1More Omthing Airfree Review: How Are These Earbuds JUST $40?!

When I first heard of these, I was pretty intrigued. They’re super affordable at just S$49 or approximately US$37, and they offer a whopping 44 hours of battery life, Bluetooth 5.3, low latency mode and more. Wow. We have the 1More Omthing Airfree buds with us today, and are they worth the price? Well, hard to say no, really.

Design

Let’s talk design first. The case has a pretty similar look to the 1More Comfobuds Z that I reviewed a while back, with a similar eggshell white look. It’s nice and rounded, with a USB-C charging port on the rear, so that’s good. There’s a charging LED on the front as well, but no wireless charging here, although I’d have been super surprised if it was included.

The earbuds are comfortable in the ear, and super lightweight at just around 4 grams per earbud. The faceplate of the earbuds, however, is a bit interesting. It’s not like typical earbuds where you get the rounded part that shows to the world. This one is raised and shaped like a pill. It reminds me of the Earin A-3’s design, actually. Anyway, the earbuds are small and I could sleep comfortably on a softer pillow with them in.

Touch Controls

Touch controls are on this small area and you would think that it would result in a lot of accidental touches and the likes, but no, it’s responsive and surprisingly easy to find. Out of the box, double tap is set to play/pause and triple tap is set to voice assistant. This is customisable in the Omthing app as well, which we’ll get into later. Bit unfortunate that the preset for tap and hold is set to hanging up calls and not available for media controls as I’d have liked to have controls for play/pause, track skipping and volume controls all on the earbuds themselves.

1More Omthing App & Features

Anyway, on to the app. It’s pretty simple, showing you the battery levels in each earbuds, offering OTA upgrades, the touch control customisation for double and triple taps, a very extensive EQ with six presets and two custom options, as well as a button for low latency game mode. The EQ preset called default is certainly interesting, with a dip in the bass and mids and an increase in the upper mids and treble. But what I’d say is that I prefer it over the custom 1 setting which has everything set to 0 because the Custom 1 setting actually had bass that was a bit too loose and boomy. Default tightened up the bass and made the attack a bit quicker, although a downside is that the vocals got pushed back a bit in the soundstage. Out of the box, the preset was set to custom 1 so I’m not sure if that’s the “default” EQ, but I did most of my testing with it since everything’s set to 0, along with the Jazz preset. Personally though, I’d recommend setting the earbuds to the Jazz preset, which is my favourite, and leaving it as the default, as that’s the best of two worlds, giving a noticeable boost to the mids and treble and a slight reduction in the bass.

There’s no ANC here, which is expected, but the passive isolation offered by the earbuds is a very pleasant surprise. I can still hear the clacking of my keyboard, but people talking is pretty much all blocked out especially when I have music playing.

Connectivity

Connectivity-wise, these are on Bluetooth 5.3 which is amazing at this price point, and it supports SBC and AAC. I already didn’t notice much latency when using them normally, but of course, there’s the low latency mode for gamers.

Battery Life

Battery life is pretty incredible. You get seven hours in the earbuds with another 37 hours in the case for a total of 44 hours. Of course, you get compromises on the features included to get that battery life, including the fact there’s no in-ear detection or auto-pause.

There’s also IPX4 water resistance here if you want to exercise with them, and thanks to the lightweight and compact factor, I think they’re definitely suitable.

Mic quality is pretty okay in most environments, although it can get a little noisy if you’re walking in a windy area.

Sound Quality

Okay, so sound. As mentioned, these earbuds can get very bassy and a little boomy, which means that if you prefer something tighter, you’ll want to switch to one of the EQ presets or tinker with the custom EQ. If you’re not listening to songs with a lot of bass or sub bass though, the Custom 1 EQ works fine with bringing out the details in the mids as well.

Truly, these earbuds shine with EQ. The “default” EQ is pretty lackluster with a bit of a veil over instruments, but when you move to Jazz and boost the mids, you get plenty of detail here, with guitars and drums really moving to the forefront along with the vocals gaining clarity and air.

Treble-wise, these certainly benefit from changing the EQ as well. Strings and flutes are softer and more blunted, if that makes sense, when on the Custom 1 EQ. Moving to the Jazz EQ, you get much more life and energy and bite here. I was listening to Spring 1 by Max Richter on the Custom 1 EQ and I was absolutely confused by how lifeless and flat the song sounded. On the Jazz preset, that’s more like how I expected the song to sound.

I’m of the belief that EQ isn’t enough to save a crappy pair of earbuds. There are just limitations to how good a driver can sound if it’s tuned poorly and all that, but the Omthing Airfree buds is the exact opposite of it. The earbuds have so much potential to be good as evidenced by the Jazz preset, but the default EQ with no tuning makes it sound terrible. If you get these earbuds, make sure you download the app and switch off the Custom 1 EQ asap. Your ears will thank you.