Top 5 budget TWS headphones: the best models under 10,000 rubles | Articles | Audio and video equipment

Pho­to: Jaron Schnei­der, Dig­i­tal Trends

There is a wide range of ful­ly wire­less ear­phones on the mar­ket of dif­fer­ent brands and prices. But among all this vari­ety, are there wor­thy options with decent sound and a good set of fea­tures at an afford­able price? We have pre­pared a rat­ing of 5 mod­els of TWS head­phones worth up to 10,000 rubles. Each of them has its own char­ac­ter­is­tics, advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. But they all work for a long time and sound decent.

How was it evaluated

When com­pil­ing the rat­ing of bud­get wire­less head­phones, we took into account the fol­low­ing para­me­ters: Blue­tooth ver­sion, sup­port­ed codecs, oper­at­ing time, pro­tec­tion against mois­ture and dust. We eval­u­at­ed each pair of head­phones rel­a­tive to oth­er mod­els from the list accord­ing to one of these char­ac­ter­is­tics. The max­i­mum score for each cri­te­ri­on is 5 points. Let’s dwell on them in more detail.

Bluetooth version

With the devel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy, new audio codecs are sup­port­ed, data trans­fer speeds increase and pow­er con­sump­tion decreas­es. Accord­ing­ly, the high­er the Blue­tooth ver­sion, the bet­ter.

The most “fresh” — 5.2. It adds sup­port for LE Audio with the new LC3 codec instead of the stan­dard SBC and the abil­i­ty to con­nect mul­ti­ple pairs of head­phones to one smart­phone. How­ev­er, in order to take advan­tage of all the advan­tages of Blue­tooth 5.2, both head­phones and the sound source must sup­port this ver­sion.

Codecs

For the codec to work, it is also impor­tant that it is sup­port­ed not only by head­phones, but also by the sound source.

While Blue­tooth LE Audio is not wide­ly used, SBC is the stan­dard for Blue­tooth. More advanced alter­na­tives are AAC, the aptX fam­i­ly of codecs, Sony’s LDAC, and oth­er less pop­u­lar codecs.

The more codecs the head­phones sup­port, the high­er the score.

Working hours

Typ­i­cal­ly, TWS mod­els can work with­out recharg­ing for 3–6 hours. How­ev­er, they are com­ple­ment­ed by a case for stor­age and recharg­ing. It gives 2–4 more full charges.

When eval­u­at­ing, we took into account the total bat­tery life. The larg­er it is, the high­er the score.

Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

Atten­u­ates ambi­ent noise with exter­nal micro­phones. Thanks to this, you can lis­ten to music at a low­er vol­ume in a noisy envi­ron­ment (for exam­ple, at a train sta­tion, near a busy high­way). Usu­al­ly mod­els with ANC also have a “trans­par­ent” mode, which allows exter­nal noise to pass through and allows you to hear what is hap­pen­ing around you (for exam­ple, for safe­ty when jog­ging or cycling next to the road).

Acti­vat­ing ANC mode increas­es bat­tery con­sump­tion.

Mod­els equipped with Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion will receive a high­er score.

Sweat/Moisture Resistant

Spec­i­fied in IPXX for­mat. Some mod­els can with­stand only drops of sweat, oth­ers will sur­vive a down­pour. The high­er the degree of pro­tec­tion, the high­er the score.

In the fea­tures of each mod­el, we have indi­cat­ed the fre­quen­cy range, imped­ance, sen­si­tiv­i­ty and speak­er diam­e­ter. How­ev­er, we will not take into account these para­me­ters in the eval­u­a­tion.

fre­quen­cy range talks about the musi­cal abil­i­ties of the head­phones. The far­ther apart the bound­aries of the range, the bet­ter. How­ev­er, there is no sin­gle stan­dard for mea­sure­ment. There­fore, man­u­fac­tur­ers in most cas­es indi­cate a fre­quen­cy range of 20–20000 Hz. But in fact it turns out to be much nar­row­er (at best 40–18000 Hz). It is bet­ter to deter­mine the sound qual­i­ty by ear dur­ing test­ing.

Sen­si­tiv­i­ty It is mea­sured in deci­bels and varies in the range of 60–140 dB. The high­er it is, the loud­er the head­phones play. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, man­u­fac­tur­ers mea­sure the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of their True-Wire­less head­phones in arbi­trary ways. The results are not always com­pa­ra­ble with each oth­er.

Imped­ance (resis­tance) is mea­sured in ohms. Head­phone requests to the pow­er of sound sources depend on this para­me­ter. Devices with a resis­tance not high­er than 50 ohms can work even with the weak­est sources (for exam­ple, mobile phones). High imped­ance mod­els require addi­tion­al ampli­fi­ca­tion to dri­ve portable equip­ment, but pro­duce clean­er sound. When choos­ing wire­less head­phones, you don’t have to wor­ry about imped­ance, since they are equipped with a built-in ampli­fi­er.

Speak­er diam­e­ter — the more, the bet­ter the sound and rich­er bass. In ful­ly wire­less head­phones (tws), the diam­e­ter of the speak­ers is in the range of 5–15 mm.

The best budget TWS headphones

Huawei Freebuds 4i

Huawei Free­buds 4i received the lat­est ver­sion of Blue­tooth, fast charg­ing, active noise reduc­tion, dust and mois­ture pro­tec­tion. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.2

Codecs:

SBC, AAC

Bat­tery:

The bat­tery capac­i­ty of one ear­bud is 55 mAh. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of the case is 215 mAh.

Music play­back time is 10 hours (at 50% vol­ume, ANC off) and more than 4 hours with ANC or trans­paren­cy on and 100% vol­ume. The bat­tery life in the case is 22 hours.

Charg­ing from 0 to 100% of the head­phones takes about an hour, the case takes 1.5 hours. This mod­el sup­ports fast charg­ing: 10 min­utes in the case gives 4 hours of music play­back (pro­vid­ed that the bat­tery charge of the case itself is more than 80%).

Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC):

There is + trans­paren­cy mode.

Sweat/Moisture Resis­tant:

IP54 — the head­phones are not afraid of direct splash­es of water from any direc­tion. But div­ing under water can not sur­vive. There is par­tial pro­tec­tion against dust (the pen­e­trat­ing amount does not inter­fere with the oper­a­tion of the gad­get).

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 20–20000 Hz;
• imped­ance — 32 Ohm;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty — 120 dB;
• dynam­ic speak­er diam­e­ter — 10 mm;
• noise can­cel­ing micro­phones dur­ing calls;
• touch con­trol, you can acti­vate the voice assis­tant by dou­ble-tap­ping on the ear­piece;
• Huawei AI Life mobile app avail­able (not avail­able for Apple prod­ucts);
• three col­ors: white, black and red.

Huawei Free­buds 4i cost from 5,580 rubles. Best suit­ed for lis­ten­ing to pop­u­lar music, folk and com­po­si­tions with an empha­sis on the vocal part.

Pros:

• good auton­o­my;
• fast charg­ing;
• clear voice trans­mis­sion in head­set mode;
• tight and secure fit;
• mois­ture and dust pro­tec­tion.

Minus­es:

• if you remove the ear­piece from your ear, the music is not paused;
• aver­age sound qual­i­ty (bass lacks pow­er);
• aver­age work of the ANC func­tion;
• you can not adjust the vol­ume from the head­phones;
• medi­um touch sen­si­tiv­i­ty — there is a slight delay before trig­ger­ing.

QCY T1C

QCY T1C are the most afford­able true wire­less head­phones in our selec­tion. Pho­to: scarbir.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.0

Codecs:

SBC, AAC

Bat­tery:

The bat­tery capac­i­ty of one ear­phone is 43 mAh. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of the case is 380 mAh.

One charge of the head­phones is enough for 3–3.5 hours of music play­back. Tak­ing into account recharg­ing from the case — about 20 hours.

The case takes 2 hours to charge, the ear­buds take 1 hour. The fast charg­ing func­tion is not pro­vid­ed.

Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC):

Not

Sweat/Moisture Resis­tant:

IPX4 — pro­tec­tion against direct splash­es. That is, you can run in the rain or train hard in the gym, but you can’t immerse your­self in water. There is no dust pro­tec­tion.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 20–20000 Hz;
• imped­ance — 32 Ohm;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty: 108 dB;
• dynam­ic speak­er diam­e­ter — 6 mm;
• noise can­cel­ing micro­phones;
• push-but­ton con­trol, you can call the voice assis­tant;
• sup­port sev­er­al usage sce­nar­ios: sin­gle (one ear­phone is con­nect­ed to the device), paired and sep­a­rate con­nec­tion mode (the left ear­phone is con­nect­ed to one device, the right one to anoth­er);
• there is an appli­ca­tion for a smart­phone: the charge is dis­played, you can change the pur­pose of but­ton com­bi­na­tions;
• col­ors: black, white.

QCY T1C cost from 898 rubles. The sound is dom­i­nat­ed by bass, best suit­ed for lis­ten­ing to pop music. Com­plex com­po­si­tions sound insuf­fi­cient­ly volu­mi­nous.

Pros:

• afford­able price;
• decent sound for the price;
• mois­ture pro­tec­tion;
• hold tight — you can run and do phys­i­cal exer­cis­es in them;
• sev­er­al con­nec­tion sce­nar­ios and auto­mat­ic shut­down after 10 min­utes if no music plays / con­nec­tion is lost.

Minus­es:

• out­dat­ed microUSB port;
• there is no lid on the case, dust gets inside;
• You can’t adjust the vol­ume from the head­phones.
• if you remove the ear­piece from your ear, the music is not paused;
• not the best mate­ri­als and build qual­i­ty.

Haylou GT1 Pro

Hay­lou GT1 Pro TWS head­phones offer good sound qual­i­ty for the bud­get seg­ment. Pho­to: techxreviews.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.0

Codecs:

SBC, AAC

Bat­tery:

The bat­tery capac­i­ty of one ear­phone is 43 mAh. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of the case is 800 mAh. Hay­lou GT1 Pro runs on a sin­gle charge up to 26 hours.

The case is ful­ly charged in 2 hours, the ear­buds in 1.5. There is no sup­port for fast charg­ing.

Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC):

No, but there is dig­i­tal noise reduc­tion (DSP-proces­sor mon­i­tors the lev­el of exter­nal noise and effec­tive­ly sup­press­es them).

Sweat/Moisture Resis­tant:

IPX5 against water cur­rents from any direc­tion (rain and sweat will with­stand). There is no dust pro­tec­tion.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 20–20000 Hz;
• imped­ance — 32 Ohm;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty: 110 dB;
• dynam­ic speak­er diam­e­ter — 7.2 mm;
• noise can­cel­ing micro­phones;
• touch con­trol, you can call voice assis­tants (Siri, Google Assis­tant and Xiao­mi Xiaoai);
• Col­ors: black.

Hay­lou GT1 Pro cost from 1,280 rubles. Bass for the class is good, mids and highs are well detailed.

Pros:

• afford­able price;
• good sound qual­i­ty for the price seg­ment;
• amaz­ing auton­o­my;
• mois­ture pro­tec­tion.

Minus­es:

• out­dat­ed microUSB port;
• vol­ume can­not be adjust­ed.
• aver­age micro­phone qual­i­ty;
• not a very tight fit — dur­ing a run they can fall out.

1MORE ComfoBuds Pro

Six built-in noise-can­cel­ing micro­phones make the 1More Com­foBuds Pro a great option to use as a head­set. Pho­to: Simon Cohen, Dig­i­tal Trends

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.0

Codecs:

SBC, AAC

Bat­tery:

The bat­tery capac­i­ty of one ear­phone is 50 mAh. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of the case is 450 mAh.

A sin­gle bat­tery charge lasts for 8 hours of music play­back with­out noise can­cel­la­tion (6 hours with ANC). The charg­ing case extends the oper­a­tion of the head­phones up to 28 hours (20 with noise can­cel­la­tion).

Head­phones are ful­ly charged in an hour, case — in 2. Quick charge func­tion — 15 min­utes of charg­ing gives 2 hours of music play­back.

Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC):

Yes. Qui­et­Max noise reduc­tion tech­nol­o­gy (up to 40 dB). Modes: ANC, wind sup­pres­sion and trans­paren­cy.

Sweat/Moisture Resis­tant:

IPX4, splash-proof — sweat or light rain. There is no dust pro­tec­tion.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 20–20000 Hz;
• imped­ance — 32 Ohm;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty: 110 dB;
• dynam­ic speak­er diam­e­ter — 13.4 mm;
• 6 built-in micro­phones with noise reduc­tion;
• touch con­trol, you can call the voice assis­tant;
• there is a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion, you can choose 1 of 5 noise reduc­tion options (although for now it is in Eng­lish for Android, and in Chi­nese for iOS);
• col­ors: black, white.

1More Com­foBuds Pro cost from 6200 rubles. Bal­anced sound, head­phones adapt­ed to all styles.

Pros:

• excel­lent sound;
• fast charg­ing and good auton­o­my;
• effec­tive noise reduc­tion;
• auto­mat­ic stop play­back when remov­ing the head­phones (and start when you put them back);
• mois­ture pro­tec­tion.

Minus­es:

• not the most reli­able fit (dur­ing an active work­out they can fall out);
• Head­phones can’t adjust the vol­ume.
• the appli­ca­tion is not Rus­si­fied.

Anker Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro

Anker Sound­core Lib­er­ty 2 Pro is the most expen­sive mod­el in our rank­ing. Pho­to: Jaron Schnei­der, Dig­i­tal Trends

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.0

Codecs:

SBC, AAC, aptX

Bat­tery:

The bat­tery capac­i­ty of one ear­phone is 65 mAh. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of the case is 500 mAh.

One bat­tery charge lasts up to 8 hours of music play­back, total auton­o­my — 32 hours.

10 min­utes of charg­ing gives 2 hours of work. The head­phones sup­port wire­less charg­ing.

Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC):

No, but there is noise reduc­tion tech­nol­o­gy from Qual­comm.

Sweat/Moisture Resis­tant:

IPX4 — pro­tec­tion against splash­es: sweat or rain. There is no dust pro­tec­tion.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 20–20000 Hz;
• imped­ance — 16 Ohm;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty: 100 dB;
• dynam­ic speak­er diam­e­ter — 11 mm + arma­ture dri­ver from Knowles for a clear trans­mis­sion of medi­um and high fre­quen­cies;
• 4 noise-can­cel­ing micro­phones from Qual­comm;
• con­trol by means of but­tons on the case;
• there is a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion with a musi­cal equal­iz­er and 22 pre­sets for dif­fer­ent direc­tions;
• you can adapt the sound to your hear­ing using Hear ID tech­nol­o­gy (in turn, sound sig­nals from dif­fer­ent ranges are sent to the left and right ear­phones, the user press­es the screen if he hears them);
• col­or: black, white.

Anker Sound­core Lib­er­ty 2 Pro cost from 9456 rubles.

Pros:

• very high sound qual­i­ty;
• aptX codec sup­port;
• per­son­al sound set­tings, equal­iz­er and pre­sets;
• fast and wire­less charg­ing and long bat­tery life;
• you can set the but­tons to adjust the vol­ume, for exam­ple, instead of launch­ing the voice assis­tant.

Minus­es:

• when remov­ing the head­phones, the music is not paused;
• bulky (strong­ly stick­ing out of the ears);
• lim­it­ed con­trol (2 mul­ti­func­tion­al but­tons with the abil­i­ty to assign 2 actions);
• aver­age call qual­i­ty.

Results

The true wire­less ear­phones from our rat­ing received the fol­low­ing rat­ings:

The Huawei Free­buds 4i Wire­less Ear­buds were the most praised, with the lat­est ver­sion of Blue­tooth, fast charg­ing, Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion and Trans­paren­cy Mode.

QCY T1C is the most afford­able mod­el with good sound and inter­est­ing fea­tures.

Hay­lou GT1 Pro is anoth­er decent option on a bud­get.

1MORE Com­foBuds Pro — 5 noise can­cel­ing modes, 6 built-in micro­phones, fast charg­ing and great sound.

Sound­core Lib­er­ty 2 Pro is the most expen­sive mod­el with sup­port for wire­less charg­ing, Qual­comm noise reduc­tion tech­nolo­gies, dynam­ic and arma­ture dri­vers, 4 micro­phones, an equal­iz­er and music pre­sets.