AUKEY EP-N5 True Wireless Earbuds with Active Noise-Cancelling REVIEW

Amazing wireless earbuds with great features

On the morning of July 4th this year, I sat down to watch HAMILTON on Disney+. I know what you’re thinking. I’m about 5 years late to the party, but upon watching the worldwide phenomenon I was hooked and I haven’t stopped listening to the soundtrack. That leads me to the real topic of this article, the AUKEY True Wireless Earbuds with Active Noise Cancelling. I picked these amazing earbuds up off of our review shelf and I haven’t been able to put them down since (you see how I tied that together?). As it turns out the earbuds are perfectly paired with the HAMILTON soundtrack — and pretty much anything else I listen to. These amazing earbuds only cost around $60 at the time of publishing this article and they are well worth every penny. So, let’s break this product down, shall we?

THE MAIN FEATURES

As I already mentioned the earbuds have active noise canceling. If you aren’t familiar with the technology, it boils down to reducing unwanted ambient noise. As a result, the user of the headphones doesn’t have to increase the volume as much, therefore, making the headphones safer for human ears. It’s a really nice feature to have with headphones especially if you are attempting to isolate yourself while you work. The AUKEY EP-N5 earbuds detect and cancel a maximum of 28dB of ambient noise.

The earbuds have a 35-hour reported playtime. This breaks down to 7 hours of music and/or calls on a single charge (with ANC off – 4.5 with ANC on) and the charging case provides an additional 28 hours beyond that. The case is not compatible with wireless charging, which is a bummer, but it does charge with USB-C, which makes me happy to see that Micro USB was not used. According to AUKEY, the case fully charges within 120 minutes.

The EP-N5 earbuds have dual microphones – two in each earbud. This allows improved voice pickup and background noise-suppression. These features allow the user to be heard clearly without interference. In addition to the dual microphones, the earbuds are IPX5 water-resistant. This means they are water-resistant to low-pressure water from any direction. So, they should be able to withstand activities in the rain and endure sweaty activities.

The earbuds are packaged with three pairs of ear gels (S, M, L), a USB-C cable for charging, a user manual, a quick start guide, and a warrant card.

USER EXPERIENCE

I have to admit that when I first pulled the earbuds out to test them, I was thinking, “These look like typical, run-of-the-mill earbuds.” I wasn’t expecting the extraordinary headphones that they turned out to be. First of all, they are comfortable. I have a lot of issues with finding comfortable earbuds because they will either cause headaches and earaches because they are too tight or they will sound hollow because they aren’t tight enough in my ear. Honestly, the Apple AirPods are the style that fits my ears the best. So, when I saw that these were a ‘typical’ earbuds design with an ear gel on the tip, I wasn’t sold on them – until I put them in my ears. I left the default ear tip on the earbud and slid them into my ears. I was surprised to find that they were not only comfortable, but they also fit. Normally I have to replace ear tips to the smallest size immediately, but the default (M) seemed to work fine for me at first. I did notice the longer I wore them, the quicker the earbuds would slip out of my ears. With that in mind, I swapped out the M ear tips for the S ear tips and the earbuds seemed much more secure after that.

The earbuds have intuitive touch controls and they are fairly responsive. I have mostly used the controls to play/pause tracks, but have also found them useful when accessing Siri on my iPhone. The only thing I don’t like about the touch controls is that they don’t include a volume increase/decrease option. For that, you have to either ask your digital assistant or manually turn your volume up and down on your device. This is a little awkward when you are trying to work around the house and leave your phone in a different room. Otherwise, it’s a minor complaint. I also found that the earbuds do not automatically pause a track when you remove them from your ears. There was more than one occasion where I took the earbuds out and several tracks of an album continued to play.

Where these earbuds really sing is sound quality. I expected a hollow sound like I typically experience from earbuds, but what I got was a full, deep sound and I could have sworn I was wearing over the ear headphones. The EP-N5 earbuds don’t miss a beat. I thought they did a great job of making everything sound awesome and I didn’t have any issues with hearing subtleties in soundtracks or dialogue in movies. All types of music sound great and thanks to the ANC feature, I was able to fully immerse myself into an album while I worked. Phone calls were also loud and clear. I was very impressed with all of the sound capabilities of the earbuds.

CONCLUSION

While the EP-N5 earbuds have a few features I would like to see added, they are a great all-around wireless earbud to invest in. They are budget-friendly and have a lot going for them. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using them and plan to keep them in my personal collection for future use.

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