Are Amazon's bargain buds really worth it?
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Open earbuds are super-hot right now, especially with great options from more premium brands — our guide to the best open earbuds is full of these. But prices have been coming down, and you can now find super-cheap options on Amazon, many for under $40 / £40. Some are from brands you’ve never heard of, others from well-known brands that are selling older models at a discount.
We all know that buying budget tech tends to come with a few sacrifices. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider them (just take a look at the great picks in our best budget earbuds guide for proof).
The problem is that open earbuds are tricky to get right. You need a combination of stability to keep them in place and an audio mix that’s engaging while also allowing ambient noise to get through. The only way to know if they've succeeded is to test them, so I picked three options from generally reliable budget earbuds brands and put them through their paces, all for under £35.99 / £35.99.
I put the Tozo OpenEarRing, Soundcore Anker V20i and Belkin SoundForm ClearFit buds to the test, listening to music and podcasts with them all over the course of two weeks.
There was no point focusing on whether these are elite sonic performers — they won’t be, and that's. But I wanted to know whether they’d still fit well, deliver enjoyable audio, and do a good job at keeping me aware of my surroundings.
For those who like to cut to the chase, I'll tell you up front that I think the Tozo OpenEarRing are actually good, the Anker Soundcore V20i are a solid buy, and the Belkin aren't worth it — but read on for exactly why.
The whole point of open earbuds is they keep your ear canal open so you can hear both your music and what’s going on around you. But that means they’re challenging to design because there are no in-ear tips to keep them securely in place.
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Instead, what keeps them stable is either an ear hook that sits around the back of your head, or an ear clip that slips over the side of your ear. (There are some options that just sit in the ear like regular earbuds, but without inserting into the ear canal — but when it comes to open earbuds most people focus on hook or clip style.)
The Belkin SoundForm ClearFit buds have the ear hook design, but it’s a fairly short hook and the angle it curves at didn’t feel particularly comfortable behind my ear.
The main unit of the bud, which sits in front of your ear, is also quite bulky. It felt like there were weight distribution issues between the hook and the buds, which meant they never felt totally secure when I was walking, and slipped and bounced around a little when I was running.
What made this experience worse was that the touch controls on the side of the buds were incredibly sensitive, so in trying to get the right fit or move them back into position, I was playing/pausing and skipping tracks without meaning to.
Now, the Soundcore Anker V20i may look similar with their ear hooks, but these are longer, which kept them more stable because they were anchored in place. They also had a really useful customization feature at the base of the hook, which gives you four slightly different angles to wear them at, depending on the shape of your ear, to help keep them secure.
