Earin A-3 review: The world’s smallest earbuds are actually good
Our Verdict
The Earin A-3 is not the best-value fix of wireless earbuds, nor the about fully-featured. Notwithstanding, clever design and high sound quality make information technology hard to dislike.
For
- Extremely small and low-cal
- Good audio
- User-friendly
Against
- Not many features
- Insecure fit
- Underwhelming battery life
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Earin A-3 is non the best-value set of wireless earbuds, nor the almost fully-featured. However, clever design and loftier sound quality go far hard to dislike.
Pros
- +
Extremely small and light
- +
Good sound
- +
Convenient
Cons
- -
Not many features
- -
Insecure fit
- -
Underwhelming battery life
Earin might not be a titan of audio tech, simply with the Earin A-3, this Swedish company has quietly made one of the well-nigh interesting pairs of true wireless headphones in a long while. The A-three promised the globe's "smallest and lightest" wireless buds when it launched in January and has plenty of other perks, like an ear-agnostic design and accelerometer-aided touch controls.
Now that I've had the chance to encounter (and wear) this pair of earbuds in the flesh, I can confirm that each 1 is absolutely tiny. However, shrunken dimensions are not without their downsides, and the issue of whether the A-three tin beat the Apple AirPods and bring together the best wireless earbuds is a lot more than complicated than the production itself. Can a lighter bear on produce meliorate buds? Continue reading our Earin A-3 review to find out.
- The best headphones overall
- More of the best wireless headphones
Earin A-three specs
Colors: Black (black or silver charging example options)
Battery life (rated): 5 hours (xxx hours with charging case)
Size: 0.8 x 0.seven x 0.half dozen inches (per bud); 2.3 x i.ix x 0.viii inches (charging instance)
Weight: 0.12 ounces (per bud); one.76 ounces (charging case)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0
Processor: Qualcomm QCC5121
Earin A-3 review: Price and availability
- Earin A-3 for $199 at Earin
The Earin A-iii costs $199, and is currently only available directly from Earin. The only color for the buds themselves is black, though you can choose between blackness and silvery finishes for the included charging case.
$199 is a lot of cash for a pair of wireless earbuds, peculiarly i without active racket counterfoil (ANC). In fairness, it's an equal toll to the standard AirPods with the wireless charging case pick, and the A-three'south instance supports wireless charging as standard. Only information technology also brings these buds into competition with the feature-stuffed Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro, and fifty-fifty the AirPods Pro has been dropping to around £200 recently.
Earin A-iii review: Pattern
If at that place is a pair of truthful wireless earbuds that's smaller or lighter than the Earin A-3, I oasis't seen information technology, and after treatment these buds I wonder how it could fifty-fifty exist. Each i is genuinely miniscule, not measuring more than than 0.8 inches in any management and weighing a feathery 0.12 ounces. The AirPods, with that elongated stalk design, would look gargantuan next to the A-three. Each earbud barely sticks out at all, and the only function that does is an incredibly sparse bear on sensor.
The lack of majority means the charging case tin stay compact besides. The A-3 earbuds are made of unremarkable plastic but the aluminium case is one of the finest of its brood, with a nice matte finish and a flip-acme chapeau that makes you experience like y'all're popping open up an expensive lighter. There is a patch of plastic on the rear, but this proves useful by enabling wireless charging and interim as a button to initiate pairing.
Back on the buds, these aren't in-ear headphones that extend a tip down your ear culvert; they but park themselves in your concha. The A-3 is also unusual in that both of its earbuds are essentially identical — instead of having one left and 1 correct bud, you can put either into whichever ear you choose.
Rather brilliantly, the A-3 can then instantly detect which ear is which, and assign itself the appropriate left/right audio channels. This worked faultlessly, every fourth dimension, so I never had to worry about putting in the wrong bud.
The tradeoff for this convenience is the one-size-fits-all shape, so there are no tips and wings to bandy around for the perfect personalized fit. There's also no ANC, not that it would work very well with the A-3's relatively loose seal. Still, you practise get IP52 waterproofing, which is enough to block out rain, sweat and dust.
Earin A-3 review: Comfort and fit
As you'd wait from such a lightweight set of earbuds, the Earin A-3 is comfortable to article of clothing for brusk bursts and long listening sessions alike. Having a more open design than near in-ear models does mean less grip, but too a less intrusive feel.
However, because the buds aren't shaped to fit a particular ear, they're not particularly ergonomic. Unlike with more sculpted earbuds, the A-3's units can motility around in your ear if you don't set them properly — but not to the point that they actually fall out. This means it's a little as well like shooting fish in a barrel to get out them at slightly the wrong angle, which in turn affects how they sound. Angled likewise far in towards your ear canal and there's too much bass; too far away and information technology'll sound weak and recessed.
I could still wearable the A-3 quite happily on a long walk, though even with the depression weight and sweatproofing, the lack of an rock-solid fit ways it won't be joining the best running headphones list anytime shortly.
Earin A-3 review: Setup and controls
Pairing the Earin A-three for the first fourth dimension is easy plenty: pressing that button on the rear of the charging instance, while both earbuds are docked, makes them available to connect over a Bluetooth 5.0 connection. It supports the high-quality aptX Bluetooth codec besides, something not fifty-fifty the AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro can claim to do.
From at that place the A-3 will reliably re-pair with a source device every time you take the buds out of the cause.
The touch controls are only basic: yous tin play or intermission tracks, answer or hang up phone calls or summon your handset's voice assistant, simply not skip or adjust the volume. Still, I'm a big fan of how the A-iii handles these inputs. That teensy pill-shaped touch sensor is solely defended to vocalism assistants; for play and suspension, you merely need to double-tap one of the earbuds, anywhere you like. That's considering each ane includes an accelerometer and can discover jostling, saving you the fiddliness of making precise taps on a small sensor.
The iOS companion app also lets you make limited customizations, like having the play/break input simply demand a unmarried tap instead of two. The Android app isn't available yet, but the word from Earin is that information technology will launch "soon" and include the same features as the iOS version.
Earin A-3 review: Sound quality
Earin has stuffed some big, 14.3mm dynamic drivers into the A-iii earbuds. These custom-built speakers quickly allayed my fears that smaller buds would mean weaker sound.
Kickoff, some extra credit is due to that left/right ear detection, which never got confused nearly which side was which. This allowed the A-3 to demonstrate its impressively wide soundstage; tracks which shift vocals or instruments beyond the two channels for upshot, like Foo Fighter's "Low" or Lorde's "Still Sane", were executed with a satisfying sense of latitude.
Yes, a lot of ambient audio gets in, but this doesn't muddy the mix. If anything, the way the A-3 conspicuously separates all the different elements of a recording to maintain intricacy is ane of its best sonic features. And, if you wish to simply drown out nearby noises, the A-3 can comfortably sit at loftier volumes.
There's also a very decent amount of bass punch, granting the requisite power to electronic, rock and metal music without losing any detail. That'southward of import on tracks with a lot of baloney or overdrive effects in play — the spiralling bass on Imperial Blood'due south "Typhoons" sounded filthy in the best possible way.
Frequency balance is good in general, with bass, mids and treble never threatening to overpower or fifty-fifty really compete with i another. Vocals could exist slightly closer to the forefront, but podcasts are perfectly listenable. Video audio ever stays in sync, too.
Earin A-iii review: Features
Information technology's a good thing the Earin A-3 sounds so practiced out of the box, because 1 thing yous don't go — via the mobile app or otherwise — is adjustable EQ. Or ANC. Or a transparency mode. Or spatial audio. Or pretty much anything that this review hasn't already mentioned.
That'south not to gloss over the special features that the A-3 does have. Tricks like left/correct ear detection and the ultra-compact, ear-agnostic design are commendably unique, while more mutual features like voice banana support and h2o resistance both piece of work well. The A-3 shrugged off a splash in the sink, so some light pelting won't faze it.
At the same fourth dimension, yous tin can become an awful lot more toys for the aforementioned $200. The Milky way Buds Pro, in particular, has even better waterproofing while offering ANC, transparency mode, 360 Audio (Samsung's version of spatial audio) and a much deeper app.
Earin A-3 review: Battery life
Even worse is the Earin A-3'due south battery life. Earin promises five hours of playback per charge, and up to thirty hours with repeated use of the charging example. The latter sounds pretty good only the former is nothing special, and in exercise I couldn't fifty-fifty get it to the full five.
Even sticking at 50% book, I but got 3 hours 5 minutes out of my kickoff run. This seemed almost too depression so I recharged and tried once again, this fourth dimension reaching 3 hours xv minutes.
Not every pair of true wireless earbuds can have the amazing endurance of, say, the JLab Ballsy Air Sport ANC. Just not fifty-fifty four hours per accuse? That's disappointing, and means y'all shouldn't expect 30 hours from the charging case either.
Earin A-3 review: Call quality
This isn't much of a calling headset either. According to Roland, our Britain editor and my mic test guinea pig, I manifestly sounded "crackly" when using the A-iii's microphones. I doubtable the fact that the earbuds barely poke outwards makes it harder for the mics to selection up speech, as I also sounded equally if I was speaking into them from a distance, with a notable echo even when I was in a well-insulated room.
I could still, it should be said, exist heard well plenty that I was never asked to echo myself. But I did audio more distorted than when I was using my phone'southward own microphone, and stepping outside onto my balcony apparently produced massive wind dissonance on the other stop of the line.
Earin A-three review: Verdict
How, then, has the Earin A-three earned a respectable three-and-a-half stars? For such a high price tag, you lot're getting poor telephone call quality, low bombardment life, a loose fit and no ANC in return.
Ii reasons, really. I is that for the central, vital role of blasting music into your ears, the Earin A-3 does a bully job. On a $200 budget the Sennheiser CX 400BT is even better, but I was consistently impressed past the A-3'southward wide soundstage, clean musical instrument separation and rich bass.
The second is that this pair of earbuds has something that very few lumps of solder and circuitry could exist said to possess: amuse. The ultra-compact bud pattern, the Scandi-chic charging example, the effort-free touch control afforded by the accelerometers; it'south all just so likeable. There'southward a tangible sense that Earin has tried something different here, and while the event isn't a true pair of AirPod-killers, it's enough that I've kept reaching for the A-3 well after I was finished testing it.
- More: The best over-ear headphones y'all can buy
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/earin-a-3-review-the-worlds-smallest-earbuds-are-actually-good
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