Nothing ear (1) earbuds: Killer feature and price revealed

Nothing Ear 1
(Image credit: Nothing)

The Nothing ear (1) earbuds will feature “state-of-the-art” active noise cancellation (ANC) and are set to go on sale with a $99 price tag.

Confirmed by Nothing today ahead of its launch event later this month, the ear (1) earbuds will come with ANC — a premium earbud feature — and will be priced at $99 / €99 / £99.

Nothing ear (1): Active Noise Cancellation

ANC is achieved with the use of external mics, to pick up low-frequency noise around you and eliminate it before it reaches your ears, by countering it with a phase-inverted noise.

The Nothing ear (1) buds are designed to do this using three high definition microphones, which may sound like a smaller amount compared to the numerous mic-counts on other earbuds, such as the six present on the Soundcore Life P3 earbuds

However, the enhanced quality of these three mics could give Nothing an edge.

Nothing ear (1): Price

(Image credit: Nothing)

Nothing Founder Carl Pei sat down with Tech Crunch for a wide ranging interview, where he revealed the price will be “$99 USD, €99 Euros and £99.” This puts them in the general price range of Soundcore’s Liberty Air 2 Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy Buds.

But how does this cost translate into value? Carl provided a little extra context by explaining the ear (1) buds offer the aforementioned “noise cancellation” and “great build quality,” and that feature-wise, “it’s similar to the AirPods Pro, but the AirPods Pro is $249.”

That is a seriously good value for money proposition if they can really hang with the AirPods Pro. We can’t wait to get our hands on a pair and try them out for ourselves.

Nothing ear (1): What else do we know?

We now know something about Nothing! The company released a short film documenting the design and creation of the ear (1) with some small teases of its transparent design.

Not only that, but we also got our first close up picture of the earbuds, which may not give a lot away, but does confirm it will share a completely see-through style of the Concept 1 shown earlier this year.

Either way, we are set to see the complete design and specs at the launch event on Tuesday 27th July.

Jason England
Content Editor

Jason brought a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a writer at Laptop Mag, and he is now the Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He takes a particular interest in writing articles and creating videos about laptops, headphones and games. He has previously written for Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.