After teasing them for a few weeks now, Nothing has finally revealed their new Ear and Ear (a). While their new naming scheme for their earbuds might be a little confusing (will the Ear’s successor be called Ear (2) again?), what’s a little clearer is that for their fourth and fifth new earbuds, Nothing has put in quite a lot of upgrades to make them stand out from their earlier stuff.
Starting with the Nothing Ear, it retains mostly the same translucent design philosophy as the previous Ear (2). However, it now packs 11mm dynamic drivers with ceramic diaphragms that now move 10% more than the Ear (2) for deeper bass. This configuration also delivers a clearer and more accurate sound than before according to Nothing, with less distortion to it. Then there’s the significantly more powerful active noise cancelling with up to 45dB ANC on the Ear, 1.8x stronger than the Ear (2).
On top of that, the Ear features support for high-resolution wireless audio over Bluetooth too, thanks in part to its support for LHDC 5.0 for audio quality of up to 1Mbps 24bit/192kHz. A separate bass enhancing algorithm meanwhile gives bassheads extra oomph, which you can control via the Nothing X app. You’ll get up to 8.5 hours of music without ANC on a single charge, 5.2 hours with ANC and a total of 40.5 hours when used with the charging case. It also has support for 2.5W wireless charging on top of USB-C charging.
As for the more affordable Ear (a), these retain the same 11mm dynamic drivers, but don’t get the same ceramic diaphragms in its more expensive stablemate. However, it still gets the same 45dB active noise cancelling as the Nothing Ear, and even has a longer battery life of up to 9.5 hours on a single charge with ANC, 5.5 hours with ANC and a total of 42.5 hours with the charging case. No wireless charging on the Ear (a) though, and you also lose out on support for LHDC 5.0 hi-res audio streaming here, only regular LDAC support. You can however, get it in yellow, the first time a Nothing product is available in a colour that’s not white or black.
One extra feature that both the Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a) share though is that they come integrated with ChatGPT in them. As long as you’re using a Nothing Phone, the Nothing Ear and Ear (a) will be able to pinch on their earbuds and speak directly with ChatGPT. This feature is already supported on the Phone (2), and will be rolling out to the Phone (1) and Phone (2a) in the coming weeks.
As for how much they cost, the Nothing Ear is priced at RM659 while the Ear (a) is priced at RM479. Their product pages are already on the Nothing Malaysia website, but at time of writing you’re not able to buy them just yet, instead only telling you to sign up for updates.
