Edifier TWS330 NB Review

It seems that active noise cancelling earbuds just keep on getting cheaper, which is great for consumers as it allows technology to become more accessible to everyone. The Edifier TWS330 NB feature an IP54 water and dust resistance rating as well as support for the AAC codec, which should provide a higher-quality listening experience on supported devices.

Video Review

Edifier TWS330 NB

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Design

The TWS330 NB feature a lightweight plastic design that features some short stems on each earbud. The earbuds are available in either a white or black colour, which are both glossy finishes. Although I’ve been testing the black model of these earbuds, I would personally choose to go with the white colour option as I’ve found that the black variant shows smudges, fingerprints and scratches quite easily – I feel like the white model will do a better job of hiding this.

The earbuds’ stem features some Edifier branding as well as the touch controls, which give you playback and call controls by default but also give you the choice to customise these controls to include volume controls with the Edifier Connect companion app – I did find the touch controls to be a little unresponsive at times, but I did find it performed a little better when I maxed out the Tap Sensitivity option in the Edifier app. The bottom of the stem features a silver accent colour, which is the only bit of non-glossy black plastic on these particular earbuds, this area features a microphone and charging pads.

The inner side of the earbud, being the part that goes into your ear, features a rounded ergonomic design that is also slightly angled. This paired with the earbuds’ lightweight plastic construction makes them comfortable to wear for long periods when listening to music. These do unfortunately not feature any ear detection sensors, so you’ll need to play and pause what you’re listening to manually.

The earbuds also feature rubber ear-tips which aids in providing passive sound isolation when ANC is not in use, as well as help ANC when active, and helps keep the earbuds securely in your ear. There are four additional sizes of ear-tips included in the box to get the right size for you, however, I found the ones to be fitted by default to be just fine for me.

The overall design of these earbuds is simple, but to hit a price point and feature set that these earbuds have some of the flashier design features that we see on other earbuds must be given up for something that aims to be a bit more functional than it is stylish (not that these look bad by any means).

Charging Case

The charging case shares the same glossy finish as the earbuds, so it shares the same thoughts I had about the earbuds regarding their glossy finish. The charging case features an LED light on the front, a repairing button on the back and a Type-C charging port on the bottom.

Opening up the case, it has a sturdy hinge that is slightly sprung which gives it a premium touch. The inside features a mixture of matte and glossy plastic and the earbuds securely fit into place within the case thanks to magnets.

Sound Quality

These TWS330 NB offer a very good listening experience for the price point that they come in at, especially considering that they also manage to pack in ANC and ambient listening modes (more on those in a little bit). The earbuds feature 8mm drivers with a 20Hz to 20KHz frequency response range which sounds great for a variety of different musical genres.

The earbuds certainly feature some punchy bass, but I didn’t find it to be overwhelming or distracting from the rest of the music. The mid and treble also sound clear and vocals in the mid-range and percussion instruments in the high-end treble didn’t sound muffled or drowned out by everything else – Edifier has done quite a nice job of offering a dynamic listening experience to the music that I was listening to whilst ensuring that individual parts of a song were still audible and identifiable, for the £50 price of these earbuds I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with how these sound.

The stereo separation and immersion offered by the earbuds is also good, thanks to their wide soundscape. This means that when you’re listening to music you feel less of an observer and more part of it. I also found that the earbuds were able to offer plenty of volume for my use case and the earbuds also offered a consistent sound profile across the board regardless of what mode they were in.

Unfortunately, there’s no ability to adjust the EQ of the earbuds in the Edifier Connect app, although I hope this is added in the future as I seem to mention it in all of my reviews of Edifier earbuds and headphones that support the app – but overall, they do sound good and I didn’t find myself wanting or needing to change the sound of the earbuds anyway.

Microphone Quality

The quality of the microphones on the TWS330 NB is impressive, they managed to pick up my voice both clear and to a good volume. If you need to make a call with these earbuds, the person on the other end of the phone should be able to hear you loud and clear. The microphones also feature AI noise cancellation, so if you’re in a noisy environment the background noise should be reduced so you are easier to hear.

Features

Despite being budget-focused, the TWS330 NB have a handful of features that make them an appealing set of earbuds. The earbuds feature Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity with support for the AAC and SBC audio codecs.

The active noise cancelling functionality is the flagship feature of these earbuds and, I have to say, they don’t disappoint. For the £50 price-point of these earbuds, the ANC offered is impressive and effective at cutting out environmental noise around me, some high-pitched sounds will manage to make their way around the ANC (like many other ANC earbuds) but overall, they do a good job and were surprisingly good as I was not expecting to be wowed at this price point.

The ANC can be enabled via the touch controls or from within the Edifier Connect app and you can also utilise the earbuds’ ambient sound mode to do the opposite of ANC. Ambient sound mode feeds through the sound around you so you can be more aware of your surroundings, this is particularly useful if you are walking outside. This mode does sound a little muffled in comparison to not wearing the earbuds at all, but I was able to hear what was going on around me with this mode enabled.

The earbuds also feature an IP54 dust and water resistance rating which makes these earbuds great for wearing during exercise as it means that you don’t have to worry about sweat being around your earbuds. A game mode is also available for these earbuds which will provide improved latency, this is nice to have if you’re a mobile gamer but the connection is still wireless so there may still be some latency present, even with this mode active.

As I’ve mentioned earlier during this review, a companion app is also available for these earbuds. The companion app is decent and provides core functionality and basic customisations to the earbuds, but it would be nice to see more settings such as EQ customisation and ANC modes tailored for different environments.

Battery Life

The TWS330 NB feature up to 4 hours of listening with ANC turned on and 5 hours of listening with it off, the charging case will give you an extra 12 and 15 hours of listening time respectively. This amount of listening time is okay, but nothing to run home about. The Soundcore Life P3 are a close competitor to these earbuds and offer a couple of extra hours of listening time.

Although this battery life is a little shorter in comparison to the competition, it will still cover you for a decent amount of use throughout the day – particularly as the earbuds do support quick charging so they can charge up during your lunch break, for example. The earbuds will take around an hour to fully charge up and around an hour and a half for the charging case.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a set of affordable ANC earbuds that sound great and offer good ANC for the price the Edifier TWS330 NB are a great option to consider. They may lack in some areas such as battery life and app features, but they perform well where they need it most.

The Edifier TWS330 NB active noise cancelling earbuds are available to purchase on Amazon.