NOTHING VENTURED - Nothing Ear (1)

Is Nothing onto something with these cheap, transparent-ish ANC earbuds?

£99 nothing.tech

Nothing is a brand new London based company started by OnePlus founder Carl Pei. The first of its new ecosystem of products is the Nothing Ear (1) true wireless earbuds, which were a popular talking point on social media in the run-up to their launch. So we got our hands on a pair to answer the question: do they live up to the hype?

The Nothing Ear (1) buds have a dangling stem with an AirPods-Pro-esque design but the very first thing you’ll notice is the buds are transparent. Well, mostly transparent. You can see everything inside the stem, then the actual bud itself is solid white. That’s a shame because on hearing ‘transparent earbuds’, we expected the whole thing to be see-through.