Alongside the all-new Phone (4b), Nothing have also launched their latest pair of earbuds with the Nothing Ear (3a).
Priced at $179, the new earbuds bring a sense of play to the Nothing TWS earbud line-up, with a new Pink colourway joining the usual Yellow, black and Blue.
Using 12mm custom drivers, the Nothing Ear (3a) can deliver better quality audio including Hi-Res Audio and Static Spatial Audio, as well as offering Active Noise Cancellation and dual-device connectivity.
Nothing is also launching a couple of new features on the Nothing Ear (3a): Audio Snapshot and Call Recording, letting you save call recording, or audio clips directly to the earbuds.
There’s been refinements to the design of the buds and case, including more battery life from the case and buds combined.
I’ve been using the Nothing Ear (3a) for a couple of weeks and here’s how they went.
The compact package for the Nothing Ear (3a), includes the manual, the buds themselves in the charging case and four sizes of ear tips with the Medium sized tips pre-installed.
The case comes with residual charge, but you’ll probably want to fully charge it before going ahead. Plug in a USB-C cable to the base of the case to charge. There’s no USB-C cable in the box, but given the large number of USB-C cables most people have there’s no real issue here.
Once charged, or you want to start the setup you can download and install the Nothing X app for your Android or iOS device through their respective app stores.
WIth the app installed, it’s a simple matter of opening the case to put the buds into pairing mode, and open the Nothing X app to scan.
Once the app finds the buds, it’s a matter of following the bouncing ball to get your earbuds installed. You’ll also be offered a Firmware update if available.
The setup process also includes a brief on-boarding experience to give you the default options for touch controls.
You can change most of the controls in the app, with the lone exception being single pinch but they offer pretty much what most people want right out of the box.
The design of the Nothing Ear (3a) is similar to previous iterations with a stalk style TWS earbud and compact charging case.
A nice design touch beyond the transparent rails and comfortable design, is the red and white dot on each bud. The dots match the red and white dot on the inside of the case – and right (red) and left (white) so you can get them where they need to be.
The Nothing transparent aesthetic is fully in place with the case using a transparent lid so you can see the earbuds, in the different colours if you get them.
While the Yellow and Pink look vibrant, I’d likely stick to the more classic Black or White, and I’m not unhappy that out of the two the Nothing team sent over the Black version for review.
The case is easy to slip into your pocket and the acrylic case feels solid and protects the buds well. It has a magnetic clasp to keep it all secure, but opens with relative ease.
The Ear (3a) has an IP54 rating, so you can easily walk in the rain or sweat it out at the gym without worrying. More importantly that acrylic case will survive at up to 75 ̊ C for 96 hours…so it’s ready for an Australian summer.
The earbuds themselves sit comfortably in the ear and don’t feel at all like they’re going to fall out and the controls on the stalk are easy to reach and activate when you need to.
They’re pretty darn good buds.
The 12mm drivers are good, offering a pretty balanced sound across the board. There’s decent low-end without distortion if you throw on some heavier stuff, and the mids and highs offer great sound reproduction.
They are rated for Hi-Res audio, with support for up to 24-bit sound at 96kHz and you get Spatial Audio support as well.
The Active Noise Cancellation works decently, drowning out most road or plane noise when travelling. The transparency mode has no lag, letting you easily talk with people around you.
The buds also support Bluetooth 6, so if your device also has it you can get improvements on latency and even battery life.
On Battery Life, once I charged the case initially I haven’t yet reached the point of needing to charge them again. It’s just use them and throw them back in the case.
Nothing says the buds include a 55 mAh battery in each bud, with up to ten hours of playback on a single charge. I admittedly haven’t had them in for ten hours, but did use them for a couple of hours while connected to the PC using the Dual Device capability and had no issues.
The one Awesome thing I love about the Nothing Ear 3a is the new LED status light showing the battery level when you open the case. You can also hit the button on the right hand side to show the level as well.
No notes, love it.
The Audio Snapshot feature is one of the more interesting ones from the Nothing Ear (3a). The buds include 32GB of on-board storage and can clip up to a minute of audio of any audio (song, podcast, video, audiobook), or up to two hours when on a call or in a meeting.
You’ll need to sign in to a Nothing account – you can set up an account, or use your Google or Apple account. Once signed in you trigger a free 3-month trial for Pro Transcription. There’s also a privacy warning, which is linked to the meetings. Ensuring people know you’re recording.
The buds seem to have a continuous scroll record like a dashcam. This continual record lets you also scroll back up to 30 seconds before you double press the stalks on the Ear (3a) to start the Audio Snapshot.
The settings also allow you to select audio quality to save space, as well as the Transcription model – which is a free trial, and it works quite well, though Nothing haven’t mentioned what happens at the end of the trial.
Nothing is also promising that we’ll see summaries of call recordings, including identifying different speakers – but we’ll have to wait until next month to see that.
When you do record a phone call, both the caller and receiver get an audible alert that the call is about to be recorded and then a 3-second count down.
As with Audio Snapshots, calls can be Transcribed and played back – an excellent idea, and implemented well.
The Nothing range is growing fast, with the new Phone (4b) positioned as a ‘new entry point’, the Nothing Ear (3a) at $179 are a compelling companion.
They have that excellent transparent design, good sound quality as well as all the features including good Active Noise Cancellation, as well as dual-device connectivity and great battery life.
The new Call Recording and Audio Snapshot feature is a game-changer (for me at least) of an idea – and something you can really just start using from the get go.
As far as I can see, there’s other earbuds available for the price – but being able to record your next meeting in your ear is a very cool feature.
The Nothing Ear (3a) buds are now available for purchase via nothing.tech.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
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