Nothing’s newest pair of more budget-friendly wireless earbuds, the Ear 3a, have officially been announced, and they have a few Nothing-style twists we haven’t seen yet.
First, there are the colors—pink, yellow, black, and white—the first of which, pink, is a much brighter hue than the pink used in Nothing’s Headphone A. The yellow, at least from official images, looks a lot like the yellow used in Nothing’s first pair of more budget-focused wireless earbuds, the Ear A. The overall look is similar to the original Ear A as well, including the earbuds themselves and the pill-box-shaped charging case, though the Ear 3a case has a cooler, more complex light built in that displays charge status and when the earbuds are in pairing mode.
What makes the Ear 3a most interesting, though, isn’t the new colors; it’s a couple of new features that involve audio recording. First, there’s Audio Snapshot, which allows you to clip audio and then store it on the 32MB of flash memory included in the Ear 3a case. That audio is then stored in the Nothing X app and can be edited, shared, or transcribed. According to Nothing, people can also “transform key transcript moments into shareable quote cards, making it easier to revisit and share what stands out.” That last bit doesn’t sound super useful if I’m being honest, but it might be a fun way to troll your friends.
In addition to Audio Snapshots, Nothing also built in a call recording feature that allows you to use a squeeze gesture on the Ear 3a to record phone calls. Nothing says you can record for up to two hours at a time, and those recordings are stored in the Nothing X app, where they can be edited and transcribed. As for privacy, Nothing says a “privacy notification” appears when recordings are active, though I’ll have to see how that works for myself before I’m fully comfortable.
Audio-wise, the Nothing 3a appear to be fairly solid. There’s a 12mm dynamic driver that’s meant to provide deeper bass and support for the LDAC codec for hi-res streaming. As for active noise cancellation (ANC), Nothing says the Ear 3a have 45dB of wideband noise cancellation, which is the same level of cancellation decibel-wise as the Ear 3. If there’s one complaint I have about the Ear A, Nothing’s first A-branded pair of wireless earbuds, it’s that the ANC isn’t the strongest in the world, so I’m hoping to see an improvement here.
As for battery, Nothing says the Ear 3a have 42 hours with the charging case when ANC is off and 25 hours when it’s activated. The buds themselves have 6 hours of total charge when ANC is activated.
The most appealing thing for most people will probably be the price. Nothing’s Ear 3a are available for purchase now for $99, which is well below the $179 MSRP of the Ear 3.
