Nothing Ear 3 review: A messy but modest riff on a familiar formula

When it comes to true wireless earbuds, fewer and fewer brands are trying anything but the most familiar combination of form-factor and features. It often feels like there are AirPods, a half-dozen imitators and not much else. 

If you're not a big brand like Bose, Sony or Apple, it can be hard to cut through the noise with anything less than a thrifty price tag. Naturally, Nothing's fourth-generation (the third-generation had no number in the name) set of in-ear wireless headphones are looking to be the exception to that rule.

The new Nothing Ear 3 offer a slick sci-fi look plus a few gimmicks that promise to take the true wireless template in a fresh direction. The end-result doesn't always live up to the lofty ambitions, but the hardware here is more than likable enough to live up to the asking price.

In Australia, the Nothing Ear 3 are priced at $299. That's pretty modest by the standards of premium headphones. It's not quite bargain bin but there's definitely a difference between these and the likes of the Sony WF-1000M5 or the new AirPods Pro 3.

Still, if you've got your eyes on the Ear 3, you can always save by shopping around. Check out the table below for a round-up of deals for the Nothing Ear 3.

The Nothing Ear 3 don't look quite as distinguished as their over-ear counterparts. Still, there's a lot of shared DNA between these earbuds and Nothing's first set of over-ear headphones. The company's third-generation in-ear headphones build on the blueprint laid out by previous efforts with see-through stems that sit almost as securely in your ears as they do in the partially transparent charging case.

On the inside, the Ear 3 are armed with a set of 12mm dynamic drivers, a ceramic diaphragm and a "patterned" design that promises to cut down on distortion and deliver better overall sound quality. It's hard to know how much of that technical jargon really translates into the final experience but I found little to fault when it came to the everyday experience of using these either on the go, at the gym, or at home.

As opposed to Nothing's latest CMF budget buds, one of the big selling points for the Ear 3 is the promise of superior noise cancellation tech. To that end, these earbuds boast adaptive noise-cancellation, supported by a set of beam-forming microphones designed to improve the quality of both calls and transparency mode.

Then, there's the Super Mic feature. This inclusion lets you toggle between the smaller microphones on the Ear 3 buds and a larger one that's built into the charger case. It's a really novel concept, but the execution ultimately felt like one of the weakest aspects of the overall experience. Most of the time, this feature is a little too awkward to use, and the results rarely feel worth the trouble. Worse still, the button that controls the Super Mic toggle is very easy to trigger by accident, especially if the charging case is sitting in your pocket or a bag. Even a lav mic style clip would go a long way towards making this feature make a bit more sense.

Likewise, I found little to love about the control scheme attached to the Nothing Ear 3. The inputs involved here are familiar, but the lack of physical feedback put me on the path to the usual pitfalls pretty fast. Given how much mileage the Headphones 1 have gotten out of physical controls, it's a shame that Nothing hasn't applied those learning elsewhere.  Still, at least there's a physical pairing button on the case.

Fortunately, once you get past the gimmicks, the underlying software experience attached to the Nothing Ear 3 is a pretty likable one. Paired up via the Nothing X app, you can tweak the sound profile with an equaliser, remap the controls, enable spatial audio, toggle the earbuds between 5 different bass profiles, and more without too much trouble.

Much of this functionality isn't unique to Ear 3. However, after a few years of playing in the headphones space, there's definitely value that Nothing's investment in the software side of the headphones experience is adding up. The Nothing X app is very straightforward to use in a way that companion software is not always guaranteed to be, which wins you a lot of points in my book.

The Nothing Ear 3 aren't exactly setting records when it comes to battery life, but they do offer plenty of bang for buck. With ANC enabled, you're looking at 5.5 hours per charge and 22 hours of usage total. Without it, you're looking at 10 hours per charge and 38 hours total. Those numbers do go down if you're listening to LDAC audio but in either case, the Nothing Ear 3 are putting pretty respectable numbers on the board. 

The earbuds also support fast charging that can get you one hour of ANC-off playback in just five minutes. The charger case for the Ear 3 primarily relies on USB-C but does support wireless charging. It'll take almost twice as long to fully charge up if you go that way about it, however.  

In practice, the Ear 3 are incredibly comfortable to wear, and it doesn't hurt that the sound quality is nothing to scoff at either. Coming off reviewing the brand's cheaper budget buds, I was genuinely really impressed with the audio upgrade that the Ear 3 represented. The noise cancelling here isn't quite industry-leading but it's still a force to be reckoned with. It couldn't compete with a louder sounds or what a set of over-ear headphones can offer, but it did meet my expectations given the asking price.

Subject to our usual testing playlist, the Nothing Ear 3 performed well above what you'd expect for a set of earbuds at this price point. When it came to the vibrant beats of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance” or the swaggering vocals of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, I came away pretty thrilled with what these earbuds had to offer.

The microphone setup on the Nothing Ear 3 is more of a mixed bag.  The mics built into the earbuds here delivered much better results than I expected. In contrast, the Super Mic picked up a lot more sound but was sometimes less clear as a result. Listening to the two recordings side-by-side, the samples sounded different enough, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call the one that originated from the Super Mic that much better or more usable.