It seems like you can't move for true wireless earbuds nowadays. Now Chinese brand Honor has thrown its hat into the ring with the Earbuds 2 Lite. And while they look quite a lot like a pair of AirPods, they're much, much cheaper.
They cost almost a third of the price of Apple's pair, in fact. Their price tag is listed as €69, which comes in at £59 ($82, about AU$110) – far below the AirPods' asking price of £159 ($159, AU$249).
ANC comes as standard, while the buds' ear tips promise a noise-isolating design to block out sound even with ANC turned off. Dual Anti-Wind technology promises to reduce the sound interference from gusts, which is handy when using them for handsfree voice calls.
Awareness Mode lets you hear what's going around you without taking the earbuds out. Just touch and hold the earbud stem for a few seconds to activate it.
On sound duties are 10mm high fidelity dynamic drivers with sensitive polymer composite diaphragms which promise "authentic and balanced audio, detailed sound, and a rich deep bass". We'll have to test them for ourselves before we can verify any of that.
As is typical of true wireless earbuds, they come with three sizes of silicon ear tips to provide a comfortable fit. Pair them with a phone running Honor's Magic UI (version 4.0 or later) and they'll automatically recognise when you're playing a game and enter low latency mode. This synchronises audio and video to reduce lag. And Bluetooth 5.2 ("with Honor's optimisations") means they should stay connected to your phone, especially if it's an Honor model.
Best true wireless earbuds (these don't have any wires)
Best noise-cancelling earbuds (this one's self-explanatory)
