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.
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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.
Fit and stability
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.
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.
They felt a little unstable on longer, sweatier runs, but their design differences meant they fit much better than the Belkin buds did.
The Tozo OpenEarRing buds have a different design altogether. They’re part of a category of buds we refer to as ‚clip-on‘. You part the buds ever-so-slightly and then slip them over your helix at the side of your ear.
Tozo’s take on this design was very easy to wear. It’s worth mentioning here that this style of design does get much closer to your ear than the ear hook style does, which instead sits above it. But the main, circular part of the Tozo buds sat in my concha comfortably, while still not creating a seal, so my ear canals were kept open.
In the past, I’ve preferred clip-on designs. I wear glasses often, and wear sunglasses over summer. I also have thick hair. These factors mean it never feels like there’s enough space behind my ear for buds with ear hooks.
Having said that, plenty of people do rate more expensive hook-style designs, like the Shokz OpenFit 2+. But if I wanted to play it safe with a cheaper pair, I’d pick the clip-on style every time — and that was the case with the Tozo. I had no complaints at all about the fit.
Fit for purpose sound
I wasn’t expecting high-fidelity sound from these buds. But I wanted to test whether they could achieve a decent listening volume (sometimes a challenge with open buds) and if there was enough musicality to make for an engaging and fun listen.
I’ve had people tell me they like having a pair of open earbuds for listening to podcasts while they walk, so I also tested how vocals sounded.
The Belkin buds were a disappointing listen with most genres of music. Even at the highest volume they felt quiet. But pushing them to higher volumes gave a really tinny and distant quality to the tracks. There also wasn’t much bass and the mix lacked definition, with instruments tending to blur together. If you’re listening to any sort of music with power behind it, it’ll lack impact here.
Having said that, tracks that were mostly instrumental sounded decent and podcast vocals were clear enough. Combine these experiences with the fit and I think I’d only recommend these buds if you want to listen to podcasts while you’re walking.
The Soundcore buds performed a little better. They were noticeably louder, but achieving higher volumes is tricky in this design. There was a little more bass presence and weight in bass-heavy tracks, so they’re largely fine if you want to listen to a workout playlist but don’t need that thumping low end. Podcasts sounded pretty good too.
The Tozo buds sit much closer to your ear, which means they can achieve pretty high volumes. I also noted good instrument separation and a clarity that surprised me at this level. I felt a sense of things feeling a little bright, sharp and fatiguing eventually, but that was after several hours of use on a long walk.
Now, I wouldn’t say the bass had much weight or impact, but the sound was impressive given that these are open and incredibly cheap. Especially if you tweak the EQ, which is very easy from within the app. Just don’t expect the kind of low-end extension you’d get from an in-ear pair and you’ll be fine.
Does sound leak out?
Most open designs are built to point sound waves towards your ear, so even though they’re open, everyone around you won’t hear what you’re listening to. But in practice, these buds can leak a lot of sound.
I ran several tests to determine what the sound leakage was like at different volumes and distances.
The Soundcore buds performed well. When I was listening to podcasts and music at a medium volume, they weren’t audible from about two feet away — but crank music up to full volume and you can hear it faintly from three or four feet away.
The Belkin buds had the most sound leakage. They felt the furthest away from my ears, so maybe that’s to be expected. At two feet, podcasts and mid volume music was audible, but only if I was testing in a really quiet environment. At full volume, they could be easily heard from three or four feet away in a quiet-ish environment too.
The Tozo buds can get much louder, so I expected a lot more sound leakage. Surprisingly, they performed similarly to the Soundcore buds. There was some faint leakage at lower volumes or in a louder environment. In a really quiet environment and at full volume, I could definitely hear the music from a couple of feet away, but only faintly.
These aren’t options for quiet office spaces, but you knew that already given the design. It’s worth considering that there’s always going to be a little noise leakage in a cheaper, open design, but I’d say a clip-on choice will minimize it significantly given the simple fact that the speakers are closer to your ears.
Awareness of your surroundings
I’ve said in reviews several times before that if you don’t really need open buds, there’s little reason to consider them. I personally think you get a lot more for your money from in-ear designs among the best earbuds. But if you do really like the idea of hearing your surroundings as you listen to music, for your safety or just to feel connected to the world, then have at them.
Both the Belkin buds and Soundcore buds let a little more environmental sound in simply because they were a little further away from my ear. I heard close conversations, traffic, alarms and people shouting.
Now, ironically, at one point I was so preoccupied trying to get the Belkin to feel more stable, I actually lost my focus on the sound of nearby traffic, so I still ended up unaware of my surroundings. So I guess that just goes to show how important fit is.
With the Tozo buds at full volume playing music, I definitely wasn’t aware of as much outside sound, but I could still easily hear alarms, traffic and shouting. When I was using them to listen to podcasts, I was aware of everything.
Levels of awareness are pretty subjective and hard to judge. You could be hearing everything around you and still get distracted by your music or your own thoughts. But I’d say if you want to hear as much as possible, go for ear hooks designs.
Fuss-free controls
When I’m out walking or running and want to pay attention to my surroundings, I don’t want to be getting my phone out every few minutes to pause or skip tracks. Which is why I want to quickly mention the controls you’ll find on each pair of buds.
As I mentioned earlier, the Belkin buds had controls that were way too sensitive. It also seems like the whole front panel of the buds registers touch controls, which made them really difficult to use or wear. Unfortunately, there’s no app support for these buds to turn those off.
Once you memorize what these different controls mean, they do become handy. But the accidental taps outweighed the benefit of the intentional ones.
The Soundcore buds also have sensitive controls, but it was much easier to position them without setting them off. I also like that you can customize them from within the app.
Tozo’s controls don’t work with a single tap. I like this as it solves the issue of unwanted taps. But then again, the double click to play/pause was sometimes difficult to register.
This highlights a fundamental design problem with open buds. You’ll need to be able to touch them often to get the right fit, but still need to be able to touch them to control them.
The cheap Amazon open earbuds winner
The winner here was definitely the Tozo OpenEarRing buds, outshining the other two in terms of fit, stability and sound.
They weren’t perfect, but if you want a super-cheap choice that’s going to deliver decent sound and allow you to hear most of what’s going on around you too, I think they’re surprisingly solid.
If you can stretch your budget, other brands do clip-ons well. The Soundpeats Clip1 are currently our top sub-£100/$100 clip-on pick in our best open earbuds guide.
If you’re set on ear hooks, the Anker Soundcore V20i buds will deliver satisfactory sound with a fairly reliable fit, as long as super intense workouts aren’t your thing.
There are many other cheaper options on Amazon, but I think being aware that there are trade-offs at this level, and deciding which you’re willing to accept, will get you the best possible buds for your budget.
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