, they’re a hit and a miss in reality. I found little difference between the default and personalized settings, and in some cases, the former even offered better results. Part of that could be because the hearing test is clunky and takes more than five minutes, in which you have to listen to a series of beeps and tell the app how well you hear them. In several stages, I wasn’t quite sure of my responses, and it’s unclear whether the app takes these error margins into account. Perhaps if the process was more automated, the results would have been more consistent.