Ear we go!

Available in any colour as long as it’s black, Grado debuts its true wireless earbuds. Cliff Joseph ditches the wires

- Cliff Joseph

Marking Grado’s first foray into the burgeoning market for true-wireless earbuds, the compact GT220 is barely noticeable when sat inside the ear and weighs only 5g. Grado provides three sizes of ear-tips and the buds are designed so that you can give them a little twist once they’re in place to ensure a firm fit and a decent seal. The GT220 supports both aptX and AAC codecs for Bluetooth and offers a claimed six hours of battery life. The charging case allows you to charge them five more times, for a total of 36 hours of listening. The case can be fully powered up using a standard USB cable – bundled – but also supports Qi wireless charging.

The earbuds automatically go into pairing mode as soon as they’re taken out of the charging case, so you can simply turn on Bluetooth on your smartphone or other devices to start listening. It might take a little while to learn all the controls, however. There’s no app provided, so you'll need to remember a series of complex commands that involve single, double and triple taps on each earpiece in order to control phone calls and music playback.