Hands on: Nothing Headphone (1) review

Young British brand Nothing doesn't appear to be afraid of a challenge. The company was founded only in late 2020, yet in the space of just under five years it has carved a modest niche thanks to its range of competitively priced and strikingly designed smartphones and audio products.

This, though, might be the company's biggest challenge to date. The Headphone (1) is Nothing's first foray into the realm of the wireless headphone, a land occupied by the likes of Sony, Apple, Bose and Bowers & Wilkins. This isn't the sort of place for casuals and novices – this is the big leagues, and nothing less than the best will do.

To see just what Nothing is bringing to the table, we headed to Magazine London on the Greenwich Peninsula to get some hands-on time with the Headphones (1). These are just are first impressions of the new over-ears, and we'll require a more thorough look to assess if they're capable of challenging the big boys.

Price

The Nothing Headphone (1) are priced at £299 / $299 / €299, a competitive figure which sees the new over-ears undercutting the likes of the Sony WH-1000XM6 (tested at £400 / $450 / AU$699) and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (currently around £350 / $450).

When there are so many cans pushing beyond that £400 / $450 mark, this could be one of the Headphone (1)'s real trump cards.

Comfort and design

Nothing has always been a brand that makes a big deal of ploughing its own aesthetic furrow; and now that there's a new product territory to be explored, perish the thought of it playing things safe.

Instead, the Headphone (1) look like little else we have seen. The main draw for the eye is those cassette tape-like earcups which combine a rectangular body with rounded outer cups, with Nothing once again favouring that somewhat transparent design whereby some of the unit's internal workings can be spied by the naked eye.

Cups aside, the over-ears are equipped with an adjustable headband which slides smoothly and easily in our hands, while those earcups themselves are capable of rotating from side to side.

The question, of course, is: are they comfortable? Well, that's a tricky one. In the few hours we had with the over-ears, we did find them to be reasonably easy to wear, detecting few outlandish points of pressure or areas in which the memory foam earpads didn't fit to the natural contours of our ears.

We concede, however, that we will need more testing time and some more willing test volunteers, as well as a time and place that isn't so swelteringly hot – the warmest day of the year is always going to make you feel as though you're sweating like a turkey on Christmas Eve.

Nothing has made a big deal of its latest cans' integration of touch controls, using a combination of three main toggles – a roller, a paddle and a customisable button – for a more intuitive and accessible user experience.

That roller, for instance, takes care of adjusting volume up and down, while the customisable button can be assigned to a variety of functions such as accessing your favourite podcasts, playlists or streaming service.

We didn't manage to test every single functionality, but the roller was a pleasing and tactile way of getting our music as loud as we like in a crowded demo room. We agree with the Nothing team that touch and button controls aren't always that intuitive, so it's nice to see a brand attempting to address such usability issues for the mass market.

Features

The Headphones (1) are equipped with active noise cancelling, so if they're working well, you should be able to hear almost Nothing (sorry) of the outside world. We accessed only the standard mode during our demo time, and it managed a decent job of ensuring that the chatter and movement of dozens of tech journalists was noticeably reduced.

Spatial audio with head-tracking support is on board, as are hands-free voice calls courtesy of 'Clear Voice Technology'. This wasn't the time to be ringing distant family members for a long-overdue catch-up, so we'll have to reserve our assessment here for later testing.

What about battery life? We didn't have the time to test the veracity of the stated figures (we'd have had to have stayed in London until the weekend), but Nothing claims a whopping 80 hours of playtime with ANC switched off and around 35 hours with ANC turned on. A quick five-minute charge will grant around five hours of non-ANC playtime if you're in a hurry and around two-and-a-half with ANC on.

Those are mammoth figures – for comparison, the Sony WH-1000XM6 will eke out around 30 hours when ANC is on, so forgive us if we're provisionally impressed by Nothing's effort. For a cheaper benchmark, the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless which currently cost around £200 / $300, will give you 60 hours with ANC switched on.

There are plenty of ways to listen, too. The Headphones (1) are compatible with hi-res Bluetooth codecs such as LDAC, while you can access lossless audio via a tethered USB-C connection. If you fancy something more traditional, a 3.5mm headphone port is also provided.

Sound quality

Nothing's team spoke a lot about design and usability during the demo's opening salvo, but they're not naïve enough to think that their sound doesn't have to be up to snuff.

Inside each earcup, the Nothing Headphone (1) house a precision-engineered custom 40mm driver, with polyethylene surrounds that aim to deliver reduced distortion and better low-end performance.

The big coup for Nothing is that it has managed to team up with British audio brand KEF to help tune the cans, aiming for a "rich, balanced" signature that's "full of character". Considering how good KEF is at making speakers – just see the LS50 Meta or the LSX II LT wireless system for proof – that's a real ace up their sleeve.

Said tentatively, we can hear hints of that signature KEF DNA when we get the Nothing Headphones (1) up and running in our brief time with them. They are, upon first listen, a balanced and authoritative pair of over-ears, with a sound that blends weight and solidity alongside a knack for organisation and control.

Little appears to spill out from its given sonic lane, and few elements from our varied selection of test tracks strike us as irksome or over-egged. No booming bass, no hard-edged trebles as far as we can hear.

That lower-end, in fact, feels reassuringly deep and well-controlled. The Nothing Headphones (1) keep the ever-chuntering bassline on Muse's Hysteria in check, while there's enough stretch to grant weight to the bassier aspects of Radiohead's Decks Dark.

We detect ample detail levels as we listen across both Tidal and Qobuz on our trusty iPhone 15, though we'll have to have more testing time to see how the new contenders stack up against class-leading rivals.

There's certainly a richness and body displayed on the mournful strings of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' Song for Bob – what further listening will reveal is whether there's enough insight to track the subtle rise and decay of instruments, voices and the silences in between.

We are also keen to see how the Nothing over-ears keep up with their rivals in terms of dynamics and rhythmic capabilities. Whether it's George Benson's Give Me The Night or Ludwig Göransson's Can You Hear The Music, it will be a real test for these new hopefuls to see if they can approach the dynamism and musicality of Sony's flagship over-ears or Bose's best.

Verdict

We're in uncharted waters with the Nothing Headphones (1). The UK company has never made an over-ear pair of wireless headphones, and it's rare that Nothing goes this far up the price ladder – more affordable wireless earbuds are far more familiar territory.

Still, there are positive signs. That combination of a hefty feature set and an aggressive price will give the new over-ears some serious appeal, while the recruitment of KEF to get the best sound possible indicates that Nothing is serious about sound.

It will have to be. Every brand and its dog are bringing out premium wireless headphones these days, and only a select few have the chops to make inroads into this saturated market.

As ever, we'll need more testing time with our review sample to discover whether or not Nothing has cracked the code, or whether there are just too many fish in this ever-filling pond.

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