HTC True Wireless Earbuds Plus - ANC, Active Noise Cancellation IPX5 Water Resistant Bluetooth 5.0 with ENC, Stereo in-Ear Touch Control Earbuds

Very comfortable, great sound, and a flawless bluetooth connection.

Pros: • Surprisingly good sound quality • Very good (though not great) ANC (noise cancellation) • Smallish charge case with USB-C charge port, charge LEDs • Voice prompts • Good Bluetooth range • Good, comfortable, stable fit in ear • Battery level shown in iPhone • Voice notifications (but with an accent) Cons: • No Volume control • No sensor of being in the ear • Single device support • Inconsistent voice prompts The HTC E-mo1 Bluetooth earbuds are very good and are a very good value and they hold up quite well to Apple AirPods Pod that cost roughly 3 times more. These are an excellent option at this price point. While AirPods Pro are superior in many areas, surprisingly these hold up quite well, and are actually superior in some areas. These sound good for music, work well for phone calls/video calls, are comfortable, fit well in the ears, and have very good battery life. Noise cancellation does help, but it is not in the class of the AirPod Pro or other premium earbuds. Bluetooth range is very good and stable. There is no in ear detection which leads to the touch controls having unexpected activity when inserting or removing earbud Initial impressions and setup: The quick start guide provides some very basic information for pairing, advice to remove protective plastic over the charge ports, and a rather lengthy section on how to use the anti-counterfeit code on the box. The anti-counterfeit code instructions are by far the most detailed. If your product doesn’t have the code on the box or these instructions it might be counterfeit. There is also a quick chart for what taps on which earbud control what function. The storage and charging case has a USB-C charge port. A short USB-A to USB-C cable is included for charging, but not the charger itself, similar to many products today. Wireless charging is not supported. The charger cable and a small bag with small and large silicone ear tips (medium come on the earbuds themselves) are in the bottom of the box. This is under the plastic compartment where the charge case sat in the package. You need to open the bottom of the cardboard box to find these. Be careful not to miss them or even accidentally dispose of them. The tape over the charging ports of each earbud needs to be removed before they will charge in the case. I charged the case and ear buds prior to initial setup and use. The charge case is surprisingly small, but rather thick. As compared to an AirPod Pro case it is just slightly smaller in X and Y directions, but about twice as thick in the Z direction or height. So the case while slightly less in width and length is considerably bulkier than AirPod Pro. The case does have 3 LEDs in the front with the middle LED for the case itself and the left and right for the respective earbuds. While charging these LEDs will light up RED for the case and orange for each ear bud. These are not particularly bright. They are able to be seen in most lighting conditions, but won’t be annoying in the dark. They also remain lit when charging which is very convenient, and very likely why they aren’t very bright so as to not consume significant power. Sound quality: The sound quality is very good. As with most earbuds it is extremely dependent on achieving a good seal with the ear. It took the large ear tips for my ears. The sound was pretty horrible with the default medium sized tips as they didn’t seal in my ears. Once I changed the ear tips they sound very good with surprisingly deep bass. These definitely are a bit heavy on bass, but not to the point of being totally unbalanced or extremely boomy. On tracks like Billie Eilish Bad Guy, Xanny with lots of deep bass it handles it quite well while still having clear mid-range for her vocals and clear high frequencies. Again, the bass response handles very low frequencies with deep bass. The stereo imaging is also surprisingly good (which can be challenging for true wireless stereo). While I do appreciate the deep low frequency response, I would prefer less overall bass with a more balanced response. Those that like bass will be pleased. There is no app with an equalizer to adjust this, so it is what it is. For telephone calls, Zoom and Teams meetings these have been fine. I can hear fine and the sound seems about as good can be expected from Bluetooth HFP protocol. The microphone audio has been acceptable when talking to others as well. There does seem some isolation from background noise, but not to the extent of AirPod Pro. Voice prompts These ear buds provide pre-recorded voice prompts, at least some of the time. The voice prompts will announce “ambient sound,” “ambient sound off,” “ANC,” “connected,” “disconnected” and a few similar messages. These messages are in English from a female voice, but very oddly a voice with an extremely noticeable Asian accent. Most systems like these use a voice devoid of any type of accent. Another issue with the voice prompts is that they work inconsistently. When the ear buds are in standby mode, or in A2DP (listening to music, no microphone) the voice prompts work and are spoken through both ears. However, if the earbuds are in HFP (phone call, zoom call, etcetera with microphone) then the voice prompts don’t work at all. Instead, all you hear is a beep out of the right ear. In the case of changing between ambient sound or ANC it is the same beep and you have to listen to background noise to be able to identify what mode you are in. General usage and comments: These headphones do not have the proximity detectors to identify when they are in the ear. The ear buds are active as soon as they are removed from the charge case. The touch button area is also exactly where you need to press to put them in your ears. It is near impossible to put these in your ears without triggering something. You may easily trigger a voice assistant (right ear), start playing media, activate or de-activate ANC, or who knows what you will end up triggering. Similarly, if you need to adjust them in your ears it is difficult to do without accidentally triggering the touch inputs. You will also trigger random events when removing them from your ear until they are in the case. This clearly wasn’t fully thought out and there doesn’t seem anyway to update these without an app, so this is just how they behave. As noted elsewhere these don’t have any volume control. This is likely copied from AirPods and AirPods Pro, and honestly this is the worst part of AirPods. I simply can’t see asking a voice assistant (Siri) to change the volume when in a gym. At least on AirPods (Series 2 or Pro) you can invoke Siri handsfree. These don’t support that. So, you need to first press the button to invoke the voice assistant, then ask the voice assistant to change the volume. At this point it is likely easier to just get out your phone and change the volume. Battery strength is displayed on the iPhone similar to AirPods, or other headphones that have an app installed only without having an app installed. This was a bit of a nice surprise. The same could not be said when with a Mac though. I’ve only seen battery level displayed for AirPods. Bluetooth range is quite good. From a MacBook Pro they will reach to most areas of a house. The range is similar too, if not slightly better than AirPods Pro. The nozzle on the earbuds is circular but the ear tips themselves are oval similar to AirPods Pro. Unlike the AirPods Pro though the ear tip can be rotated whereas the AirPods can only be attached with proper alignment. This isn’t a big deal, but you will need to make sure the oval shape aligns with the ear when attaching the ear tips. Comparison to AirPods Pro: It is hard not compare these to AirPods Pro. It is certainly reasonable to expect some difference as these sell for roughly a third of the price of AirPods Pro. Given the price difference some difference in performance is acceptable and these seem to be a great option for a lower price point, and even surpass the AirPods Pro in a few areas. First, none of the ear tips for that came with the AirPods Pro fit my ears perfectly. Not only did this degrade sound quality, the AirPods Pro would fall out of my ears when running. I solved this problem by using Comply foam ear tips. The stock silicone ear tips for these HTC earbuds fit well, and so far these seem quite stable in my ears, including with movement. The HTCs stay in my ears even with running. The battery life is also claimed to be longer than AirPods, and so far with limited testing of only several hours at a time they seem to easily meet the battery life claims. The AirPods Pro (with Comply foam tips) do sound better. They have better overall tonal balance. The bass on the HTC is good, perhaps with even deeper bass, but there is more bass than there should be. The AirPods Pro do seem to offer a bit more detail with music as well. The noise cancellation on the AirPods Pro is significantly better. These HTC earbuds do cancel quite a bit of noise, but just not to the level of AirPods Pro. The AirPods Pro also seem to cancel ambient noise from the microphone better. Multi-device use is much easier with AirPods Pro when using Apple devices. You pair them once and they automatically are paired with and switch to other Apple devices. With these you have to manually disconnect from the first device and connect to the new device. It isn’t awful, and it is how many devices work. Some devices such as those from Bose or Sony can connect to 2 devices at a time, but most are similar to these. There are some benefits to this remarkably. When using AirPods Pro for a virtual meeting with Zoom or Teams on a Mac a spam phone call on my iPhone causes the AirPods to switch to the phone killing audio for the meeting. Teams frequently gets confused and a spam phone call causes a mess, especially if I’m actively talking at the time. These don’t have this feature, so never has the problems associated with the feature. They are better in at least this respect. USB-C charging is a definite win over the Proprietary Lighting, but there is no wireless option. Overall, these are an excellent option at this price point. These may not completely stack up to the AirPods Pro, but to me they are definitely superior to the AirPods at still about half the price of those. Device information as reported in MacOS device information: HTC E-mo1: Address: 11-22-33-44-C3-6F Major Type: Audio Minor Type: Headset Services: Spp1, Advanced Audio Paired: Yes Configured: Yes Connected: Yes Bluetooth Core Spec: 5.0 Class of Device: 0x04 0x01 0x240404 RSSI: -50 Role: Master Connection Mode: Sniff Mode Interval: 240 ms EDR Supported: Yes eSCO Supported: Yes SSP Supported: Yes Update 10/23/21: The battery life does not seem to meet the specifications. It only lasted about 4 hours until notifications and about 4 and a half until the right ear shut down. I had a chance to use it for multiple hours of conference calls then a short lunch break that I used them to listen to music on my phone. It showed 50% battery life remaining, which should have been another few hours. Instead about 20 minutes later I started to get battery voice prompts periodically. Shortly thereafter the right ear shut down. So the battery life is about 4 hours, about the same as AirPods Pro, not the 6 hours claimed. Also it seems the battery gauge is a bit off. This isnt bad, but not the claimed battery life. Update 10/29/2021 A few updates: 1. Battery life regularly is about 4 hours until a charge battery voice announcement starts playing, on very regular intervals. This starts at 30% and if you can stand the announcements, will last about 20 to 30 more minutes until low battery shut down. 2. Apple MacOS Montery (12.0.1) has obviously made changes to Bluetooth battery information. The battery life of these HTC E-mo1 is now shown in the bluetooth area. This is more about the Mac than these earpbuds, but I did directly mention it in the review, so updating here. This is a plus. 3. A super annoying behavior has been found after extended use. Like many bluetooth headsets these can pair with multiple devices, but only connect to one at a time. However, most headsets will reconnect to the last connected device, if available. I have these paired with an iPhone, an iPad, and a MacBook Pro. I mostly use them with the MacBook, yet EVERY time I put them in my ears they connect with the iPad. EVERY time, after at least a dozen times now. I need to manually disconnect from the iPad and connect on the Mac. I need to do it fast too, because if I dont it will reconnect to the iPad before I get it connected to the Mac! This is awful, annoying behavior unlike any other Bluetooth headset Ive ever used. I should probably drop a star rating for this. If you only use with 1 device, such as a smartphone this wont be an issue, but if you use more than a single device it will be very annoying. 4. Ive read another review that claimed these were treble happy and had no noise cancellation. That reviewer apparently didnt select eartips that fit his ears and provided a good seal. This is essential for these and most other earpbuds or IEMs. They will have little bass, sound awful, and have poor ANC if you dont. These do have surprisingly good, deep bass and reasonably good noise cancellation, if you take the time to find ear tips that properly fit your ears. If anything these have too much bass with a proper seal.

Can not express how blown away I am by the sound and the quality of how well built these headphones are. If I spent double of what I payed would still say unbelievable product. I have airpod pros and wanted something else to use that I wouldnt be mad should I loose or misplaced. These HTC sound just as good if not better then my Apple pros. Five stars quality sound battery life noise canceling all exceeded expectations. Would recommend at $100.00 plus but for $40.00 you will definitely not be disappointed. Also very comfortable to wear. Very well made . If you like getting your moneys worth buy this product.

For the price, you cant go wrong! Ive already purchased and returned the Apple Pro (didnt like, fell out of my ear, the Anker Soundcore Life p2 minis (not great sound, but cheap) and of the 3, these are the ones Ill keep. Good sound, good battery and reasonably priced! Nice job HTC! (Only downfall is no wireless charging, but I can live without it)

I tried for 2 days to get these ear buds to pair with my phone and tablet, long story short l returned them for another pair of the same, will see what happens.

Awesome fit, feel, and sound for $20

These are very good earbuds. The sound quality is excellent. I do think that the sound quality is no different from more expensive brands. The bass, medium, and high tones are very good. ANC works pretty well. Battery life is as advertised and good enough for me. The earbuds fit comfortably and they look very nice on my ears. Definitely a good value if you need earbuds. I would recommend it.

The sound quality is way below from what i expected from htc. Compared to my other cheap non brand earbuds, it doesnt even come close. They also dont stay put in my ears. Very disappointed.

My first smartphone (many years ago) was from HTC, and although theyre out of the smartphone battlegrounds these days, I was curious to see how their low-midrange priced earbuds would sound. Overall, theres a lot of good here. The companys experiencing in manufacturing is apparent in the build quality. The materials, shape, fit, etc. are all excellent. The material is a matte-feel plastic. The case and earbuds are small. The case fits in a pocket easily, and the earbuds wont protrude significantly from your ear (unless you have extremely petite ears). They fit comfortably and dont produce fatigue, at least in my ears. Ive been using the medium tips which were preinstalled on the earbuds, but there are other tips available for smaller or larger ears. The only downside for me is that the sound quality is good but not mind-blowing. Even alongside other earbuds in the same price range, the mix is noticeably less sophisticated. The bass lacks a bit of punch, and the overall mix sometimes sounds a bit distorted in the highs. Theres some noticeably sibilance in cymbals at times. A comparably priced pair of earbuds ($10 more at present) that impressed me with much more sophisticated sound is the Jabra Elite 3. So, these are good earbuds. They look nice, the build quality is good, and the sound is honestly totally fine for most people. Im really into audio, however, and the more I get into higher end audio, the more I notice when something just doesnt quite go the distance. If you tend to be on the audiophile side, these wont do it, but in general, theyre good and a pretty solid value for such a well-constructed pair of earbuds.

These buds sound awesome. Sound is crisp and bass is soft. They stay in place and super comfortable. They are neck to neck with my Galaxy Buds Pro that cost double the price. These are my new favorite gym buds.