The Nothing Ear (Open) are visually and audibly vibrant in a world of bland open-ear audio devices! I was immediately taken aback by the sound quality on my first listen because, more often than not, open ear products fall flat when it comes to dynamic audio reproduction, especially on the bass end of the frequency spectrum.
Using a bit of 90’s hip hop parlance, Nothing Ear (Open)’s got me open, so let’s take a detailed look at what makes it our new Editor’s Choice for open ear options!
Nothing Ear (Open): Price and availability
The Nothing Ear (Open) launched on September 24 and are available in the US, Canada, and the UK from October 1 and Europe from October 7. There’s only one colorway, which will cost you $149 USD / $199 CAD / £129 GBP / €149 EUR, with availability through Nothing.tech and from retailers like Amazon.com.
Nothing Ear (Open): What I like
After testing quite a few open-ear earbuds, I'll begin by making a case for why this is the Editor’s Choice by starting... with the case. While not the smallest earbud case on the market, it is one of the smaller cases when you look at offerings from the open-ear competition. Nothing again places its signature colored dots on the inside to make putting the earpieces in their cradles a cinch. The lid is clear with a metal hinge and another metal embellishment where the case opens.
Sitting inside, the buds and the entire package look almost like a jeweler’s display. Though thin and easily pocketable, the case is tall. Although it will fit in your pocket, depending on how tall you and your pockets are, it also might be sticking up and out of your pocket.
Being open-ear earbuds, they don’t sit inside your ear canal, and I’ve worn them for hours at a time to test their comfort. The result was no fatigue, to the point that you’d almost forget that you’re wearing earbuds. The soft-touch silicone material the ear hooks are made of, along with the position of the battery and angling of the transducer, combine like Voltron to form a giant robot that protects your wearing comfort. It's good that battery life holds up to my extended periods of wear and meets Nothing's claim of eight hours on a charge. You may get a little more juice if your listening volume is low the majority of your time wearing them.
Let’s get to what you came here for, though! Sound quality. I listened to various genres of music at low volumes and higher volumes. I listened in quiet rooms and on noisy urban streets. I listened to movies and anime. Nothing Ear (Open) are the closest I’ve come to experiencing an open design that sounds like traditional earbuds that sit in your ear canal. For the first time in an open-ear review, I can say that bass lovers will thoroughly enjoy this experience, but that is not to the exclusion of those who love acoustic music. The musicality and stereo imaging are just as enjoyable.
The haunting, ethereal vocals are beautifully reproduced when listening to “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga” from the “Get Out” OST. The soundstage is diminished at low volumes, but turning the volume up increases that soundstage, adding the ethereal back to the experience.
Jazz is jumpin’ like your favorite juke joint! Ok, so you may not have a favorite “juke joint” in this day and age (Google it), but you have clarity, discreet instrumentation, warm upright bass reproduction, beautiful horn sections, and, ultimately, immersion.
Sylosis's “Poison for the Lost” is a counterpoint to The Roots “Do You Want More????” The former is a death metal track heavy on guitar and with guttural vocals. The latter is a bass-heavy hip-hop track with some high-frequency instrumentation, thanks to the addition of bagpipes in the mix.
For low-volume listening, you’re likely going to want two different EQ settings, and that’s another area where many of Nothing’s audio offerings shine. With the Ear (open), you get Nothing’s full slate of EQ offerings between their simple and advanced EQ settings.
The simple settings, complete with the ability to customize what is essentially a 3-band EQ, will be enough for most listeners, especially considering these are open earbuds. But if you feel like it makes a difference, you can hit Nothing’s proper parametric EQ in the advanced tab and play with gain, bandwidth, and Q-factor to your heart’s content. I’d recommend playing with the simple settings at the very least because it will make a difference in sound quality at low volumes when listening to podcasts or anything vocal-focused.
Another aspect of the Ear (open) that I appreciate is the ChatGPT integration. The first earbuds to do so. It’s great, and it’s incredibly useful when researching things on the go or talking through a plan or idea, but it’s not perfect. A brief example of the good, the bad, and the ugly is this:
To test it out, I queried ChatGPT about the best fancy restaurants in Malibu, California, to eat at. This beautiful city is on the famous Pacific Coast Highway that runs along the Southern California coastline. ChatGPT gave me brilliant advice, along with context on why, for a few different restaurants, but that’s where the utility ends. I couldn’t ask it to call the restaurants for me or to give me driving directions tied into Google Maps and then take me there.
A little feature that some folk may not consider rounds out the list of things I like. The case, like the buds themselves, is IP54-rated for dust and water ingress. Since these are meant for use cases where people may be outside during inclement weather, that’s a reassuring feature. However, this rating means that you can’t wear them during heavy rains, so in the next iteration, I’d like to see an IP65 rating, which would allow these to be worn during more challenging climate conditions.
One last note on the things I like: call quality is very good. I recorded microphone audio when I had them connected to a Pixel 9 and asked callers how I sounded during calls. In both instances, audio quality was Nothing to sneeze at.
Nothing Ear (Open): What could use improvement
There isn’t a lot to dislike here! At all. A couple of standout items would be the lack of wireless charging for the case and the case length. Both issues are pretty standard in the open-ear market segment, though.
With that said, while there isn’t much I dislike, there are two things I’d like to see in a second-generation version of these fantastic earbuds: wireless charging for the case and Hi-Res Wireless audio support. Not necessarily to make the music “better,” but since they are open-ear, having every bit of dynamic range I can get so that I can get every ounce of audio data and frequency out of these earbuds as possible would be great!
I’d also like to see Google Assistant integration. Once I research restaurants while I’m out with my beautiful wife and we decide on one, I need to hand it off to Google Assistant for whatever next steps: creating a note, driving directions, setting a reminder, you get the idea.
Last, though the ChatGPT integration is awesome, I need that functionality to do more. For example, I’d like the ability to configure each earbud independently to use whatever digital assistant you want. Currently, you can only set Google Assistant or ChatGPT as your assistant. Once you set the pinch command on either earbud, that setting is ubiquitous across both earbuds, despite the fact that you can customize the other functions independently for either earbud.
And I’m being nitpicky here, but I’d like them in a color other than white so that they won’t look grimy as quickly as these may. Time will tell, but with white buds and a white case, this is a concern of mine.
Nothing Ear (Open): Competition
There are a few others in this market segment, but they have a lot to live up to because, at $150, Nothing makes an excellent value proposition with its quality and feature set.
Bose Ultra Open and BeyerDynamic Verio 200 both compete on sound quality and features, but they are at a premium. The former costs twice as much, $300, while the latter is $70 more at $220.
You can get close to the Nothing Ear (open) in price with Shokz OpenFit and 1More Fit products, but I think the Ear (Open) has them beat in sound quality and options.
Nothing Ear (Open): Should you buy it?
You should buy the Nothing Ear (Open) if...
- You want great open-ear sound at a good price
- You have a Nothing phone and want an open-ear product
- You own a Nothing phone and want an AI assistant in your ‘buds
You shouldn’t buy the Nothing Ear (open) if…
- You don’t want open-ear earbuds
- You want wireless charging
Sometimes, in life, it feels like Nothing is simple. That won’t be the case here! The Nothing Ear (Open) compete with products that cost much more and sound just as good.
The earbuds sound great and are feature-rich, including the ability to converse with an AI assistant if you also have a Nothing phone. These alone make the Ear (Open) very easy to recommend for those hunting for a solid pair of open earbuds.
