Best wireless earbuds 2024: Top Bluetooth earphones tested and ranked
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Wireless earbuds are the go-to way to listen to music, radio and podcasts on our smartphones in 2024. These small gadgets have largely replaced wired headphones as a pocketable way to carry a way to listen to audio privately ever since Apple released the white AirPods in 2016 and cut the cord on the iPod white cable era once and for all.
As good as AirPods remain, there is a whole world of earbuds beyond Apple’s famous white buds for all price, fit and audio needs. We’ve used, tested and ranked all the earbuds in this article thoroughly to make sure we only recommend the best out there. The cheapest pair is £99, while the priciest is £299.95. We hope there is something for everyone here, as even the £99 Nothing Ear (a) provides excellent audio quality, noise cancellation and battery life.
So, why spend more? The more expensive earbuds tested tend to sound better or have high resolution playback, have considerably better noise cancellation, or pack in smart features and touch sensitive controls instead of buttons.
We understand you want to spend your hard-earned money on the right tech product but unfortunately it’s very difficult to try-before-you-buy with earbuds for hygiene reasons - most retailers also won’t accept returns if they don’t fit you. Read on to find out which buds sound best for you, plus links to buy them from reputable UK retailers at the best possible prices.
Here are the best wireless earbuds you can currently buy in the UK.
1. Apple AirPods Pro (second generation)
RRP £229
You might roll your eyes to see Apple AirPods at the top of this list but they are there for a reason. In all our testing, we found the AirPods Pro the most consistently excellent wireless earbuds for sound, comfort, and battery life. You can’t ask for much more. We find the non-circular tips more comfortable than traditional round ones - ear canals aren’t perfectly circular!
The AirPods Pro are expensive at £229 but if you use an iPhone they’re a top choice thanks to quick pairing and handoff to your other Apple devices when needed, and cool modern features such as spatial audio (best heard in Apple Music) and head tracking to give audio more of a soundstage.
But at their core the AirPods Pro just sound great whatever you’re listening to, backed up by excellent noise cancellation and industry-best transparency mode. The buds and case are dust, sweat and water resistant too so these work well for exercise. The case can charge wirelessly, and the latest model has a USB-C port for when wired charging is preferred.
2. Nothing Ear (a)
RRP £99
If you want earbuds with decent fit and sound quality but don’t want to spend the earth then our top pick is the Nothing Ear (a). These are the UK brand’s latest offering and for £99 you’ll have zero complaints - we find they look and sound like buds that could cost twice as much.
Though Nothing also sells a £129 Nothing Ear model, we don’t think they justify the extra spend, only offering a Hi-Res audio option and EQ that you might not use or notice the difference with. The Ear (a) also come in an eye-catching yellow colour.
The Ear (a) sound phenomenally good for the price, connect quickly and to two devices at once if needed, plus the noise cancellation is good enough for train and air travel. They charge quickly via USB-C but there’s no wireless charging - spend a little more on the regular Ear if you want that. For everyone else, these £99 buds are a steal.
3. Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4
RRP £259.99
Nevermind the clunky name - if you want the best sounding wireless earbuds, look no further. They’re not as comfortable as AirPods Pro and they’ll hurt your bank account at £259, but these Sennheiser buds have incredibly good audio chops that beat any other bud here.
They sound excellent paired to any phone, tablet or laptop but the secret to unlocking their full potential lies in their Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound tech - pair them with a phone with the same smarts (full list of compatible phones here) and you can stream up to lossless quality using the aptX adaptive codec with a streaming service such as Qobuz. With buds, phone and files all playing nicely, the Momentum are music to our ears in every sense.
If all that sounds too complicated, worry not, and save some money. The True Wireless 4 aren’t the best looking buds either and the fit might not suit smaller ears, plus the touch controls are finicky. But we forgive these minor setbacks when portable audio sounds this good.
If you prefer a sportier design and features, the Momentum Sport buds are a better bet. They don’t sound as good but have an in-built heart rate monitor and temperature sensor that can record your vitals via a separate app from fitness brand Polar. We’ve used them on long runs and they stay put, plus the Anti-Wind mode is excellent and truly works to counter blustery noises that can plague earbuds.
4. Shokz OpenFit Air
RRP £119
We've been incredibly impressed with these £119 open ear earbuds from fitness audio brand Shokz. The company made its name in bone conduction headphones that keep your ear canal fully unobstructed and beam sound directly into your skull bones. This is clever, but audio quality takes a big dip.
Not so with the OpenFit Air, which sits outside your ear canal and fires sound down it. The hook fit is easy to attach and we've had no issue while out and about running. The idea is you have situational awareness by being able to hear things around you - something in-ear earbuds get around by offering transparency modes, but it’s much simpler to have an open ear design when you think about it.
Battery life is 28 hours (case recharges included) and touch controls on the outside let you skip with a double tap, or a tap and hold to change volume on either ear. We like that a single tap does nothing, as Shokz has thought about the bumps you’ll get when adjusting them while exercising. Attention to detail makes a difference. Although sound quality is middling, that’s the trade off here for very clever open design. They’re our go-to running headphones now.
5. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds
RRP £299.95
While the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are as badly named as the above Sennheiser, they don’t quite reach the audio quality. But if you value noise cancellation above all else, the Bose wins. When you turn on ANC on the QC Ultra, you’ll barely believe your ears.
We’ve sat on the noisiest London Underground carriages and been cocooned in our little bubble of audio, so good are these buds at cutting out the world around you and letting you concentrate on your music or podcast.
There are several tips and fins in the box for you to get the best fit possible, which does highlight that these are quite large and cumbersome, with a little more pressure exerted on ears than other buds here - and it’s nigh on impossible to try before you buy with earbuds. Anyone with tiny ears should avoid, but everyone else will love these buds, pricey though they are.
6. Sony WF-1000XM5
RRP £259.99
Sony has the over-ear headphone market all but tied up with its WH-1000XM5, not to be confused with the in-ear WF-1000XM5 buds. They’re superb, with excellent audio quality in the LDAC format on most Android devices (iPhones miss out), a smaller charging case than older versions with wireless charging, and a more subtle design than rivals Sennheiser or Bose manage.
Sony’s decision to make these buds smaller and lighter than predecessors means they don’t feel as premium, and we also struggled with fit, not able to keep the buds in our ears consistenly throughout the day compared to other buds. The included tips are also memory foam rather than silicone for improved fit for all ears, plus the noise cancellation is top drawer (only beaten by Bose).
The companion app is also one of the best in the business, with tons of smart features such as location tracking that automatically changes audio modes, granular EQ settings and more. Expensive but worth it, as we said in our review.
7. Motorola Moto Buds+
RRP £129.99
So yes, many of the best wireless earbuds cost more than £200. But the Moto Buds+ pack a lot of clever tech into great sounding buds for £129, which is more reasonable. We’re blown away by how good these sound - though they are the first bud with ‘Sound by Bose’, so there’s help here from an audio titan. This lifts the Buds+ beyond what you’d expect for the price.
You get a great bass representation here, with booming in songs where you might not expect to hear it at this price point. There’s not as wide a soundstage as with buds that cost twice as much but for most people the Buds+ will be more than enough.
The design is indebted to AirPods but that’s no bad thing, even if the touch controls are a bit slow. The charging case is very pocketable and provides 38 hours of playback overall (eight hours from the buds before recharging), plus you get solid ANC and Hi-Res audio support all for half the price of the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4. Not bad at all.
8. Beats Studio Buds+
RRP £179.99
If you like the idea of AirPods Pro but don’t want to fork out quite as much for them, the Beats Studio Buds+ are a great alternative. They sound great, fit well, and are more subtle than AirPods - unless you dig the awesome transparent version, which stands out from the crowd. We reviewed the black model.
The best thing about these Beats (from a company owned by Apple) is they play nice with both iPhone and Android, unlike AirPods. They connect easily and you don’t lose out on any features. The noise cancellation is excellent and the buttons on the outside are easy to press, though we missed in-ear detection so the audio doesn’t stop when you take a bud out.
You get 36 hours battery life overall with a fully charged case, which is great, and they recharge via USB-C, not Lightning. If you have an iPhone, Siri works well, and they are IPX4 sweat proof for those gym workout sessions.
9. Google Pixel Buds Pro
RRP £199
Google’s most expensive wireless earbuds are the company’s best yet, and a solid choice if you use a Google Pixel phone. That said, they work just as well on other Android phones too, but iPhone users should look elsewhere.
We like the distinctive circular design, which you can choose in several bright colours (or black). The outside of each bud has a responsive touch sensor for pausing, skipping track and changing volume, plus as these are Google buds you get full Google Assistant integration with your Android smartphone.
Noise cancellation isn’t on par with Sony and Bose and, to be honest, neither is sound. But if you want to spend less and are a devout Android user then these £199 buds look the part, connect fully with your device, and sound great if you aren’t the fussiest audio shopper.
10. Beats Solo Buds
RRP £79.95
The Solo Buds are the cheapest wireless earbuds Beats has ever released and they are very good - so it’s a shame that the bottom line is they should really be even cheaper. At £79 they’re not quite in impulse buy territory, but there’s a lot to like about them. For starters the case is absolutely tiny, but this is because, unlike every other product in this article, the case doesn’t have a battery. That means the buds don’t recharge when you put them back in the case, unless the case is charging via the included USB-C cable.
If you’re used to topping up buds on the go, that’s not possible here. Beats makes up for it by jamming 18 hours of playback into the buds, which I found accurate. They’re comfortable too, with a compact design, but they did fall out when I was eating. There is a physical button under silicone on either bud that’s a little hard to press but good for pausing tunes.
There’s no noise cancellation, although we found the silicone tip seal blocks out a lot of external sound, and no EQ or smart features - these are plug and play buds at their simplest. You also don’t get Apple’s spatial audio or head tracking that you’ll find on most AirPods and other Beats products, though smart pairing with Android is good to see. IF you find these for £50 then you’ll have yourself a bargain but at full price they’re good, not great.